Read the Label
I was shocked when I picked up a box of a well known "Pure and Gentle Soap with Natural Oils" and read the label and compared the ingredients to MY pure and natural, handmade, cold-process, goatsmilk soap.
My official (INCI) soap label ingredients are Goatsmilk (Caprae Lac) Olive Oil (Olea Europaea), Coconut Oil (Cocos Nucifera), Sodium Hydroxide. I translated it into the same format as Pears below so you can see the difference.
The INCI list (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) is a mandatory nomenclature on cosmetics since 1999. Created in 1973 by an American association, the INCI list aims to standardize the ingredients present in a product cosmetic.
Smudge Soap
Fresh Goatsmilk, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Olivate, Glycerin.
Pure & Gentle Soap with Natural Oils
Water, Sorbitol, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Rosinate, Glycerin, Sodium Palmate, Sodium Stearate, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, PEG-4, Sodium Laurate, Alcohol, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Metabisulfite, Sodium Sulfate, Perfume, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Lauryl Alcohol, Tetrasodium EDTA, BHT, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Cinnamal, Eugenol, Limonene, Linalool, Linalyl Acetate, CI 12490, CI 47005.
Many of these ingredients - expanded on Pears Wiki page - are chemicals of concern for cosmetics as listed in the Skin Deep database. It made me a little sad as the company is over 200 years old and they used an innovative hot process method with potassium hydroxide rather than sodium hydroxide.
...the soap was first produced and sold in 1807 by Andrew Pears, at a factory just off Oxford Street in London. It was the world's first mass-market translucent soap. Pears began to experiment with soap purification and eventually managed to produce a gentle soap based on glycerine and other natural products. The clarity of the soap gave it a novel transparent appearance, which provided a marketing advantage."