Green or yellow soap, yellow soap or green soap—which is the difference?
Sara IdenforsGreen soap or yellow soap – does it matter?
The short answer is: no.
What is the difference between green and yellow soap?
The main difference between green soap and yellow soap is the color. Today, the two products are identical, but the green variant gets its color from the addition of a green coloring agent to the yellow soap.
Why are there two different colors?
Traditions surrounding the colors vary across the country. In southern Sweden, green soap is often preferred, while yellow soap is most common in northern Sweden. Therefore, the choice of color has largely become a regional habit or matter of taste.
What was previously used to color soap?
In the past, it was common to make soap from animal fat. This produced a very useful soap. It also meant that all surplus could be put to use, so nothing went to waste. A sustainable method for self-sufficiency. The soap became somewhat milky, as animal fats never produce completely transparent soap.
What is yellow soap made from?
Yellow soap has traditionally been made from tall oil—tall oil is a by-product of the pulp and paper industry. The brown pulp, which smells like a “paper mill,” is purified and saponified. This produces a yellow, effective, slightly “sharp” soap. This soap is excellent for everyday cleaning, for example in the bathroom. It is also a form of recycling that produces an environmentally friendly cleaning product.
One thing to keep in mind is not to choose pine soap for re-oiling wood, as it does not have the nourishing properties that, for example, a linseed oil soap has. This is because it lacks excess fat. Anyone allergic to pine should also remember to use gloves, as traces of resin may remain in the product.
What is linseed oil soap?
Linseed oil soap is a yellow soap—usually somewhat more expensive, but very good for all wooden products. Linseed oil soap nourishes and re-oils wood very effectively. It is made by saponifying linseed oil.
Which soap should you use for a patio?
The answer is that you should use an overfatted soap; the key to achieving a beautiful patio or wooden deck is as much fat as possible. The goal is a natural gray patina and a velvety surface that does not attract pollen, dust, grass, or leaves. Beautiful and easy to clean. The deck becomes soaped in the same way as an old-fashioned scrubbed floor.
As you can also read all about here to the right, it is very difficult to find genuine green soap today. There is a high risk that the soap in your hand is colored soap. Read the label: if it says saponified hemp oil, it is genuine green soap—otherwise, it is something else.
Here you can find our deck soap
What is genuine green soap?
Green soap was made from hemp oil (hemp seeds—a by-product of rope manufacturing), which gives the soap its green color. When hemp cultivation was banned in Sweden from 1970 to 2005, green soap naturally disappeared. There was simply no oil to saponify. Since there was still a market for green soap, yellow soap has been colored green ever since.
It has the green color but lacks the nourishing properties that genuine green soap had. So if you buy green soap today, there is a good chance that you are buying colored pine soap; you might just as well choose the yellow pine soap and avoid the coloring agent.
Colored green soap is also perfumed differently from yellow soap to create the illusion of genuine green soap. Today, farmers are legally allowed to grow certain varieties of so-called industrial hemp with a THC content below 0.2 percent—I cannot currently find any information indicating that anyone makes genuine green soap in Sweden, but perhaps real green soap will return one day!
Photo: Wikipedia
Västerbottenssåpa is yellow. Västerbottenssåpa is made from corn and rapeseed oil—cooking oils that are purified and saponified. Rapeseed and corn are very similar to linseed oil, so Västerbottenssåpa has the same nourishing properties as linseed oil soap. In other words, it contains excess fat, which makes it easy to dissolve greasy dirt with fatty soap, while also re-oiling and caring for wooden floors, furniture, and all other wood.
Order natural cleaning products here: Västerbottenssåpa