Although soap is not legally a cosmetic (according to the F.D.A.), it might be considered one: it is used everyday to create and maintain order and beauty in our physical and psychic worlds.
Remember, the word cosmetic is derived from the ancient Greek kosmos which means world, order, and universe. Many soaps and cosmetics, while seeming to add order at the individual or micro-level, often tear and rupture the Great Web of Life, creating disorder at the collective or macro-level.
How a product decays is as important as how it is created: the decay process creates the building blocks for new life and beauty.
This is why we choose to use readily renewable, botanically-based ingredients and packaging materials that are bio-degradable, suitable for the home gray water system and compost pile.
We want to work with and fit into living systems.