Why have you certified your products kosher, isn't that just a
religious thing?
It isn't just religious consumers who look for a kosher
symbol on items. Approximately a third of people who buy kosher products
are not Jewish. These people have special dietary needs like vegetarians
or lactose intolerance, are from other religions, or just plain care
about what is in a product that they buy. The Food and Drug Administration
is MUCH more lenient than the Scroll K inspector.
If you are NOT Jewish, it is in your best interest
to look for a reliable kosher symbol such as Scroll K on the products
you buy. Scroll K is going to ONLY put certification on a product
that they have inspected and know to be kosher. The US Food and Drug
Administration allows things that you may not want in your soap and
toiletries products. Such as, the color carmine and the color cochneal
are actually colors that are taken from insects. These colorants
are not kosher and any product with it will not be certified as such.
If you are Jewish and keep a kosher kitchen, the last
thing you are going to want to do is buy a nonkosher craft item that
has to be melted in a pot in your kitchen. You will want to make
sure that whatever you are putting into your pots, pans and microwave
is kosher to start with. We are giving peace of mind to our Jewish
customers that they can use our products in their home without worry.
Scroll K will let you know if the product contains
any dairy or meat ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration will
allow a certain amount of ingredients to not be listed on the label.
If you have a severe dairy allergy or you do not want to consume
any animal or insect products for other reasons, you can be assured
that Scroll K will have it listed on their symbol if it contains
any kosher dairy or any kosher meat. If it contains insects or ingredients
that have not been checked to see if they are kosher, they will not
certify it. Without this independant supervision, you would not know
that almost 1% of a product is dairy or meat or has insect derived
products.
What exactly IS Kosher, isn't that just for food?
In Jewish law, there are rules regarding food. Meat
and dairy products have specific requirements. Also, there are rules
in preparation such as, you cannot mix meat and dairy together in
the same meal, nor can it contain insects.
Normally, kosher would apply only to food. We chose
to have our soaps and toiletries certified kosher for another reason.
Purity. We wanted to provide an independant inspection for our customers
that certifies that our products are free from any animal products,
free from any insect products, and free from fish products.
If you were not planning to have animal or insect products
in your home, then you would want to know that the products you buy
from us are completely free of animal and insect products. Numerous
soaps and toiletries products are being made with animal and insect
by-products. Now, when you shop at SoapCrafters.com, if you look
for the Scroll K certification on the products, you know it is free
from animal products unless stated on the symbol. If you see Dairy
listed with the symbol, then you will know the product contains kosher
dairy ingredients. If you see just the symbol, then it does NOT contain
any meat, insect or dairy derived products. At this time, we plan
to carry only products which are without animal ingredients.
Our products with the Scroll K symbol do not contain
any insect products such as carmine or cochneal which are ground
bugs. You can rest assured that our facility has been inspected,
our ingredients have been inspected, and our formulas have been approved.
Scroll K will also do surprise inspections to make sure we continue
to use this higher standard in our manufacturing and purchasing.
Now that we have been inspected by the Rabbi at Scroll
K, we have dropped many items from inventory which cannot be certified
kosher. There will be a few items we will still carry that will not
be certified kosher, but they will NOT have the Scroll K label on
them.
Many times you will see companies
list that they used kosher glycerin in the manufacture of their
Glycerin Melt & Pour
soaps. Using one kosher ingredient does not make the end product
kosher. ALL ingredients must be kosher and the facility in which
it is created must be kosher. And it must continue to be certified
kosher, it is not a one shot deal. We want the best for our customers,
so we are actually maintaining kosher certification of our facility
and our ingredients. We even go as far as not expecting you to take
our word for it, you can take an independant Rabbi's word for it.
As we go along, you will see the
kosher Scroll K Symbol appear on our products on the web site. With
three thousand plus items in our catalog, it will take some time
to change over. Numerous items are already kosher in our facitility
but are not yet displaying the symbol. If you have a question on
whether or not you will be shipped a particular product and its status,
just give us a call toll free: 1-877-484-5121. We'll be happy to
help you with that.
Pamela Love Black
Director
SoapCrafters.com
