There is no lye in the finished soap, but you CAN’T have bar soap that didn’t have lye in the process. Lye is what makes the soap, soap. Lye reacts with the oils and butters through a chemical process called saponification and the end result is soap. Each oil and butter requires a specific amount of lye to saponify so measurements have to be very exact. Some older people remember a time when soaps were marketed as “lye soap”. Typically those soaps were a basic lard soap or tallow soap. You may hear people saying they have bought soaps from elsewhere that didn’t have lye in them. Bar soap isn’t soap unless it was made with lye by the very definition of bar soap. Liquid soap uses potassium hydroxide instead of sodium hydroxide. If you tried to make “soap” without lye, you would simply have a bunch of oils and butters mixed together. You wouldn’t have soap. ***Interesting lye fact – If you eat bagels or pretzels, you are eating a product that requires lye. Lye is dangerous, but once it goes through the chemical reaction, as long as you use the correct amount of additions, the result is safe. With Renascent Bath & Body Bases, all the dangerous and hard work has been done for you and you are free to comfortably be creative.