Which of the following is FALSE about the SOAP method

FDA often receives questions from soap makers about how their products are regulated. Here is information to help small-scale soap producers understand the laws and regulations they need to know about.

How are traditional soaps and synthetic detergents different?

Ordinary soap is made by combining fats or oils and an alkali, such as lye. The fats and oils, which may be from animal, vegetable, or mineral sources, are degraded into free fatty acids, which then combine with the alkali to form crude soap. The lye reacts with the oils, turning what starts out as liquid into blocks of soap. When made properly, no lye remains in the finished product. In the past, people commonly made their own soap using animal fats and lye that had been extracted from wood ashes. 

Today there are very few true soaps on the market. Most body cleansers, both liquid and solid, are actually synthetic detergent products. Detergent cleansers are popular because they make suds easily in water and don't form gummy deposits. Some of these detergent products are actually marketed as "soap" but are not true soap according to the regulatory definition of the word.  

What’s the regulatory definition of soap?

Whether a product is a “soap” in the traditional sense, or is really a synthetic detergent, helps determine how the product is regulated. So, let’s take a look at how “soap” is defined in FDA’s regulations;

To meet the definition of soap in FDA’s regulations, a product has to meet three conditions: 

1. What it’s made of: To be regulated as “soap,” the product must be composed mainly of the “alkali salts of fatty acids,” that is, the material you get when you combine fats or oils with an alkali, such as lye.
2. What ingredients cause its cleaning action: To be regulated as “soap,” those “alkali salts of fatty acids” must be the only material that results in the product’s cleaning action. If the product contains synthetic detergents, it’s a cosmetic, not a soap. You still can use the word “soap” on the label. 
3. How it's intended to be used: To be regulated as soap, it must be labeled and marketed only for use as soap. If it is intended for purposes such as moisturizing the skin, making the user smell nice, or deodorizing the user’s body, it’s a cosmetic. Or, if the product is intended to treat or prevent disease, such as by killing germs, or treating skin conditions, such as acne or eczema, it’s a drug. You still can use the word “soap” on the label.

You can read the entire regulation at 21 CFR 701.20.  

How are different “soap” products regulated?

• If your product meets the regulatory definition of soap, it’s regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), not by FDA. Please direct questions about requirements for these products to CPSC.  

• If it’s a cosmetic, it’s regulated by FDA. Neither the product nor its ingredients need approval by FDA, except for any color additives it contains. It is your responsibility to make sure your product is safe for consumers when it is used as intended, and to make sure it is properly labeled. You don’t need to register your company or file your product formulations with FDA, although we do encourage you to participate in our Voluntary Cosmetic Registration Program. To learn more, see “Fact Sheet for Small Businesses and Homemade Cosmetics,” and the resources listed on that page.

• If it’s a drug, it’s regulated by FDA. It must comply with the regulations (called “monographs”) for certain categories of non-prescription drugs or requirements for new drug approval. You will need to register your firm and list your products with FDA. For more information, you can contact FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), Division of Drug Information, Small Business Assistance, at . 

What if my ingredients are “natural” or “organic”?

The laws and regulations that FDA enforces do not have definitions for “natural” or “organic.” The same requirements apply to your product no matter whether the ingredients are plant, animal, mineral, or synthetic. It’s important not to assume that using only ingredients from plants will make your products safe. To learn more, see “‘Organic’ Cosmetics” and “Product Testing.”

Resources For You

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a message protocol that enables the distributed elements of an application to communicate. SOAP can be carried over a variety of standard protocols, including the web-related Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

SOAP was developed as an intermediate language for applications that have different programming languages, enabling these applications to communicate with each other over the internet. SOAP is flexible and independent, which enables developers to write SOAP application programming interfaces (APIs) in different languages while also adding features and functionality.

SOAP is a lightweight protocol used to create web APIs, usually with Extensible Markup Language (XML). It supports a wide range of communication protocols across the internet, HTTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Transmission Control Protocol. The SOAP approach defines how a SOAP message is processed, the features and modules included, the communication protocols supported and the construction of SOAP messages. SOAP uses the XML Information Set as a message format and relies on application layer protocols, like HTTP, for message transmission and negotiation.

SOAP building blocks and message structure example

Simple Object Access Protocol, as a specification, defines SOAP messages that are sent to web services and client applications. SOAP messages are XML documents that are comprised of the following three basic building blocks:

1. The SOAP Envelope encapsulates all the data in a message and identifies the XML document as a SOAP message.
2. The Header element contains additional information about the SOAP message. This information could be authentication credentials, for example, which are used by the calling application.
3. The Body element includes the details of the actual message that need to be sent from the web service to the calling application. This data includes call and response information.

The fault message is an optional fourth building block. If a SOAP fault is generated, it is returned as an HTTP 500 error. Fault messages contain a fault code, string, actor and detail.

How does SOAP work?

SOAP requests are easy to generate and process responses. First, a request for a service is generated by a client using an XML document. Next, a SOAP client sends the XML document to a SOAP server. When the server receives the SOAP message, it sends the message as a service invocation to the requested server-side application. A response containing the requested parameters, return values and data for the client is returned first to the SOAP request handler and then to the requesting client. Both SOAP requests and responses are transported using Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) or a similar protocol like HTTP.

SOAP advantages and disadvantages

SOAP is an integral part of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the web services specifications.

Advantages of SOAP include the following:

• Platform- and operating system-independent. SOAP can be carried over a variety of protocols, enabling communication between applications with different programming languages on both Windows and Linux.
• Works on the HTTP protocol. Even though SOAP works with many different protocols, HTTP is the default protocol used by web applications.
• Can be transmitted through different network and security devices. SOAP can be easily passed through firewalls, where other protocols might require a special accommodation.

Disadvantages, however, include the following:

• No provision for passing data by reference. This can cause synchronization issues if multiple copies of the same object are passed simultaneously.
• Speed. The data structure of SOAP is based on XML. XML is largely human-readable, which makes it fairly easy to understand a SOAP message. However, that also makes the messages relatively large compared to the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and its remote procedure call (RPC) protocol that will accommodate binary data. Because of this, CORBA and RPC are faster.
• Not as flexible as other methods. Although SOAP is flexible, newer methods, such as RESTful architecture, use XML, JavaScript Object Notation, YAML or any parser needed, which makes them more flexible than SOAP.

SOAP APIs

SOAP is a protocol that is almost always used in the context of a web services or SOA framework. As such, its API is typically hidden by the higher-level interface for SOA. SOA API middleware tools are available for nearly all modern programming languages, and Microsoft offers a variety of .NET SOAP and SOA tools.

SOAP vs. REST

SOAP is designed to break traditional monolithic applications down into a multicomponent, distributed form without losing security and control. In contrast, REpresentational State Transfer (REST) is a model of distributed computing interaction based on the HTTP protocol and the way that web servers support clients. REST over HTTP is almost always the basis for modern microservices development and communications. RESTful APIs use HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data.

REST over HTTP is simple, flexible, lightweight and offers little beyond a way of exchanging information. SOAP can ride on HTTP as well, but it connects the elements of a complex set of distributed computing tools -- the web services and SOA framework -- as well as application components, and this forms a part of a total service-oriented framework.

Future of Simple Object Access Protocol

SOAP was the first widely used protocol for connecting web services in a service-oriented architecture. Today, modern development of distributed applications is largely based on RESTful principles. SOAP is almost always confined to legacy platforms. One area where SOAP is still in use is in applications that handle online transactions, as it's a style of API that is more rigid and protocol-driven.

Learn more about 10 API security guidelines, as well as how to choose between SOAP and REST here.