Soap

It has been so very long since I last wrote a blog entry.  I recently started making a great deal more soap, people have asked about it, and the following words have come out of my mouth so much lately that I thought I'd just write about it, in case anyone else wants to know, too.


My mother was (before she retired) a chemistry teacher.  As one of her classroom activities, she frequently made soap with her students.  My mother has dryer skin than I do, and would make the soap so that it would be moisturizing to her skin.  Every time I used it, I would break out.  I decided that I hated home-made soap!


You wouldn't think that goats would be a gateway to soap making, but you'd be wrong.  When I got my first goats, I found an online forum where people would help city slickers like me navigate the world of livestock farming.  The learning curve was way beyond what I'd ever have expected.  The then-owner of that forum casually said to me once, "You should make soap and sell it."  I said, "Oh no.  I don't like home-made soap.  That stuff's gross."  She informed me that it is a great way to make some money to pay for feed expenses so that the goats can support themselves and that even if I don't like it, plenty of people do.


I'm not naturally a sales person.  At all.  After the Marine Corps, I worked in a gym as a personal trainer and aerobics instructor.  Part of that job was selling gym memberships.  I hated that part.  I also tried to be a car-salesperson once upon a time.  That lasted two weeks and I couldn't sell a car for less than the dealership purchased the car for!  I also tried selling Mary Kay about 12 years ago.  I think Mary Kay will no longer let me sign up to sell their product because I sent so much of it back that I couldn't sell!  No way was I going to invest time to make something I didn't even like and try to sell it to people.  No thank you!


Aforementioned goat-soap guru responded, "Then order some of mine and sell it.  People love it."  I couldn't figure out why she was so pushy about it.  I decided to order some and give it as Christmas gifts.  If people liked it, great, and if they hated it, then they could throw it out.  At least it wouldn't be sugary candy treats that would make them feel gross.  I ordered enough for my gift-list and then some for me to try.  Why not?  It got her to stop being pushy with me, at least!


That was six years ago and I have not used a "regular" bar of soap since.  I experimented with making my own soap.  I bought or was given soap by other goat farmers.  I love the stuff!  My mom's soap recipes still make my face break out, but I now know why and how to make a recipe that works for me.


My first soap was made using the "Walmart Recipe".  It's called that because you could purchase all the ingredients to make it at Walmart.  It's not a bad recipe as far as the soap goes.  As far as making the soap, it's a pain in the tukus.  For starters, I wanted to make goat milk soap.  Adding lye to a liquid makes heat, and if you heat goat milk up too much, it burns the milk and turns it brown.  This stage involved an ice bath, a thermometer, and hours of painfully slow work just to get the lye mixture.  After that's ready and the lye mixture is added to the oils, the process requires stirring until the mixture thickens and begins to resemble pudding.  (This is what's called "tracing".)  That process with the Walmart recipe meant that I'd be stirring for hours.  And hours.  I liked watching the soap change just before it was ready to pour and after it was poured, but the hours-long process before that happened was NOT fun.  While I tweaked the Walmart recipe to make a soap that I was excited about using, I decided that I would make soap once a year for myself and that was IT!  I didn't have a soap that I was excited about making.


I discovered that Lard in a recipe makes that recipe take considerably longer to trace.  I tried soaps that other people made with Palm Oil in place of lard.  I liked them, but really didn't want to start ordering palm oil.  And I liked my soap, too.  I really liked it--for the first time, I could wash my face with soap instead of pricey skin care products and not resemble a pepperoni pizza!  I started reading about Palm Oil production.  While consumers like to see all vegetable-based ingredients in their soaps, so as not to be cruel to animals, I discovered that some of the practices of the Palm plantations make that a blissfully ignorant belief.  Deforestation, killing of orangutans, worker conditions and wages...  and while it is possible to purchase "Sustainable" palm oil, it's twice as expensive.  I also started thinking about the ecological friendliness of purchasing a product that was farmed on the other side of the planet vs. a product that comes from right here in the United States.  While more local fits with my beliefs about farming and food production, disengaging from conventional farming practices in our country is one of the reasons we started our own farm.  You could make yourself dizzy with trying to figure out which is the more responsible choice.  For many soap makers, it's a no-brainer.  Customers want palm oil.  Palm oil is easier to work with.  Decision made.  I suppose I'm stubborn, but I didn't want to change.


I learned that one of the ways people get around the lye-into-goat-milk process taking so long is to use part water, part goat milk.  Add lye to water, let it cool down, then add goat milk.  Hmmm...  worth a try.  The change in the final product was hardly noticeable to me (and not noticeable at all to my guinea pig friends and family), but the change in the soap-making process was unbelievable.  Still, the stirring...


One day, I planned on making two batches of soap.  I got up before the sun, made the first batch, was well into my second batch, and looked at the clock.  I had 3 hours before we had to leave for martial arts.  I could either get the soap to trace, or I could take care of my goats and get a shower, but I couldn't do all of it.  I dumped the soap mixture into my kitchenaid mixer and headed to the barn.  Just before it was time to leave the house, I poured my soap into the mold, having completed everything on my to-do list.  I felt successful and a little bit dumb at the same time.  Why hadn't I thought of this before?


Over the years, I have given away more soap as Christmas presents.  Every time I do, people ask if they can buy soap from me.  My usual response was that they couldn't pay me enough to make it!  :)  This year, with my new process, I decided to do soap as Christmas presents again.  I thought, "I could make an extra batch, just in case people ask to buy it again."  While picking out essential oils to fragrance the soap with, I got carried away.  So many choices!  I made 6 batches of soap (twice as many as I planned!), thinking that that would surely cover soap sales for the year!  All of that soap is either packaged up for Christmas gifts or sold!  And people were asking for more!


I've made eight more batches of soap.  For most soap makers, this is no big deal.  For me, it's huge!  At this point, if everyone paid for their orders, I would have broken even between what I've sold and my expenses to make the soap.  Sadly, some people pay in life lessons rather than PayPal, and I've learned to not ship soap before payment is received.  I'm okay with that.  Life lessons are usually a lot more expensive.  Truly, if people wrote me and said, "I'm having a tough time financially this year.  Would you be willing to donate soap to me so that I can give something to my family at Christmas?" I would likely have sent them far more than they ordered.  I'm most sad about my disappointment in people, but maybe "not leading people into temptation" is not sending products before they are paid for.  And I would have had to purchase those Christmas gifts anyway.  And I still have soap to sell.  (If that sells, I will use the funds to get genetic testing on my Nubians to determine if they have the G6S mutation, and cull any that are carriers from my herd.)


David just bought me 50 more pounds of lye, enough essential oils to make 8 more batches of lavender soap (people like lavender.  I don't, but other people really do.  Amazing!) and 4 batches of peppermint soap.  Peppermint is my personal favorite.  It opens up my sinuses in the shower, and when you're allergic to dust, mold, and every plant that grows, peppermint soap is glorious!  I have requests for unscented soap and a few other blends... So, it looks like I'll be making even more soap.


If you're interested in supporting my new obsession, you can check out my soap sales page at: http://stoneyheightsfarm.webs.com/soap.htm