Welcome

I first began making soap in 1978, when my youngest daughter was still a baby. I bought a can of Red Devil lye and set to work, collecting meat trimmings from the butcher, rendering the fat, and finally, making my first batch. I was hooked! Even now, I can still remember my first perfect bar of soap.(which occurred several batches later by the way!) How like ivory it was, so heavy and cool and such a beautiful creamy white. I know this sounds a bit crazy, but for anyone who has ever made soap, it will sound all too familiar. There is just something magical about it. Early on, I used mostly animal fats, and when we had our farm I always had a freezer full of clean, white, rendered lard and tallow to work with. I later began to use other oils and started with shortening, and then added coconut oil and castor oil, and now, with the availability of so many oils and butters, I am constantly trying new and different combinations.

I love to add herbs, or flowers. Sometimes oatmeal or poppy seeds as well as many aromatic spices, like ground clove, ginger, cinnamon or paprika. These add subtle qualities to the soap as well as earthy natural colors. Currently, at the persuasion of my daughter, I have rendered and used buffalo tallow in some of my recipes. It is one of the hardest, cleanest tallows I have worked with. It makes a wonderfully heavy, hard bar of soap that lasts and lasts. Because I am such an experimenter, you are likely to find a different soap every time you come here, with the exception of a few of my favorites that I make all the time for family and friends, and because they are so popular at the art and craft shows we do.