Inspirations

I've always loved to make homemade things. I used to watch my mother roll out homemade noodles and sew dresses for my sisters & I. My grandmother would make homemade bread from scratch and churn butter from fresh cream Grandad brought in from the milking. Secretly, I wondered if I was supposed to have been born in the 1800's. I have such a love for knowing how to do things the "old fashioned" way. I used to ask my grandmother all kinds of questions about how they used to wash clothes on a wash board and make homemade soap. She would always sigh with memories of the terrible, hard work of those long ago days while I got more and more excited and wanted to learn how to do those things myself.

I had a large family of six children and soon employed many of those things I'd learned just to make ends meet. Money was tight so we gardened. I sewed. I cooked from scratch and canned LOTS of vegetables. I milked, made homemade bread, real butter, and raised happy, healthy children. I finally tried my hand at making homemade soap and laundry detergent. At first, I was a little afraid of it because of the lye involved. I cautiously took a shower with my homemade soap after it had a chance to age. This was back in the 1990's. My skin, surprisingly did not slough off!  Instead, I noticed a silkiness and smoothness to my skin. Irritations and itchiness disappeared! Since my soap at that time was made only from lard, water, and lye, it did have kind of a "fat" smell, but it didn't bother me and it didn't linger after the shower.

Time went on, troubles happened in my life, I needed to learn how to provide for myself, and I stopped making so many things from scratch for a time... Gradually, after the children had left the nest, I again took up these crafts. Now, however, I had internet! I also found YouTube! I was looking for new recipes and suppliers for soap-making and discovered so many new ways to make soap that I became hooked on soap-making! Many of my inspirations for trying new recipes including lovely, natural, healthy, exotic oils & butters came from people like Omayra Rivera who has such a sweet way about her and how she instructs about soapmaking, packaging, and selling soaps. For the "nuts and bolts" of soap-making, I found so much advice from Kathy Miller's website. For supplies, advice, and helpful videos, I love to visit Bramble Berry's website. Their fragrance oils don't fade from cold process soaps and they smell so real!! For large, bulk orders with no shipping, my favorite to order from is Wholesale Supplies Plus. I had to pull in a bit from all the ideas and information because it can become overwhelming (not to say, costly!). I found my 'brand', my ideas of what I wanted my products to look like, and began making soaps for sale! They are on Etsy, Copious, my website, and at the Catalina, AZ Farmer's Market every Friday morning! I am having SO much fun!!