Tell me how you started in soapmaking.

Well I got interested in making soap because I raise dairy goats and had/have way too much milk. So I started researching what to do with all that extra milk. Just selling milk or cheesemaking required you to be a licensed dairy. To be a licensed dairy required specific buildings, milking parlors, cheesemaking rooms etc. I don’t have the money for that and at the time I didn’t have the time as I was working full time. So you guessed it, I came across soap making. I could use my goats milk to make wonderfully creamy soaps. So when the American Dairy Goat Assn. had their National Convention in Albuquerque, NM I went and took a soap making class. Went home and made a batch or two of soap. Then did nothing with it for a few years. Then I got the itch to do it again. Now after numerous You Tube video’s and lots of time reading and researching soap and recipes and 3 years later I’ve got my recipes down and I’m actively making and selling soap.

Tell me about a project or experiment that you consider to be the most successful.  It doesn’t have to be soap.

My daughters wanted to show goats, we started off with 3 Alpine dairy goats, then decided to get into the meat goats also. So we got 2 Nubian 2 year old does that had never been bred and bred them to the only Boer cross buck in the area at that time. He was a ¾ Boer and 1/3 something else. LOL

The next spring we had our first babies, both Alpine and Boer cross. It was so much fun at the County Fair. Next thing you know I found a 100% Boer buck, bought him and started raising our own.  We showed the Alpines and Boers for a while and when we started doing so much better with the Boers in the Show ring the Alpines became a support system for the Boers. Extra milk to raise bottle babies when that was necessary.

Now 17 years later, both girls are too old for 4-H and I’m retired so no need or extra money to continue to show the Boers. So I’m sold out of them except for my favorite Boer doe. We enjoyed our time with the Boers, have 25 – 30 belt buckles, boxes of trophies and ribbons. Numerous GCH’s, RGCH’s and a few Best in Shows. Now it is time for the Alpines to shine. I’ve bred them so they have great tasting milk and it makes the most wonderful, creamy soap.

If we’re sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great year it’s been for you in soapmaking, what did you achieve?

Well, I could give you a most wonderful flight of fancy, but realistically in a year from now I would love to be selling enough soap to support my soap and goat habits, have numerous loyal customers, maybe my own shop or at least an internet shop selling out all the soaps I can imagine. With people who love my unique designs as much as I love to produce them.

Do you have a specific goals? In one year? In two years?

I want to enjoy life! Would love to travel, especially on cruise ships. LOL As far as my soaping business, I know I should have specific goals on where I would like to be in one year or two years, but right now I don’t.

Fancifally I would like to have my own warehouse to produce soap. I would create all the designs and have “people” who would reproduce my soaps for sale, leaving me free to oversee and create. In reality I would love to have a major presence on the web, making $30,000 per year, just give me the two years.

What’s your superpower?

If I could have any superpower that I wanted, hummmm, it would have to be the power to change into any size or form that I wanted. Could you imagine being able to change into an eagle and fly up high, or into a horse and run as fast as you could? How about into a cougar and leap from mountain peak to mountain peak? Or a monkey and swing from tree to tree. Or maybe a fire proof robot that could walk into a burning building and rescue people. That would be so cool!

Tell us about a time when soaping didn’t go the way you wanted. What was your “great catastrophe?

My biggest catastrophe to date was when I was trying out a new FO. I was pretty new to soap making and really didn’t know a lot back then. I had a very picture in my head of what my soap should look like. The FO had a mind of it’s own and decided to become soap on a stick. So there I was poking chunks of soap down into a big chunk of soap, determined to at least make all the different chunks become one. I cut that soap and put it away in a box in the back of my closet. That was 2 ½ years ago. I got a bar out a couple of months ago and tried it and it is some of the best lathering soaps I’ve used. So it just goes to prove that soap is like wine, the longer it cures the better it is.

Do you get a lot of support from your family?

My husband just is one of those men who just thinks anything I do is “cute”. As in “Oh, look Vickie is playing around with her soap again”, so not really. I’ve learned over the years to do what I want to do, whether anyone else likes it or not. LOL

Describe to me, your most memorable customer. Why was she/he memorable.

My most memorable customer is a lady that my best friend introduced to me. We met at a Mystery play dinner. She bought about 4 soaps, one of which was a Cherry Blossom fragranced soap. Her and her husband, yes men can like flowery scents too, love this fragrance. They buy a batch from me about twice a year. I think her husband loves it the most, as he told her this is the first soap I’ve used that doesn’t make my skin itch. Each time I make a new batch for them the design changes and they tell me they love it each time. Can’t beat people who love what you do as much as you love doing it.

All soap makers have them so tell me about your worst “lye burn”.

I must say, I started out making soap scared to death of lye. So I’ve been very careful around it. Haven’t been burned yet other than a little drop here or there that I wash off and it doesn’t even leave a red mark. But my time will come, I’m sure, as I’m getting a little too comfortable around the lye.

What would you say are your 2 greatest weaknesses?

So you just want 2 weaknesses? LOL I’ve got many. Probably my biggest is I could probably hold the world title for procrastination. I do everything at the last possible minute and always underestimate the time it will take to do it.

My second one is that I hate housework! It always needs done. It’s not like you can do it and it is over with. It’s the energizer bunny, it just keeps on needing done again and again and again. I love a clean house, just wish it would stay clean. J

How would your best friend describe you?

I didn’t know so I called and asked her. LOL She said I was a very quite, reserved person, with a good heart, until I started to talk to someone about my goats or soaps, then you couldn’t shut me up.

If you had to give up ONE of your favorite foods, what would it be?

Anything with sugar, I love sweets of any or all kinds. Candy, pastry, Cakes, BROWNIES, ice cream…..

Tell me about your soap, your store name and its “brand” or philosophy

My soap business is called “Udder Indugence”. I get a lot of people who tell me I’ve mis-spelled Utter, but no it is Udder because of the goats milk that is in each and every, (almost every), bar of soap that I make. In the three years that I’ve been making soap, I’ve only made about 4-5 batches without goats milk. 3 because I was out of goats milk and one with wine and one with coffee. Both special requests.

Indulgence because I want my soap to be the most luxurious bar of soap you’ve ever used. A delight to the eyes, nose and skin. And I guess that is sort of my philosophy too, If I’m going to make soap, it’s going to be the best that I can possibly make.

1) Where can it be found
Well my Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/UdderIndulgence

and my partially built webpage is: http://udderindulgence.com/

2) What is your most popular soap

I’d have to say that I have 3 most popular soaps. My Lilac, Cherry Blossom and Cedar and Saffron.

Tell me how you started in soapmaking.

I started in soapmaking after studying Alternative Medicine for many years about 15 years ago. I wanted to find a way that I both loved and could use to reach people, in a form that everyone used, soapmaking it was! It opened me up to helping others, with various skin problems, and I was able to extend my creative flow at the same time.

Tell me about a project or experiment that you consider to be the most successful.  It doesn’t have to be soap.

Hmmm, that’s a hard one! In all honesty it had to be a life change that I made a little over a year ago, even though it was a tough decision I had to make it.  I closed down my business that I owned. I had real brick and morter store that I   put my emotions, my passion and every penny I had into.

It was heartbreaking to have to close those doors  due to a bad location, a new town that I knew nothing about, and a bad emotional status that I was in however it was a move in the right direction for me. Although painful, it was a huge relief at the same time. I love making soaps, but when you turn a passion into a profession it’s a give or take situation. I was emotionally drained, run down from long hours and I had become distant from the family I love, so I chose to close it down and take some much needed time off.

What happened next started a journey that I never saw coming. For a while my life kind of fell apart, going through a divorce, dealing with re-finding myself somewhere in this vast world of possibilities.  I took a job at a local health food store that really started putting me back in touch with myself, alternative medicine! YES, I was starting to find myself once again, starting to feel that passion for making soaps once again, I was starting to feel ‘alive’ inside once again.

My boss, Fred, started talking to me about me making soaps once again to sell in his store. At first I found myself at a loss, thinking that I had left that part of me behind somewhere else, but then I started to really think about making soap, I started thinking about making soaps constantly, formulating soaps once again. Shortly after the brainstorming started, I met a wonderful man who only re-enforced the fact that I should go back to making soaps once again. Now I am back making soaps and fulfilling my life passion at making soaps, complete with an amazing man who completely supports me, and helps me make soaps.

If we’re sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great year it’s been for you in soapmaking,
what did you achieve?

For me celebrating would be me being able to replace a paycheck for a self sustaining business that is growing.

Do you have a specific goals? In one year? In two years?

Yes! In a year I will be faced with bidding on a contract for a medium sized store for my liquid soaps/laundry soap and bar soaps. Withing 2 years I will be filling constant orders for a local grocery chain store. (notice I say ‘will be’ and would like or would be, because if your thinking in terms of would, could, maybe, you will never reach your goals, dream big or don’t dream, that is my motto)

What’s your superpower?

Honestly if you ask me, it’s my determination to do things… If you ask others it will be my stubbornness when people tell me I can’t do something.

Tell us about a time when soaping didn’t go the way you wanted. What was your “great catastrophe?

This is a good one! Honestly I have two experiences to share:

My first ‘great catastrophe’ was when I started making liquid soaps for the first time. I was diluting my liquid soaps down using the gel method (this means cooking the base with alcohol and vegetable glycerin) well I had to add more alcohol to the base, because the alcohol evaporates, now mind you the base is boiling and VERY hot… Needless to say I added the alcohol to the base and it immediately started to foam to the top of the pot, what do I do? Yep, I put the top on the pot, well the soap had better ideas, it blew the top off the pot like a cannon, started a fire (because at this time I was using a gas stove for this, lesson learned), the flame was virtually invisible (but very pretty when you did see it, sarcasm lol). Again, I put the lid on the pot and now it just exploded all over my kitchen ceiling. After I quit shaking, and turned 6 shades of white, I decided to give up on making liquid soaps for a while, until I learned a little more about it.
The second one was not as dramatic/funny now, but I wasted the last of my soapmaking ingredients on it, which bummed me out. Instead of using coconut oil in a salt bar that I have been wanting to make for weeks now, I used Palm kernel oil, BIG MISTAKE! Palm Kernel oil is a lot like coconut oil in soapmaking, but it’s a harder oil, my bars crumbled up into nothing, yep you guessed it, I got salt bar dust out of it… Which I ended up graiting up into powder to add to my laundry soap, because no soap goes unused in a soapmakers house!

Do you get a lot of support from your family?

Yes, my family members are my biggest buyers, they love my product, my kids actually help making soaps too! We make soapmaking a family event, everyone gets involved, and they each love making their finished product. My daughter Destinee likes making her own makeup, I actually posted a video of her making her very first lipstick “Destinee Purple” she was tickled pink about making it, here’s the link:

Describe to me, your most memorable customer. Why was she/he memorable.

This is a hard one, I have SO many! All my customers have a place in my heart and memory. I will say that one lady in specific stands out in my head at this point, she was a older lady who had come into my shop to ask me if I had anything for dogs, I had told her not at this point. She came back to my shop two weeks later with both of her dogs, brought BOTH of her dogs into my shop, when I politely told her that I could not have animals in my shop.

All soap makers have them so tell me about your worst “lye burn”.

My worst ‘lye burn’ was when I was working with a formula that was setting up fast on me and I was piping the top of a cake soap. The soap got through a hole in my glove and settled under my fingernail, I had no choice to continue to pipe the top of the soap, while my finger was on fire and bleeding all over inside my glove, at that time I put on another glove (so I didn’t ruin the soap) and continued to pipe the rest of the cake soap with tears in my eyes. But that wasn’t the worst… the worst part was when I took off my glove and had to pull the skin and nail apart to pour vinegar into the burn, yeah that’s something that makes you say some real nasty words, LOL.

What would you say are your 2 greatest weaknesses?

I’m a sucker for cake soaps, cupcake soaps, and the talent of some of the soapmakers out there who decorate their soaps so beautifully.

How would your best friend describe you?

Straight from my best friend Kerri Hope: “Ambitious dedicated loving and never willing to give up!”

If you had to give up ONE of your favorite foods, what would it be?

I think this one I would have to say ‘Chocolate’ because just the site of it makes me jump 1-2 pant sizes, LOL.

Tell me about your soap. Your store name and its “brand” or philosophy

My soap company name is ‘Green Door Products’, we named it this because we are a green company producing green products, while we live near Door county in Wisconsin. Our philosophy is keep it green. We are currently working on ‘green’ all purpose cleansers, laundry soaps, liquid laundry soap, carpet cleaners, and a wide variety of household cleaning products and personal care products that meet all green standards also besides our decorative soaps.

1) Where can it be found

Green Door Products

Green Door Products on Etsy

2) What is your most popular soap

My most popular soap right now is my Vanilla & Sandalwood, my cupcake soaps are always a huge hit during the Holidays though and my Christmas Tree soaps are by far my most popular limited soaps that I create, I only make them a few weeks out of the year and they are only offered for 3 weeks from late November until mid December.