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
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.
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