Why Do I Make Soap?

I often get asked “Why did you start making … soap?”. It’s such a funny question to me. Why does anyone start doing anything?

I recently learned about the concept of a multi-passionate individual; someone who wants to learn how to do everything. If you know me, you know that’s exactly the way my brain works. I want to try making everything from scratch, sometimes even down to growing the plant that goes into the thing. I’ve made rope out of nettle, teas out of wildflowers, balm from tallow I rendered from the cows down the street. I’ve even thought about growing flax to make linen. I’m not quite kooky enough for that yet.

Anyway I was seeing all sorts of cool soap designs on Pinterest, and being a milennial during a climate crisis, thought making bar soap was a super cool way to reduce my plastic consumption. This newfound hobby came with the added benefits of 1). being able to control the ingredients and 2). being able to brag about the fact that I MADE IT.

My soapmaking journey started with a melt and pour base and plastic flower mold from Michael’s. I then graduated to a cute little 10 bar mold. I distinctly remember trying to make melt and pour soaps as add-ons to Christmas gifts the first year. Thank goodness they were just add-ons because the mica line I tried to employ was too thick, causing the layers to separate. Into the garbage they went.

After that debacle I forgot about this hobby for about a year. Then one day I woke up and decided I was brave enough to try cold process soapmaking. I had watched hours and hours of Youtube videos and couldn’t wait to try all the fun designs. I gloved, goggled, and aproned up. I poured my first bowl of lye slowly, slowly, slowly, into the water, certain that it was going to explode. When it didn’t, I grew more confident. The first batch was a coffee soap that had waaaaaay too many coffee grounds. It was so coarse and scratchy, it could have been used to file my dog’s toenails. It was also hilariously scented with a few DROPS of fragrance oil that I used for an aromatherapy diffuses. If you’ve ever made cold process soap, you know how much fragrance or essential oil it takes for the scent to come though. This first batch had a homeopathic amount of fragrance oil — meaning it was so weak that it was non-existent. I had not yet learned about usage rates! Needless to say, these bars did not get any action.

The process of soapmaking reminded me of baking, but with a bit more … risk of chemical spill. I was instantly hooked and wanted to make batch after batch. I wanted to perfect my recipe, and make them look and smell as amazing as possible. I was intrigued by all of the fun extras I could include to make the soap serve a specific purpose, such as shredded loofa, colloidal oatmeal, clays, honey, and milks.

Naturally, the bars began to pile up. Within a couple weeks I had over a hundred bars of soap curing in our Brooklyn apartment. It smelled amazing in there. You could smell the soaps from the foyer of the building! I gave away a LOT of soap, after testing them all on myself of course. Then my internalized capitalism kicked in and I thought … I can monetize this. So I made myself a website, and my friend Christine from Tulip City Creative put together a beautiful branding package for me. My mother in law printed out some cigar band labels for the soaps, and I was off to the races!

I had a couple in-person vending events in Brooklyn. The first one was an absolute dud, but I learned a ton. The second one, the Bushwick farmer’s market, was very cute and fun and I had a handful of sales. Doing markets in the Big Apple is very hard, especially when you sell a heavy product. When we moved to Vermont and I got a car and there were actually places to park it, vending in person became a lot easier! We moved to the Green Mountain State in July 2019. I was able to do a few holiday markets at the end of the year.

We all know what happened at the beginning of 2020. I will say that it was a great time to have a website that sells soap. However, a lot of the momentum I had built up in 2019 fizzled out. However, I sallied forth and kept on making soap. Ever steadily I’ve been scaling up and gathering more and more momentum, and shaping my brand into what it is today. Barnes Made will continue to grow and evolve, and I will continue to try new things because of the aforementioned multi-passion. That’s what keeps things exciting!