A totally true story
The Totally Soap Company was born in the darkest hours of COVID 19. While in lockdown, like many families, we started to experiment with things we had never tried before like making pasta from scratch, forcing our kids to dress up and recreate paintings of the masters, cutting and dying our hair all sorts of colors, and even doing family power-point challenges (ok that’s kind of nerdy).
Well in the midst of all this experimentation, I tried my hand at natural laundry soap making. I had always dabbled in making my own cleaners, candles and essential oil blends, but this was a whole new realm. As I began to grate my store-bought castile soap to create these concoctions, I began to wonder about making my own bars of soap. And so, I fell headfirst down the rabbit hole of natural soap making and subsequently began ingredient shaming every product I had been buying from shampoos, to bar soap, to household cleaners.
I couldn’t help but think of the scene from Outlander, when they all stood around outside pouring beeswax candles. It seemed so romantic, and since we were essentially sequestered to our circa 1803 farmhouse, it seemed highly appropriate that I undertake some form of homesteading. We could step back in time and make soap the old-fashioned way, with oils, butters, soda ash, clays and fragrances found in nature. We could make them in small batches, just like we take pride in baking a favorite pie or cake. Each batch would have a specific recipe, based on the feeling it might invoke (I’m a dramatic person) but each batch would also be deliciously unique.
Soon the whole family was on board. We converted our office into a bona fide “soap room” and began experimenting -all hands-on deck. Scent profiles began to take shape as we experimented with natural colors and techniques, as my husband built the website and did all the photography of our new family of soaps. The kids helped stir, pour, smell, arrange and package. It was total immersion from the wee morning hours and late into the night. We worked in and around our jobs, college, school and family obligations. But we persisted and in February 2021, we proudly launched our little soap company and have been expanding since, with new products and ideas.
COVID 19 has been a test for all of us. But it was like the Dark Ages before the Renaissance. If we hadn’t had the time together at home to dream, invent, experiment and play, this might never have happened at all and I would still be grumbling to myself as I poured my store-bought laundry soap into the machine.