Whew! This last year has been a busy one! We celebrated our one year anniversary as a company this month! Okay, well we technically didn't go live until March, but the preparations for our opening began one year ago.
In one year what have we accomplished? Well, we took our six years of experience making soap and started this wonderful company; we opened both an Etsy and a Hyenacart store; we operated a booth at the South Tacoma Farmer's Market; we had a booth at The Puyallup Fair AND the Tacoma Holiday Food and Gift Festival;we have some of our soaps being sold at the Tacoma Food Co-Op, and have attended numerous other fairs and craft festivals. It HAS been busy.
It's been great being a local company at all the fairs, but it's also been great having our online stores as well. We have been keeping track of where our soap travels to. So far the winner for furthest distance traveled has been to Moscow, Russia! Other places of interest include Nova Scotia, Italy, Canada, and England.
Initially our intent was to create about ten different soaps. That seemed like a good number to start with. It was manageable, yet it offered a variety of types to choose from. Needless to say, as with many hobbies, we got a little out of control. Ten led to ten more, and then ten more, and then ten more.... (You see where this is heading?) Now, our meager little ten has grown to around sixty-five different types of soap. We don't make them all at the same time, but out of those, there are at least a good forty that are always in production.
It has been our goal during this whole year to produce a quality homemade soap that we can be proud of and people can be happy using. All of our soaps are vegetarian, and most of them are actually vegan. The only ingredients that come from animal products are goat's milk, honey, beeswax, and chocolate. (I know, chocolate doesn't come from an animal, but the milk within it does.) You will notice that there is no animal fat in our soaps. In addition, you will never find artificial fragrance oils in our products. We only use natural essential oils (i.e. lavender, peppermint, clove), plant materials (i.e. oats, seaweed, flower petals), and natural earth materials (i.e. bentonite clay, mica, sea salt).
One thing people have always commented on is how lightly scented our soaps are. Everything is purposefully barely scented. We want to make our soaps both allergy and migraine friendly. Too many soaps are so heavily scented that many people will get instant headaches just from being in a room with them. We want to do the opposite of that. We scent our soaps lightly enough that you can smell them best when you are washing with them. And some of them aren't scented at all, they are simply wonderfully moisturizing and delightful on your hands and body.
That's about it for now. New things are happening this year. We will be in new locations and will be offering new soaps (because we have no self control). Watch this spot for more news and pictures!
In the mean time... Keep clean!
Pip and Lola say hello!
