I discovered handmade soap when a friend brought me some as a gift after the birth of my daughter (circa 2007). I got into essential oils and finding better skin care in 2012-ish, and stumbled across numerous soap making recipes on Pinterest. I found a particularly well written "how to" blog post and read about lye... and then carried on purchasing soap from other people, including a friend of mine in Canada who had started making soap (although she just sent me some when she had too much on hand, she doesn't sell).
I couldn't shake the idea of making my own, and my friend, Courtney, encouraged me to read as much as possible. In (September? maybe) 2013 I bought a can of lye and procrastinated for months, clear into 2014. That blog post had really scared me. In February/March 2014 I made my first soap, 30% OO, 30% CO, 20% lard, 15% shea butter, and 5% castor oil, in a milkway mold! I still have one bar from that batch, under Courtney's advice to keep it for aging. In April 2014 Courtney came for a visit and we made soap together which was helpful to explain the process/terminology that I was still a touch confused on. I think that was what hooked me, when it finally all started to make sense. I used milkway molds for all of my "learning" batches, so I was making it 1lb at a time about once a month. On a scale that only went to one decimal place.
I spent the next year making plain unscented soaps and just tinkering with the recipe. I launched my business alongside experimenting with color and fragrance (hindsight: I would have waited another year if not two, but color and fragrances are expensive and my "single mom at the time" budget did NOT have room for it unless it could pay for itself.) I look back at those first colored soaps, made in milk cartons... thank goodness I've gotten better (some days)!
