A magazine article. A bar of real soap. A decision that took months to perfect.
Years ago, I read an article warning parents never to wash a child's mouth out with soap. An old expression, harmless when it meant grandma's homemade soap — but dangerous now, because today's commercial soap is not soap at all. It is detergent, dressed up with scent.
That sent me looking. I began making my own. Months of recipes, of unlearning and re-learning, of small batches and patient waiting. I use the same oils that sit in the most expensive creams on shelves. I keep the glycerin — the good stuff, the part most soapmakers sell off — inside every bar. I use nothing I wouldn't want pressed into my own skin.
Nearly thirty years later, the recipes are still small. Still hand-cut. Still made the long way. That is the whole point.