How I started the soap biz

When people ask me how I got started making soap, I don't have a great story. In fact, it's a little hard to explain.

It was 11 years ago. I was catering at the time, and knew that I wanted to keep my flexible hours, not work in an office, and somehow make money working for myself and start my own business. I had no idea really what I wanted to do.

I was a speech-communications major in college with a liberal arts degree. That was by default. I was in college, mostly working full time and avoiding classes, but fully partaking of the social benefits. Changing my major every other month or so -- social service, political science, whatever didn't require math and science. Fell asleep through art history every day about 5 minutes in. So when it got down to crunch time, where you really had to put something in that little box on the form, I was stumped. I ran my finger down the column of possibilities, did a quick reckoning of what credits I had already accumulated, and calculated what I could get with the minimum effort in order to graduate in the same year as the folks as I started with. Really carefully thought out future, eh?

So when you pop out the other side, diploma in hot little hand, what do you do with a speech-communications major? Well, after agonizing over my resume, shopping for days on end for the perfect interview suit, poring over want ads and job postings, I headed out to my first interviews. One of the first questions they asked, since I'm a woman, was "can you type?" Entry level job for any woman who types (and I was a great typist -- don't ever admit to that) is receptionist and secretary.

So a million secretarial and administrative jobs later, I was bored and underpaid. I interned with huge event planners for fun and free stuff. I worked for catering companies after hours to see how the other half lived. And I dreamed about my own business some day. Literally.

I dreamed up this business. I almost never remember my dreams. And I can't say I remember this one either. But I woke up one morning with the idea, and an incredibly strong conviction, that I must make and sell soap as my business. I didn't know the first thing about how to do that. I'd never made soap before in my life. But it just so happened that I had been working full time for a catering company that was going out of business. And we all got laid off and given a little severance package about a month later. Perfect timing. I had no job, a little money and some time on my hands. And the dream.

So I went to the library and took out every single book on soap I could find. Spent a day shopping around for the supplies that I would need from the lists in the books. The following day I spread it all out in the kitchen and made a couple of small test batches. While stirring, I hatched a name for the venture. Ran down to the government office that runs such things and got a business license the same week. One week, the business was born.

I eventually took a couple of classes on soapmaking, a couple of classes on making herbal stuff and smelly bath items. And I kept making soap. A lot. It was September 1996. In November, I wrote up my first newsletter and sent it off to everyone I knew with little teensy-weensy sample bars of the lavender lemongrass and breakfast soaps. Those were my first ones, and they are still at the top of the list. I was selling soaps for Christmas presents to friends already! I was in business!

So it doesn't make for a riveting story -- no handed down from generation to generation, no learning the finer points of soapmaking from some ancient relative, no family traditions or secret recipes. And no compelling background story either, like a health or skin problem that resulted in years of research on such things. Also no predilection for special soaps or scented stuff since I was kiddie, like it was my passion. In fact, I was never really into those things at all, weird. Absolutely nothing in my past that would have pointed towards this as my destiny.

I just made it all up myself. Took about a year to perfect my own soap recipe from all the other ones I tried. Just a lot of trial and error and experiment - jumping right in and figuring it out by myself. So there you have it. Booyah.