Dings, dents, creases, swirls and bubbles

I admit it.  I'm a perfectionist.  But after crafting cold process bars of gluten free soap for 30 years, I have come to realize that when it comes to appearance, handmade and perfect seldom go together in the soap business. Every batch of cold process soap has a mind of its own requiring skillful manipulation by the artisan.  Of course, the allure of handmade anything is that it looks, well, handmade. And that can be refreshing in a world of predictable assembly line goods.

I didn't start out this enlightened.  Earlier in my career, one of my business goals was to make every gluten free bar of soap the exact same dimensions.  I thought it was the thing to do.  I put even more pressure on myself by ordering several thousand adorable custom soap boxes every year.  But if the soap turned out a little bit too big it had to be stuffed into the box or tediously hand trimmed.  If the bar was too small, it rattled around in the box and looked pitiful.  In order to better accommodate my lofty goal, I eventually developed a cutting process in which I literally cookie cut each individual cold process bar of soap out of a larger rough cut bar.  Oh, it worked all right.  But I ended up working for about a dollar an hour.

Eventually the lights went on and I decided to rethink my journey.  I took note of the rustic beauty of a rough cut bar of artisan soap and stopped cookie cutting.  By that one single change, my bars became 20% bigger without a price increase.  I bid a fond farewell to my cute little soap boxes and changed to a beautiful, but much more affordable paper wrapper.  I stopped worrying about little bubbles, swirls, creases, dings and dents and began to look at them through the eyes of a 21st century artisan.  But most of all, I became laser focused on what I was really passionate about...quality and function.  I made new goals.  I determined to make the finest cake of gluten free cold process soap on the planet by using the finest ingredients on the planet.  If it also turned out reasonably attractive, so much the better.

Those of you who browse around in the handmade soap areas of the internet, will soon realize that there are some awesome artists in the soap world.  Some of my fellow soapers have produced unbelievable creations and I greatly admire their talent.  The bright colors they achieve with artificial dyes and pigments are stunning and some of the fragrance oils they are using, even though synthetic, do smell fantastic.

But a pretty face isn't always the only choice and true beauty is often determined by what's inside.  Maybe natural, pristine, nourishing and real can have a place too.  Our cold process, carefully formulated gluten free soaps may not be the most ornate specimens in the soap world.  But perhaps they can be the most useful...because we believe it truly matters what you put on your skin.