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Soap made the Fresh Wife way – friends turn interest into business

Most people don't think twice about washing their hands with a bar of soap or a bit of alcohol-based cleanser, but the effect of...
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Friends

Most people don't think twice about washing their hands with a bar of soap or a bit of alcohol-based cleanser, but the effect of these products on the skin led two Stettler-area residents to decide to go back to their roots and make their own soap.

Even though owners and good friends Shawna Benson and Stephanie Plaetner had never made soap before, the two women had experimented in several do-it-yourself personal care items over the years to deal with dry skin, eczema, and other lifestyle choices.

One of Plaetner's children developed food sensitivities and serious eczema problems at a very young age.

"I became very conscious about what we eat and what we use," Plaetner said, explaining that certain foods or cleansing products would aggravate her son's skin condition. Over the years, she's developed many ways of dealing with her child's sensitivity, but soap continued to be a problem.

The two friends were sitting around a campfire while camping last summer, lamenting the difficulty finding decent soap when they decided they would simply do it themselves.

"I said, 'We can probably do better,'" Benson recalled, and Plaetner agreed.

The Fresh Wife Soap Company was born out of that conversation, and debuted this autumn.

Benson had been using the Fresh Wife name for years for her blogging and photography, and even though the pair tried to think up another name for their soap endeavour, they kept coming back to Fresh Wife.

With absolutely no idea how to make soap, the pair had a learning curve ahead of them.

"Shawna did so much of the research," Plaetner said. "But it was all very interesting."

They turned to several different sources of information: the Internet, books, and discussions with elders who had made soap in their youth, or sage advice from their mothers and grandmothers who made soap back in the days.

"It's really neat to think I'm making soap like my grandmother, or great-grandmother did," Benson said.

The soap-making frenzy they found themselves in was a bit like a chemistry experiment, with mixed results.

The soap Benson and Plaetner make is a mix of natural and essential oils – one of the more basic bars of soap they make is made of olive, coconut, and castor oils, plus shea butter. Once those ingredients are well mixed together, lye water is added. The resulting chemical reaction causes the oils to create soap.

"You mix it until it becomes like pudding," Benson said, laughing.

The soap is then poured into moulds and left to cure, a process that can take anywhere from three to six weeks.

"I had a table downstairs where soap was curing," Plaetner said. "For six weeks, my house smelled great."

Soap is the longest-curing item the company makes; they also make lip gloss, sugar scrubs and body butters.

Nothing the pair makes is wasted, even when results aren't exactly what the duo aimed for.

"Nothing's wrong with (the mistakes)," Benson explained. "They're still soap. They just don't smell or look like what we wanted."

One of those soaps is called "Earth."

"We tried to make a coffee-scented soap," Benson explained. "And it's really, really brown. When I smell it, I smell dirt – but a friend smelled chocolate chunk cookies."

Another so-called mistake the two sell is "Rustic."

"We cut it too early," she said. The result was a bar of soap that was an odd, rough shape.

Along the way, both Plaetner and Benson have learned things about making soap that they would have never expected.

"Vanilla can turn soaps funny colours if you don't treat it first," Benson recalled. "And one of our most popular items is charcoal soap."

Activated charcoal products are thought to have excellent detoxifying properties, Benson explained, and is very good for the skin. Every time the product is on their table at local markets, it sells out.

The Fresh Wife Soap Company's soaps won't dry out skin or leave a nasty, tight feeling because the pair also ensure that each bar comes with a full dose of glycerin.

Glycerin, which is a natural byproduct of soap-making, is very valuable for its moisturizing elements. Thus, many companies skim off glycerin when making soap, using it in other moisturizing products.

"We don't do that," Benson said.

Plaetner noted that she "would never go back" to using other soaps, either.

Right now, the two women – fully employed and with families – sell their products through local markets, their Facebook page, and online at their website of the same name as the company.

Once a more stable line of products is developed – right now, what types of soap the pair make varies – they hope to sell it in local stores.

One of the benefits of making soap is being able to help local producers use up their byproducts, too, Benson said.

"We've tried to stay as local as possible," Benson shared. "We use beeswax we sourced locally. We use beef tallow that we get from local farmers. Normally, this would just be waste."

They are currently looking for a local producer of lanolin, which separates from sheep's wool when it is treated.

Even though they use animal products in their soaps, Benson and Plaetner kept their vegan-minded clientele in mind.

"We definitely have plant-based soaps for people who are vegan, or just like the soaps," she said.

They also use milk from local goats for their goat-milk products.

"It's a labour of love," Benson said. "It definitely takes time, but it's worth it."