The Reasons Behind it All

The reasons Behind it All

  I have long believed in living clean and healthy, tried not to feed my children junk food and used tried and true home remedies whenever possible.  It is safe to say I prefer natural healing as well - herbal medicine vs pharmacological.  That is not to say that I use herbal medicine exclusively, just that if I can conjure up a tea for that stomach ache or break off an aloe vera leaf for that burn, I will definitely do that before rushing to the ER.

​   My "MarthaStewart-like" penchant for creativity was constantly poking at me to try something other than paper and fiber crafts and one day about four or five years ago, while treating a migraine by holding a towel soaked in lavender and peppermint infused ice water to my aching head, it occurred to me that I should try soap making.  And I would start with lavender mint soap!  

Lavender Mint Soap

At first, I was naïve and anti-lye because it was such a caustic material and who wants that in their soap, Right? Well, duh! The truth is, no lye = no soap, period. Yes it is caustic, but the saponification process neutralizes it.  Initially I was inexperienced and afraid to work with lye so I embarked upon this journey with melt and pour soap bases. I used glycerin base because it was a natural base that I could get easily and I created my very first batch of soap using lavender and mint from my garden. I spent hours researching the benefits of these herbs both medicinally and topically for the skin. (But that’s another story).   
​  I was so excited I had to share it with all my friends so that year everyone got soap as part of their Christmas presents.  I had no idea then how positively they would react and that it would eventually turn into a small business, but shortly thereafter, my creative juices started flowing and my soap making adventure began.  It took countless hours of YouTube video tutorials, Pinterest inspired pins and links to a multitude of blogs before I was brave enough to tackle making soap from scratch, but now I’m hooked!  There is a part of my basement which is overflowing with dried herbs, oils, clays, essential and fragrance oil blends as well as tools of the trade.  The freezer is full of pureed fruits and vegetables and presently there are some homegrown tomatoes that managed to grow even as the weather started getting colder and had to be picked while still green that are looking very enticing as they create soap based ideas in my head.

    Maybe two years after the bravery kicked in, I decided to try my hand at selling my "kreations", maybe because my basement was filling up with more soap than I knew what to do with or maybe because I was feeling adventurous.  Who knows, but that is how Kimsoapia Kreations was born.         Throughout the journey I’ve followed recipes from other blogs and created my own (which I always check using a lye calculator because you can never be too sure how much to use.  Too much will render the soap lye heavy and you’ll either have to toss it or turn it into detergent.  Too little and it will be mushy but not liquid. The lye calculator I use most is this one.) 
    My Latina roots seem to have steered me into creating with a tropical flare which might explain the guava, mango, pineapple, avocado etc. fruit purees in the freezer, but they are so yummy.  Not to mention the benefits they provide!  (but that too, is another post).  After getting my feet wet and experimenting with a variety of ingredients and processes, I’ve decided to focus on a limited number of soaps per season to make it more interesting as well as manageable.  These days, I rarely ever use melt and pour bases anymore because now I feel like I’m cheating my creative self.  I know, that’s silly, but what can I say? Since I am re-launching this endeavor at the tail end of Autumn and we will soon be inundated with holiday fare, I decided to combine the two seasons to make everyone happy. So hooray for Vanilla Pumpkin, Apple Pie a la Mode and thoughts of snow and peppermint candy canes!

Vanilla Pumpkin Soap

Apple Pie a la Mode soap