Handcrafted Soap

Don’t Eat It! Coconut soap. Peanut Butter Soap, Cocoa Soap

Hi, I’m Ruth – I am the creator of Don’t Eat It! Soap and Skin Care Products. I’m not a sales person – I’m just a soap maker, and I’d like to tell you about my products. I’ll start by saying that I do formulate all of my own recipes. I enjoy the creative process and I tend to think that the soaps I make as a reflection of me. Here is how I describe my soaps –

Simple – I like to use common ingredients and I tend to keep the ingredients to a minimum. If you read the label (and you should) you will probably recognize most of the ingredients as things that you might have on hand in your own kitchen or growing in your garden. Indeed most of the ingredients I use are things that are found in my own kitchen or garden.

Practical – “If you wouldn’t eat it, you shouldn’t put it on your skin.” When I read this line it made so much sense – your skin is the largest organ of your body and anything that comes in contact with your skin has the potential to enter your body by being absorbed though you skin.  I’d like to challenge you to read the label on your soap, body wash, shampoo or other skin care products. Be aware that you might need a magnifying glass to do this. As you read the list tell me how many of the ingredients are you familiar with. Do you know what they are or what they do.  Are these things that you want inside your body?  If you would like to do some research on some ingredients this website might be a good place to start http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/top-tips-for-safer-products/  I have simply chosen to avoid potentially dangerous ingredients by making my own soap and skin care products.

Fun – Making the soap is fun – discovering and experimenting with new ingredients. Using the soap is fun – rich bubbly lather that feels good on your skin and rinses off well. The name is fun – keep reading to learn the story behind “Don’t Eat It!”

Affordable – As a basis for this I use my own opinion of what I would like to pay for a good bar of soap. To keep the price down I avoid using unnecessary, expensive ingredients. These include colorants and fragrances, including essential oils. Don’t get me wrong, I like essential oils. I just don’t think putting them in soap is practical. While essential oils are potent it still takes a lot of oil to make a bar of soap smell good. It varies depending on the type of oil, but using .5 ounce of essential oil per 1 pound of oils in the soap is about average. Even the cheapest essential oils cost around $6.00 for  a .5 ounce bottle and 1 pound of oils in a soap recipe will yield 4 or 5 nice size bars of soap. So adding essential oils (even cheap ones) will raise the cost of making a bar of soap over $1.00. I think that is a lot of money to be washing down the drain.

Can be used by the whole family (including the dog) – Everybody uses soap, mom, dad, kids, even the dog gets a bath now and then. One of my goals when making soap is to make a product that everyone can use. By leaving out colorants and fragrances I have reduced the risk of negative reactions whether it be a physical (allergic) reaction or someone being offended by the smell. I have also made products that are affordable enough for the whole family to use. I do not buy commercial skin care or hair care products. As long as I’ve known my husband I have never know him to use shampoo. He always washed his hair with whatever bar of soap he used on his body. After I began making soaps I decided to try his method. When I sampled each new batch of soap I would also wash my hair with it. Some I liked and some I did not. Eventually I decided to formulate a soap specific for washing hair. It produces rich bubbly lather that works nicely into the hair and it rinses out well. It does not strip the natural oils from the hair. If I use it everyday my hair does not dry out, but I can go 2 or even three days without actually washing my hair. After using this soap on my own hair for a while I figured it was ok to use on “The Boys” our dogs. We have stopped buying dog shampoo and use my soaps when bathing “The Boys” as well.

To learn how to purchase Don’t Eat It! Soap and Skin Care Products please visit my store .

The Name – Don’t Eat It! Soap

I find myself telling this story often as people are often curious about the name of my soap. It started one day when I was working in my kitchen, cutting a slab of soap into bars. My teenage daughter walked into the kitchen, she looked at what I was doing and said with a somewhat excited tone “Fudge?” I laughed as I replied “No, soap, Don’t Eat It!”. Not long after that incident my dad visited. I sent him home with a bag of groceries that included a couple bars of my homemade soap. Since I wasn’t selling the soap at the time, the bars were not package or labeled as soap. I had just put then in plastic sandwich baggies. I told him that I had put a couple bars of my homemade soap in the bag for him to try. Later that day he called me, “what is the stuff in those plastic bags?” he asked. When I told him it was soap he said, “Oh, I thought maybe it was cheese or fudge.” “No, dad,” I said, “Don’t Eat It!”.

The second reason Don’t Eat It is an appropriate name for these soaps is because almost all of the ingredients are or can be consumed as food or beverage. Once they are mixed with lye however they become soap, so there is your warning. Don’t Eat It!

In addition to making soap and skin care products my husband and I have a small farm where we grow a portion of our own food, raise chickens and bees. You can learn more about our adventures by reading and following my blog .

Thanks for stopping by 🙂