My love affair with soap began over 20 years ago, when I was a stay-at-home mother of three, looking for a creative outlet.
I grew up on a small farm, where we kept bees, horses, milk cows and goats. I was happy to be outside playing “Little House on the Prairie” in the back field, and loved pretending to be self-sufficient, even though, mom was providing me breakfast, lunch, and dinner for free!
Following in my grandmother’s soap-making footsteps, in the early 2000’s, I developed a formula for the best bar of soap I could make:
- Plant-based,
- Moisturizing,
- Good lather,
- Rinses clean,
- Long-lasting
Splendid Bee went completely organic in 2007, and since the beginning, we (I say “we” because I’ve had some help over the years), have made an estimated 800,000 bars of soap, and counting!
Starting in Bardstown, Kentucky, “The Bourbon Capital” of the world, we make our soap in small batches, just like they make Bourbon.
Each 108-bar batch is poured, cut, “cured”, and labeled by hand.
The philosophy which inspired us, can be summed up here:
Soap: Making It, Enjoying It by Ann Bramson:
“Handmade [homemade] soap is comforting in ways which manufactured soap can never be: its look, its weight, its bulk, how it feels in your hands, looks in its dish. It’s not homogenized, pasteurized, deodorized, sanitized, synthesized — it’s one of a kind, every bar is different, each unique.”
I’ve tried to keep this in mind throughout these 20+ years, and in 2023, I’m more thankful than ever to be alive and making soap . . . 20 years later…
