Let’s be honest, we never expected to be in the handmade coconut oil soap biz. It wasn’t something we were particularly interested in at first. All those “lye will burn you” precautions? With our natural affinity for clumsiness? It didn’t seem like a good idea.
All it took to change our minds was one bar. The very first soap ever made on Dancing Feathers Farm was a bar of lavender coconut oil soap. It was a hot day in 2016, the windows were open, and Jen stood stirring lye into distilled water, hoping she was doing it right. She left the lye to cool in the window while she melted down the coconut oil, added lavender essential oil, and sprinkled in some indigo powder. Before too long, the oils were ready and the lye cooled enough to blend.
At first, it seemed like no amount of stirring and mixing would ever get the coconut oil soap ingredients to bind together properly. Jen began to worry she made a big mistake. Her brain started mentally calculating all the money spent on supplies and her precious, highly-researched soaping ingredients.
But then, like magic, the beautiful blue liquid thickened. Jen ran her hand blender through the mixture a few more times and watched as a line of soap traced faintly along the surface of her mixture. She’d done it! She successfully brought her coconut oil soap to trace, a term in the soapmaking world that means the soap reacted properly with the lye and is ready to pour into soap molds. Jen started with a simple square pattern, impressed with pretty trees and butterflies. After letting the soap cool overnight, she popped each bar out of its mold and set them on a wire rack to cure.
The curing process took what seemed like an eternity! Finally, after nearly two months of waiting, the soap was ready to use. The whole Buck family was thrilled to discover the soap lathered perfectly, providing plenty of suds and bubbles to remove every speck of dirt picked up on the farm. We were sold! We kept a bar near every sink and tub and immediately began planning our next batches of pure, gentle coconut oil soap.
The simplicity, transparency, and sweet functionality of handmade coconut oil soap makes us wonder why anyone purchases store-made, mass-produced soap at all. Homemade soap smells better, it feels better, it supports local artisans better, it supports our environment better, and it’s better for our bodies.
Smells Better: The scents we’ve achieved with our pure essential oil blends are insanely enticing – so fresh, so clean, so fragrance-oil-free. Did you know fragrance oils (manmade compounds sold and used by many in homemade soaps) are known to cause cancer? Bubble gum, love spell, and vanilla-scented soaps (and frankly any soaps scented with fragrance oils) don’t feel so clean after all, do they? Dancing Feathers Farm coconut oil soaps are scented exclusively with pure, unadulterated essential oils hand-measured in safe, benefit-boosting amounts for every batch of soap we blend.
Feels Better: We superfat our soaps so you get a powerful clean without sacrificing moisture. We use coconut oil because it creates a hard, longer-lasting bar that lathers really well and doesn’t dry out your skin. We’re proudly transparent about our ingredients so you can easily check against allergy triggers and sensitivities.
Supports Local Artisans: Vote with your dollars! When you purchase from Dancing Feathers Farm, you’re not just supporting a Michigan family homestead, you’re also supporting a network of like-minded suppliers and artists who share our farm’s values of providing clean, healthy products and produce to our community. Stop lining the pockets of worldwide corporate big-wigs and invest in your community by supporting local businesses that use sustainable practices and transparent processes to bring you the best possible products on earth.
Supports Environment: Is there anything worse than getting excited about a local purchase, just to find your product wrapped in destructive, planet-choking plastics? At Dancing Feathers Farm, we intentionally use minimal, paper-only packaging and recyclable jars. Our soaps and balms are also palm-oil-free; palm oil extraction is extremely hard on our environment and contributes heavily to deforestation, the destruction of animal populations, habitats, and the rights of indigenous populations. We rely exclusively on sustainably-produced oils that we can trace back to a physical location. We partner only with like-minded suppliers who utilize eco-friendly practices and fair employee care standards.
Better for Bodies: PEG-12, Polysorbate 20, fragrance, FD&C Green No. 3…..sounds like a chemistry class, but in reality, that’s part of the ingredient list for a very popular store-bought soap brand! What do these checmicals do to our bodies? How do they impact those with super-sensitive hormones, health issues, or pH imbalances? Luckily, you don’t need to ask yourself these questions when washing with Dancing Feathers Farm soaps. We use none of these ingredients. We don’t need to chemically preserve our soaps, or add solvents to make our soap easier to wash off, or concoct any other shortcut to help you wash the day away. Store-made, mass-produced soaps (and some “artisan” soaps – check those labels!) simply can’t get the job done without contributing to an infectious and profitable chemical industry determined to use man-made checmicals to solve problems nature’s already taken care of. Not here. On our farm, we use a delicate blend of science and nature-based wisdom to bring the healthiest, most effective cleansing coconut oil soaps to your home and family.
One bar, and you won’t go back.
