One wonderful season, we had too much goat milk. We were making cheese, yogurt, ice cream, candy, butter and all sorts of stuff for ourselves with the goat milk, but still had an excess. A friend suggested we should just turn all the left over milk into soap, as soap doesn’t go bad, and we took her brilliant idea and ran with it. Soon a little soap turned into a lot of soap and a beautiful hobby was born.
We wanted to create a product that we were proud of and one that we could trust. We put our love for our animals, our health and the environment at the top of our list in things that are important in our products.
We only use goat milk from our own goats. Goats are social, complex and hilarious animals and should never be factory farmed. All of our goats and animals have what we refer to as “retirement” plans. This means that even if they are no longer producing milk (or could never produce milk, as in Blurt Russell’s case) we will still love them and allow them to live out all their days on our small farm.
Having been a life long vegetarian and former vegan, Swan makes sure that the animals have the best lives that any animal could wish for. Jen is often dreaming up new toys for the goats and new structures to build for them to climb on. We have even been known to be some of the only “goat walkers” around. Goat walking is where we let all the goats out and we bounce and hop around the property (and sometimes in the road) until we can’t bounce or hop anymore.
With animal happiness being one of our most important priorities, we think you will be happy with your purchase of happy goat milk soap. We are the only farmer/soap makers in the the southeast Georgia area that we know of. You will also notice on your soap labels that goat milk is listed as the first ingredient. We do not use any water or goat milk powder in our soaps. This is not the case with most goat milk soaps on the market, and certainly not the case with the fun, swirly soaps out there. Because we are a farm, we can afford to put only milk in our soaps, making for the most luxurious and creamy bar of soap you can find.
Our soaps are handcrafted using a cold process soap making technique. No two bars look alike! We do make over 350 types of soap throughout the year as we love to experiment and and are constantly dreaming up new combinations and designs of soap. We have a constant line of about 10 soaps but most of our soaps are small batched, making possibly only 10-40 bars per type.
We wouldn’t make soap if we were doing damage to the environment. That is why we use Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) sourced palm oil when we have to use palm oil in our soaps. We do minimal packaging for each soap, simply a compostable cigar band and a sticker. Our other ingredients vary per type of soap, but our essential oils are sourced from companies and farms that practice sustainable farming and our micas and oxides are fair trade, ethically harvested micas. We love using clays, herbs like spirulina and turmeric, activated charcoal, sand, and other additives that inspire a new bar of soap.
All of our products are phthalate and sulfate free. We do use some fragrance oils and essential oils when scenting our products but are very cautious about what we use. Phthalates are an additive in many products (not ours) that include scent as well as in plastic manufacturing. They have been known to cause hormone problems and sensitivities. Swan is extremely sensitive to phthalates and wanted to make a product that wouldn’t make her sick, nor would we be okay with selling a product that we wouldn’t use ourselves. (Swan can’t ride in a new car or go shopping for new clothes for longer than about 20 minutes due to phthalate sensitivity, if you are curious about how it can affect her.) That is why all of our products are checked and double checked to ensure that they do not include phthalates.
And, to address the most common misconception about soap…yes, our soap is made with lye. All soap is made with lye. You have never, ever, had a soap that was not made with lye. Without lye, soap would just be a mess of oil and water and would never get you clean. When the saponification process (soap making process) is complete, the lye, aka Sodium Hydroxide, has restructured itself into soap and no loose lye exists, however, it is still there. We understand this misconception and get asked about whether our soap has been made with lye or not. The answer is always yes, because you have never used a soap without it.
