The Soap Factory

/ 3 September 2015 / 0 Comments

We really wanted to go down to Utah county and pick berries, but that’s a long drive for us for just berries, so I looked up a few other fun things to do around Provo and decided to make a day of it. One of the coolest places I saw was The Soap Factory. They started out as a small shop where you could make custom, all-natural soaps and have since expanded to include lotion, salt or sugar scrubs, fizzy bath balls, lip balm, gourmet chocolates, trail mix… basically tons of bath and gift items.

The inner hippie in me got really excited about his place. My kids have allergies, asthma, and severe eczema, so we are always paying through the roof for all natural, gentle bath products they can use. These guys charge a $5 lab fee per person and then only 5₵ per gram for the product. An average size bar of soap ends up costing about $5, which for the experience, plus the quality of product, we felt was pretty good. (We typically buy Burt's Bees All Natural Shampoo and Body Wash on Amazon for $9 a bottle... none of the cheaper stuff works with my kids' allergies.)

The really cool thing was that their lab fee includes use of all their natural pigment colors (that you could either mix in when making the soap or paint on afterwards), add-ins (such as ground oatmeal or dried lavender), and their own in house, high-end line of essential oils.

We LOVE good quality essential oils and use them at home with our kids all the time. I always tell people, I don’t think they are a cure all, but I do see a difference in my kids’ asthma when they regularly use certain oils, so I was thrilled to hear from the owner that he basically has the exact same philosophy and wanted to start an oil company that educated people about what oils can and can’t do, as much as he wanted to know his product and source it from the best suppliers. As a part of my oil tangent I totally asked and found out that you can just go in and buy their oils or even purchase them online for a flat fee… no multilevel marketing involved!

Anyway, while I was drooling over the essential oils, my kids were enjoying digging through their huge assortment of molds trying to decide what to make.

My oldest can’t have milk and was super excited to hear that they have all natural, super-dark chocolate, sweetened with natural stevia. I am sure most 8-year-old boys don’t get giddy over healthy chocolate, but it turns out it is actually hard to find a truly dark chocolate without at least some milk added in. Or when we do, it is again, a small fortune and he rarely gets it, so he made Darth Vader (he does still have his run of the mill adolescent boy interests!) chocolates with rice crispy pieces mixed in. I'm sure their milk or white chocolate options get used far more often, but we were excited they had a healthy version (which means a safe version) for my son.

The two little boys just wanted dinosaurs and could care less what went in them so we decided to make the soap, that they are most known for, so that I could try it out on their sensitive skin. The shop owner made excellent recommendations and we created the perfect mix and none of my kids reacted to their dinosaur soaps, so win-win! In addition to colloidal (an oat product that helps eczema), they also end up adding in an oil blend called Dragon’s Breath for fragrance) It really smelled amazing, but I think they mostly chose it for its name… I’ll just tell myself they have good taste in scents though!

Luckily the shop workers were some of the most patient and Zen-like people I’d met, because with all of our little ones eager to get in and “help” we needed a lot of instruction and assistance. They were great to explain every step and had figured out the perfect system for keeping them all busy and involved. They told us they had even hosted a few birthday parties, which I made a mental note to remember, because my daughter especially LOVED their shop and would have so much fun coming back with all her friends to make something.

Olyvia (13) and Makelle (6) decided to make pink grapefruit lip balm.

We started with the soap molds, because those needed to dry the longest, then mixed and poured chocolate, while that cooled we worked on the lip gloss. It all ran like a loud, excited, but well oiled machine!

The whole time we were there I kept thinking this would be the perfect place to take the kids for Mother’s Day or Christmas.

Every mom or grandma loves getting homemade gifts from their kids, but these are actually good quality gifts they would really love and use, plus the mess stays at their shop, rather than all over your kitchen!