I've been making soap for almost 30 years years and selling it at markets and online for 17 years. But soapmaking wasn't my first love. I’ve heard “You were born in the wrong century” since my early childhood  because of my interest in sewing, quilting, weaving, breadmaking, gardening, herbal medicine, and other "primitive skills" like foraging for wild foods.

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I learned to make soap in the 1980’s when I was a young mother, living on the outskirts of a village on the beautiful Italian island of Sardinia. Behind our home were hills and small family farms and fields of wild lavender and other  plants native to the island. I found a book in English (a rarity!) about soapmaking and began experimenting. There was plenty of local olive oil, lard and tallow. A local pharmacy provided castor oil and a shop in town sold coconut oil. For three years I tried different combinations of ingredients and proportions, waiting impatiently for each small batch to cure so I could test them, keeping copious notes and tweaking the formulas. Only after I had perfected several recipes did I begin coloring my soap with the natural colorants in my spice cupboard and garden.

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In 2004 I moved back to the US and worked in an herb shop where we bottled tinctures and essential oils, sold natural soaps and cosmetics, and I learned more about the properties of herbal ingredients. I retooled my formulas to be vegetarian-friendly and began selling my soaps in that shop, then at local farmers markets and street festivals and finally online. Around that time, I became interested in shaving soap – “obsessed” might be more accurate. A customer with sensitive skin asked me to make a coconut oil-free shaving soap for him. My first attempts were not successful. I researched some more, asked expert wetshavers a lot of questions, recruited volunteer testers and experimented until we were happy with the result.

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Meanwhile, my business grew and I left the herb shop to dedicate all my time to Mystic Water Soap. I make over 50 types of soap and a similar number of shave soaps. I’ve developed other products over the years and now offer lip balms, herbal salves, perfumed oils, shea butters, deodorant, shampoo bars and more. The Covid-19 pandemic brought in-person markets to a halt and I had more time to research and create new products. As life returns to normal, I hope you all stay safe and healthy and remember, soap is an important weapon in our arsenal against infection!

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~Michelle