By Kathy Cook Hunter
Most of us don’t realize the time that goes into making good hand soap and if we do, we don’t want to bother with it.
After seven years in the soap making business, Paula Darland knows what it takes to make a good bar of soap and still likes it.
“I retired from my career and wanted something a little creative,” Darland said. “I read lots of books and took a one-day class at an herb farm in the San Diego area, and I really enjoyed it. I have totally enjoyed soap-making, especially since I’m the boss.”
Darland is the owner of Bahia Soap Co., located in the countryside near Scotts Mills.
What she likes about soap making, she said, is “putting together the ingredients and coming up with something so unexpected.” Combining sodium hydroxide with water results in lye, the cleaning agent, and oils, including olive, coconut and palm oils, added to it along with essential oils distilled from plants produces softness.
“Essential oils are good for the skin,” she said. “I also wanted to use the best quality ingredients, and that meant using essential as opposed to fragrant (oils).”
Oils called fragrance oils are manufactured in laboratories, she said.
“An advantage of my soap is that oils have a moisturizing effect on the skin,” she said. “All the ingredients on the label are understandable language, not scientific words people don’t understand.” Her recipe uses only vegetable oils and no animal fats; this is what appeals to vegans.
Darland creates 10 scented soaps: allspice, beauty bar with oat and honey, clary sage with oat and honey, frankincense, geranium, lavender, peppermint with oatmeal, touch of orange with oatmeal, yum-o bar with oatmeal and grapefruit.
Her business, which she runs out of a room in her basement, is small but convenient for her.
“I don’t have a website – it takes too much time,” she said. “I want it to be comfortable and be able to cover my costs. I don’t want to be tied down to it, and so far it’s been just flexible enough for me.”
However, when she mixes a batch of soap she must set aside a large chunk of time.
“I plan a whole day for a batch,” Darland said. After she mixes her ingredients and pours the mixture into a box mold or smaller, “fancy” plastic molds, the soap must sit undisturbed for 24 hours.
“Then I pull it out, cut and trim it,” she said, “and it sits on the shelf for 30 days to cure.”
During that time a 10-pound batch of soap will lose three pounds of water through evaporation. Darland protects the bars by wrapping them in handmade paper. She warns customers to keep handcrafted soap on a rack out of a watery soap dish to save it from mushiness.
Bahia means “bay” in Spanish and was inspired by the time the Darlands spent visiting Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico. Her soap costs between $4 to $5 in stores, but at bazaars Darland sells bars for $4.
Darland and her Bahia Soaps will occupy a booth at the Scotts Mills Holiday Bazaar in the Scotts Mills Grange from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22.
