My Story

I was a high school English teacher making biofuel from waste cooking oil for my farm vehicles. The leftover plant oils became soap - a cleaner that actually worked. I gave it away for years to local farms, neighbors, friends, and family.

When we built a biofuel chemistry program at my high school, I learned soap chemistry inside and out. I made lots of glycerine soap and gave it way to local farms, schools, neighbors, friends and family. I sold it in a few local stores. Then Burt's Bees called, curious and encouraging. Local news showed up. I had a choice: keep teaching, or see where WARHORSE could go.

I chose the soap. Scaled up to grocery store chains, dog and horse stores, and to Canada with French/English labels. Constant plane trips to grow sales, weekends driving up and down the East Coast to demo in Whole Foods and grocery stores. Free sales kits to distributor reps and loads of training sessions. Trade shows in California and Atlanta.

WARHORSE helped many people clean.

I became tired of the rat race.

Then my grandkids came along, and I remembered why I started - to do simple, honest work at home. So I came back to my farm in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills of North Carolina.

Today

I make every batch myself in a 55-gallon kettle over an open fire. I source leftover sunflower oil from a Georgia farmer and upcycle it into soap, along with extra virgin pumpkin seed and flaxseed oils - all unrefined. The beta carotene, vitamin E, and plant wax stay in. That's why WARHORSE is golden.

Nature provides the color. I just don't take it out.

Every order gets a handwritten note. You're not a transaction - you're someone choosing to support a solo soapmaker.

WARHORSE cleans everything: human, hound, horse, home, farm, barn. Food-grade ingredients. Fierce against dirt, gentle with what matters. Naturally aggressive, fiercely kind.

Almost 20 years of making soap.

Thank you for supporting WARHORSE.

— The Soapmaker, Tawana
Blue Ridge Mountain Foothills, North Carolina

Maybe More Than You Want to Know

The Soap Process

My soap process is pretty simple—a stainless steel drum over an outdoor fire. The plant oils go in, along with water and potash to saponify them into the golden soap. I have a skid steer that moves the 500 lb kettle on the fire, off the fire, and into my shop. Next, I Stir, stir, stir, stir. Then put the hot soap through a cheesecloth, let it rest and cure in a new drum for a few days and balance the pH with food grade citric acid.

When the soap order comes in, I mix in the essential oils and ground guar bean gum for extra hair and coat softness in case it’s cleaning a dog or horse. My 1983 Isuzu truck and I make local deliveries. Sometimes my grandchildren like to help. We pack shipments of small bottles, pails, drums to my small group of customers and businesses across the US.

Coming Soon

The Journey in Pictures and Old Press

Here are some pieces of the story: