The heart and soul of my recipe.

Click on the ingredient picture below for more information provided by our suppliers. And if you want some research and science on these ingredients and components used topically on the skin of humans and hounds, and even horses, check out the database of PubMed.gov clinical studies. Then you can type in the search bar for certain ingredients.

My “cooking” process

After filling my 500 lb stainless steel kettle with plant oils and glycerin, I move it from my small soap shop to the fire. Temp has to get the oils to 140F and then off the fire and back to the shop. Next, I add the potash (lye water) to the plant oils and get the temp up to about 210F. After LOTS of stirring in the evening and during the night, by the next day the gold mixture is saponified into castile soap. Then it rests and cures for several weeks. I check the pH for balance, strain the soap through a cheese cloth, and add essential oils. With the help of my Bobcat skid steer and a drum hoist, I’m able to do most of the soap making by myself.

I hand pour the bottles, add the dispenser tops, and my big laser printer spits out the hand-applied labels. I do have large filling equipment, but since I’ve pulled out of Whole Foods, Amazon, and chain stores, I can take care of my current customers without it. At one point, my business plan was to “Go big or go home.” Going bit, too much money went out the door to make the big stores happy with free samples, weekends traveling to do store demos, plane hopping to give training sessions to sales teams, traveling across the country to get “big” accounts, shipping sales kits to regional distributors, and costly entrance fees and bilingual labels to sell into Canada.

Every dime went back into the company to make it “grow.” And I wasn’t getting much time with my grandchildren.

Unsustainable.

So I went home, back to my small soap shop, and I now take care of my customers myself. Yes, some customers were disappointed that they couldn’t get WARHORSE shipped out on Amazon Prime, along with their other items. But people can still find it.

Life is better.

Sometimes the grandchildren help stir the kettle, write thank you notes, and get to bottle and label golden bottles of glorious soap to give to their teachers and friends.

Yes, my little WARHORSE soap company has many less customers, but life is indeed better.