I have been formulating bath and body care products since 2015. My first attempt at creating bath products in my own kitchen came about leading up to Christmas of 2015. I was teaching high school chemistry at the time, and my search for something I could make for my friends and family led me to the humble toilet fizzie. Convinced I could create something that both cleaned and freshened the room, I made and tested batch after batch until Christmas was only days away. I frantically packed up my ugly lumpy smelly clumps into dollar store jars and inwardly cringed when I handed them out at the big family party. To my great relief (surprise?), the family used them, loved them, and asked me for more!

This was the start of my love affair with making bath and body products. I was driven to analyze the ingredients of every label of every product I bought, tried or heard about! I researched and tested – both at home and in my school chemistry lab – and lured my students into being guinea pigs for everything from zit creams to bath bombs to leave-in conditioners. They learned to love (pretended to love?) Fragrance Oil Survey days, where I would pass around all the sample bottles I had picked up from different suppliers. Clipboard in hand, I’d get them to rate each one so I could figure out what my growing customer base would like the best. They never held back, and they cheered on every single weird thing I created.

Eventually I found Susan Barclay of Swift Crafty Monkey, whose expertise and exceptional content led me to formulate safer and more effective products. Her blog articles and books broadened my understanding of ingredient options, and my creations became more exotic and wonderful. Along the way I found cold process soap making, and started participating in Amy Warden’s Soap Challenge Club. Inevitably, all this activity meant I outgrew the kitchen, and I gleefully built my dream workshop! These days the excessive Bio-glitter and minty herbal fragrance oils are no bother to anyone. Stockpiling products for a show or event is a joy instead of a logistics nightmare, and now I get to dream up and produce new formulations to my heart’s content!