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How to use and store your Good Soap Solid Deodorants

Hello! 

I just wanted to write a little piece as a review and reflection of The Good Soap through 2019. Myself more than anyone is still amazed and constantly delighted and excited about the success of the business. The more customers fall in love with our products the more products we sell - and each product sold means one less plastic bottle in the system.

Over this last year also, as well as helping to reduce plastic waste it seems that we have helped many many people improve the condition of their skin - we never make fancy claims about our products but it seems using good raw ingredients, with no added chemicals has a mighty benefit on skin health and this has been confirmed to me by literally hundreds of inbox messages I've had along with comments on posts and reviews on our facebook page. This makes me extremely happy.

I started selling The Good Soap products, beginning just with soap / shampoo bars in September 2018, and in January 2019 I launched our deodorant bars, this was quite nerve wracking as up to this point I'd only been making soap and a totally new product was quite a risk but it was very well received and we've not looked back. January also saw the launch of our shaving soaps and salt soaps.

I started 2019 by still wrapping parcels on my dining room table, the business was expanding and taking over the house and so in February I made the decision to have a workshop built in my back garden. I'm lucky enough to have the free space, shared with my 4 chickens and Ruby the dog. In February I launched my website, built by my own fair hands (a woman of many talents!) and sales started increasing due to more visibility. February also saw the launch of our solid moisturisers, again my own recipe and a nerve wracking experience until I knew that customers loved them.

In March my sister Gemma joined me on a regular basis to help wrap my ever expanding orders.

May bought the opening of our local Zero Waste shop, the only one in our local area, and The Good Soap was, and still is, one of the suppliers - we are proud to have pride of place on the shop counter. May also bought the design of our beautiful logo, designed by my very talented graphic designer friend. Also during May my best pal Michelle started helping me wrap parcels as I was getting to a stage where I could barely keep up so really from that point Michelle was on board as a team member, casual to begin with until making things official in the summer. Mum too joined in with the wrapping. The team was growing!

At the beginning of June we launched our new branding and packaging which I designed alongside Rachel, the super talented graphic designer. The new packaging was very well received by the public which pleased me, also it was much quicker to use than the tissue paper we had been using up to that point.

By July I'd taken to drinking gin in the garden, ha only joking.....In July we began posting out in our cardboard boxes, saving us time and allowing us to give up the plastic tape - hence we were now 100% plastic free - Yey! We worked hard through the summer and I began to teach Michelle to make the products, if I'm quite honest I was struggling to keep up with demand being the only person making them. I'd got to a stage where I felt I was a little on a treadmill, I was working 7 days and making hundreds of products alone, waking up in the morning unable to stop until I'd produced enough. Michelle learning to make these took so much work off my shoulders.

Behind the scenes I was making new recipes for items I knew I wanted to launch, so making my recipes, testing my recipes then submitting them for cosmetic safety testing so they were ready for us to start making to launch to the public on the 1st October. This added Moisturising Skin Balms, Lip Balms, Pumice Soaps and 5 new soap flavours to our range. The launch was a huge success even though once again I was nervous of public reaction - again when the feedback started coming in I was very relieved and excited. In October too we had to move indoors to work, to a room in the house, it was getting too cold in the workshop - my dad did an amazing job getting the room ready for us, decorating it and building us custom designed shelving for curing the soaps.

And then the next stage of the year was towards Christmas, with Christmas products galore, Christmas photo sessions with our products, often placed in the Christmas tree or on my green velvet coat! One of my favourite jobs is taking product photos. With Christmas stalls, including one in Debenhams added to our usual work, December has been manic, and fun, and crazy and tiring! And where would I be without Michelle and Gemma, and without mum crocheting away our cotton items behind the scenes? I would not have been able to do all of this without the back up of my amazing team and I'm so grateful to them.

I could write so much more, it really has been a crazy ride - however, I don't want to bore anyone. All that is left to say is thank you to each and every person who has either bought a Good Soap product, or shared our posts, or commented on our page - we appreciate every single interaction. And each and every one of us is playing our part to help our one beautiful world. Here is to 2020 - and more of the same, and new products for you.

Lots of love from Dawn xx

What is a shampoo bar?

• one type contains sulphates and silicones, which cleanse and coat the hair by chemical method
• and the second type is a chemical free shampoo bar which cleanses like soap

This article is to explain about the 'base' of the shampoo bars rather than any specific additions such as essential oils, milks, clays etc to the bars, I will write an article about those down the line. 

The Good Soap shampoo bars are a 'soap based' shampoo, with a slight alkalinity. They do not contain sulphates or silicones. If you are looking for a natural and additive free, environmentally friendly way to wash your hair then these are a great option. For a few they can take some adjustment, you are basically training your hair to stand on it's own two feet. They suit many people but not all and like any product sometimes it can be a process of trail and error. See here for more details on how to wash your hair with a shampoo bar. 

The base oils in The Good Soap shampoo bars have all been chosen and finely balanced for a particular purpose, and have each been chosen specifically to care for hair as well as skin, so they are formulated to be more than just an ordinary off the shelf soap bar. You will notice that they don't leave skin tight or dry, including facial skin, and this is because of the balance of moisturising oils chosen to make it suitable as a shampoo bar too, to take care of hair and scalp as well as skin. The Good Soap bars also have a natural air curing time, and don't contain hardening agents like some soap bars. 

Briefly my shampoo bar base oils are chosen for:

• Olive Oil - the fatty acids coat each hair and seal in moisture, adds softness to hair. Helps a dry scalp
• Coconut Oil is the most cleansing of all of the oils and helps remove dead skin cells, and dirt from the scalp and hair. Full of fatty acids it is essential in a natural soap / shampoo bar for forming lather and moisturising the hair
• Sunflower Oil is high is oliec acid and vitamins and helps with conditioning. Makes a nice lather in the bar with small bubbles
• Rice Bran Oil hardens the bar naturally and adds a creaminess to the shampoo
• Castor Oil is a humectant so retains moisture in the hair, I use it in the shampoo bars as the main conditioning element. The thick oil makes a creamy lather. 
• In the Shea Butter bar the butter contains linolenic acid with is highly effective for moisturising dry hair
• In the Cocoa Butter bar the butter is not only moisturising but it is also good for scalp conditions that can cause dandruff

So hopefully you can see that The Good Soap bars are more than just a good bar of soap, they are designed for a purpose, to make a shampoo bar with many elements to care for and nourish your hair - without the need for plastic bottles and packages. They are designed to be kind to you and to be kind to our planet <3 

Dawn Rhodes

www.the-good-soap.co.uk

Hello! I thought you may like to learn a little more about us here at The Good Soap, just for a bit of fun.

The boss is Ruby - a 6 year old Beagle / Jack Russell. She pretty much runs the show and certainly sets the schedule around her mealtimes and walk times! Ruby is greedy, determined and extremely loving and funny.

Boss number two is me, Dawn, who at the age of 46 had a bright idea to teach myself to make my own soap. I, like many people had watched the Blue Planet series, and watched David Attenborough explain the dire situation in our oceans I and felt truly heartbroken to see the impact, so decided to start with myself and my family and replace our bottles in the bathroom with bars of soaps. So I began to teach myself. Now I've always loved making and baking and so it truly was and still is a pleasurable and fun experience to play in my kitchen and experiment. 

In my past I had training in skin care, how to safely use essential oils and base oils and what to use them for. Also although I am not a hairdresser I had owned and managed a hair salon where I spent my days absorbing information about hair care. I have also always had a passion for a bit of business, coming from a family of entrepreneurs and self employment. Long story short (I always have to cut my stories short or we'll be here all day!) people wanted to buy my soap and so I started selling it. I then looked at other products where I could eliminate plastic and came up with my own recipes for deodorants, moisturisers, dog soap etc. After 6 months of selling online I had to have a workshop built in my back garden, I'm lucky to have the space in my garden because we literally were getting buried in soap in the house. 

After a while I had to have a helper and I recruited my little sister Gemma. Gemma already runs her own busy dog walking business here in North Wales called Waggin' and Walkin' and so in between her doggie clients she started wrapping parcels for me when I was getting swamped! She has had a go of making soap and various products with me and enjoys it. We've always been best pals as well as sisters so we truly love working together. Or at least I think she likes it here.....

Helper number 2 is Michelle, and Michelle and I have been friends since 1st year of primary school. We went through school together, bought our kids up alongside each other and have supported each other through all of the highs and lows of life. Michelle is a hairdresser by trade. We worked together moons ago when I bought my hair salon and she was my chief and very talented hair stylist. In an interesting twist to our story Michelle ended up buying the hair salon from me and running it herself. A few years later she joins my Good Soap story by starting to help me out, as a friend, by wrapping parcels. After a while of her working for free for friendship I offered her a job and she agreed to join me, and train to make the products and so over the last few months I have taught her how to make soap and all of the other items and she assists in most aspects of the business by making, wrapping, labelling, tidying and anything else I need!

Last but not least is Jan, my lovely mum. Mum has always been super talented at making items, and so is in charge of our crochet items and keeping those stocked up - along with doing a parcelling shift once a week and extra when required.

It's wonderful for me to not only work with my sister, my best friend and my mum but to also be able to share my business space, home space and crazy plans with people I trust 110%