Soapmaking with Ellen April Handcrafted Soap

By Eve Donnelly

For my artisan internship, I worked with Ellen Watson, a woman who started a small business of making luxurious handmade soaps. She works out of the workshop that she and her husband Dave built in the garage of their beautiful house. The name of her business is Ellen April Handcrafted Soap.

When Ellen first began to make soap, she did a lot of research. It was almost one year before she made her first batch. She has now been making soap for nine years. She sells her soaps and other products (lip balms, creams, body and room sprays) at local farmers markets (including the Phoenixville Farmers' Market) and ships packages out as well. She is as green as possible in her business by using recyclable and reusable bottles, recycled paper bags, reusable liners for the soap mold, and soy ink for her business cards. She also uses wind power throughout her house and in her workshop.

DAY 1

Today was the first day of my internship. It was so much fun! In the morning we measured oils in preparation for making soap. We used soft oils (i.e. olive oil) and hard oils (i.e. coconut oil). Ellen uses the cold process to make soap using colds oils and cold lye water (which was made ahead of time). I learned that in the winter time when she goes to market, all of her soaps are wrapped by hand. In the summer they are put into bags with labels. After measuring oils, I labeled these bags while Ellen created the different labels on her computer. After lunch, we began to make soap. We made three batches: buttermilk honey, snow on cedar and a trial batch of orange. She seems to have hundreds of essential oils of every scent and lots of clays and oxides for coloring the soap. We mixed all of the oils together and then she added the lye water. As soon as she put it in the mixture, I noticed that the bottom began to appear milky. We added the essential oils which reacted with the lye water and sped up the process of the soap thickening. You will know the soap is ready to be poured into the mold when you dribble some of the mixture over the rest and it stays on top of it like a little ridge. This is called the trace. Next, Ellen poured the soap into the mold and we covered it. The soap has to sit for a while to go through the process of saponification, so after we had finished making the soaps and cleaned up, I made lavender bags that you can put in with your clothes in the dryer while Ellen input data into the computer and answered orders.