Sweet smelling soaps | Written by Elke Finley
Have you noticed the Piggy Soap bars that are for sale at the Coop? The beautiful wooden display, featuring six different soap bars, is located in the consignment area of the store. Two of the bars can also be found in the soap section in the middle aisle.
Introducing the maker: Co-op member, Alanah Caron! Alanah and her family have been living on Cortes Island for ten years now. She started experimenting with making soap about a year and a half ago. When asked how the idea of making soap developed, she explained that they were raising pigs and had all this extra fat. She wanted to find a good use for it and started reading about making soap with lard. Never having made soap before, Alanah learned about the process of rendering the fat to turn it into pure lard, so it could be used for soap making. Then, she learned the process of making soap using lard, experimenting till she was happy with the finished product. She had her new product on the shelves for sale at the Coop before the summer started.
According to Alanah’s research, lard soap in particular is very moisturizing and is a soft gentle soap. She uses about 75 percent lard, 20 percent coconut oil and 5 percent castor oil. She adds different essential oils for the scent. She enjoys trying out different combinations and said, laughingly, that when she wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep, she thinks about which scents would make a nice soap.
These six bars are currently available:
Lavender
Peppermint & Green Clay
Gardener’s Coffee Orange
Green Tea & Lemon
Cortes Forest
The Sea Shampoo & Body Bar
Alanah is also excited about working on creating a hand-wash laundry bar for gentle wool fine-wash. Lard pulls hardly any oil from wool.
Currently, Piggy soap bars are sold by weight and are $6.25 per 100g. For now they are only available at the Coop, but Alanah is planning to attend some of the winter markets and get them into other stores as well.
Next time you are in the store, check out these unique soaps made with love.
