Chagrin Valley Soap

The Early Days

Natural Organic Goat Milk Oatmeal Soap Chagrin Valley's First SoapWe are often asked who we are and how Chagrin Valley Soap got started.

The story begins in 2001 when I decided to find an interesting hobby.

My husband Howard spent his weekends in his wood shop making furniture and lots of sawdust. I wanted to do something equally interesting and creative.

When I could drag my husband away from his tools, we went to weekend craft fairs where I saw many sellers of handmade soap. However, most of these soaps were still made with artificial colors and fragrances, which did not make sense to me. 

In my “prior lives” I was a registered nurse, earned a master’s degree in biology, minored in Chemistry and later, taught middle school science.

Making soap is all about science so I knew there had to be a way to make a lovely all-natural soap without artificial or synthetic ingredients that would be effective, safe and wonderful to use. I started researching the subject of “soap” and my hobby was born. I never dreamed that this “hobby” would become a business and my third career.

Howard made me a small wooden mold, I gathered some ingredients, appropriated my kitchen mixer, spatula, and pots, and began. We still laugh about how long it took and what a mess we made to create our first successful batch of soap - eight bars of Goat Milk and Oatmeal soap.

Then came a great discovery. After using this new soap for only two weeks my husband’s eczema disappeared. Now I knew I was on to something special.

Gaining Traction

With this success under my belt, I developed other natural soap recipes, continued the learning process, and made soap whenever I had time for the people I love! I was fascinated with the science of soapmaking.

Studying the chemistry of fats and oils, I learned how the variations in their fatty acid composition would result in soaps with different characteristics. It was quite exciting.

Our kitchen became overrun with soapmaking supplies to the chagrin of my husband who loves to cook. So he enclosed a porch under the deck of our home and the original “soap factory” was born.

In the summer of 2002, I took a course to learn about making a website to use with my science classes. For practice, I made a small website for the several soaps I was making and published it - just for fun and to see what would happen.

I got my first online order! By the summer, of 2003, we were getting several orders each week and our reputation for our quality and customer service was circulating around the internet.