Vendor Spotlight: Ellen April Handcrafted Soap

What would you like customers to know regarding your products?
We source our ingredients ethically. For example, we use palm oil in our soap because it creates a hard, long lasting bar that is mild and cleanses well. But when we heard about the threat to the orangutan due to the rapid loss of the fragile ecosystem of Malaysian rain forests, we made the decision to only purchase organic palm oil grown on sustainable plantations in South America. Yes, it costs more. But we care about the earth and strive to make our soap as earth-friendly as possible.

What type of ingredients are your handcrafted soaps made from?
Ellen April soap starts with the finest vegetable oils and luxury butters. It is scented with essential plant oils and colored with botanicals, beneficial clays and pure earth minerals. We're proud of these fine ingredients and list them on every bar we make.

How long does it take to make a batch of soap?  
This is the question we are asked most often. And it's the least straight forward to answer, because there are several steps in the soap making process, often spread out over several days.
 
1. Weigh liquid vegetable oils for each batch. Melt cocoa butter & coconut oil before adding them to the liquid oils.    
2.  Weigh essential oils and measure herbs, clays and colorants. 
3. Weigh liquid and lye and combine.   
4. Add lye mixture to oil mixture, blend and then add essential oils and colorants.   
5. Pour into molds and rest overnight.    
6. Next unmold, slice into logs, cut into bars and stack on trays.   
7. Cure soap on trays for one month before it is ready to bring to market.

Not counting the cure time, each batch takes approximately 3 hours to make.  

Do you have a website and/or Facebook page?  
Yes, we are excited to have a new website this year with a shopping cart and $6.00 flat rate shipping to anywhere in the continental US. Our website is ellenapril.com. We also have a Facebook page, but I must admit that I don't check in or update it as often as I should.