SPECIAL FEATURES
Sunday, April 17, 2005
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By Erin Morain
As a reference librarian, Jennifer Thompson became accustomed to requests for strange and unusual information, such as how to make paper out of straw. But a request by a library patron for a handmade soap recipe got her thinking.
“At first, I thought it was kind of a strange question, because why would you want to go make soap when you can just buy it so easily at the store?” she said.
That was in 1996. By 1999, Thompson had founded Two Rivers Soap Co. and was making varieties of soaps in her kitchen using a tried-and-true blend of oils and scents.
“I’ve tried other crafts like cross-stitch and embroidery, but I always quit after a few months,” she said. “But soapmaking is my passion.”
Until recently, Thompson split her time between a full-time job and soapmaking. But after losing her job two weeks ago, she decided to make Two Rivers Soap a full-time career, which she had pondered doing at some point in the future.
“I’m a little scared, but excited, too,” she said.
After spending six months perfecting her soap recipe, Thompson now spends two to three nights a week in her kitchen, which she calls a “microsoapery.” She heats and blends a mix of oils, fragrances, water and lye, which is then poured into molds and left to set overnight. After they solidify, the 12-pound batches are cut into 4-ounce bars and cured for several weeks.
Thompson has filled a spare bedroom in her house with her soaps, which she sells online and at the downtown farmers market, and through a few Greater Des Moines retailers. During the spring, she often makes soap five nights a week to prepare for the rush that comes with the farmer’s market. She recently sent a large supply of soaps to Phoenix to be included in gift baskets that were distributed at Celebrity Fight Night. She will soon begin to offer trunk shows at homes and businesses during the lunch hour.
Her stock of about 20 soap varieties includes Apples & Oats, Coconut Lemongrass, Green Tea & Aloe, Kadota Fig & Ginger, Oceania, Lily of the Valley, Riverwalk, Sunshine Vine (a gardener’s hand-scrub soap) and Garden Mint.
“I love experimenting with new scents,” Thompson said. “It’s hard for me to just stay with a stock number. I try to have about 10 core scents, and then I can play around with new things.”
She and other soapmakers pride themselves on using natural oils, each chosen for their individual attributes. Two Rivers’ soaps are made from rice bran, palm, palm kernel, coconut and avocado oils, as well as shea butter, essential oils and fragrance oils.
In recent years, Thompson has stretched her talents beyond bar soaps to create other body-care products, including foot butter, made of sugar butter, mango butter and cocoa butter; lip balm; loofah foot bars; sugar scrubs, a mixture of sugar and oil; and even a dog shampoo bar, Sir Richard’s Sham-pooch Bar. This summer, she plans to come out with a line of lotions.
She said her expansion into other products has been a natural one, though developing each product has been just as tricky as it was with her first batch of soap.
“I’ve always been interested in making my own things, so I just thought I’d try it, and I was successful,” Thompson said.
She said soapmaking as a part-time craft has taken off, particularly in the last three to four years. She speculated that hundreds if not thousands of people making soap nationwide.
With several friends in town who are also soapmakers, and a growing interest in the craft, she founded the Iowa Soapmakers Guild several years ago. The group, whose membership has grown from 30 to more than 100, gathers annually to discuss soapmaking, conduct demonstrations and swap products.
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