Welcome!
Welcome to Down the Mountain soaps located in Central Montana! I'm Roxy and I make handcrafted soap from scratch. My soap is made with oils like olive and coconut. When combined with lye, the two go through a chemical reaction that turns it all to soap!
Right now I sell my salt soap locally at our family run motel, The Alberta Motel in Great Falls, MT. I do not ship, but if you're near Great Falls and want to try to set something up you can email me at [email protected] and we can try to figure something out.
I hope to sell over the internet one day so please, keep checking back!
Right now I sell my salt soap locally at our family run motel, The Alberta Motel in Great Falls, MT. I do not ship, but if you're near Great Falls and want to try to set something up you can email me at [email protected] and we can try to figure something out.
I hope to sell over the internet one day so please, keep checking back!
A little about me and my soaps
I started making soap a little over a year ago when I realized that all my crafts and hobbies seemed too frivolous for my lifestyle. I was just discovering my love of the country (being newlywed to a country boy can do that to a girl!) and found myself becoming a very practical woman. Soap making allowed me to do something fun and creative while having the end product be something useful AND luxurious. I hope you'll think so, too
All my soap is made in small batches with love and passion. The scents are carefully chosen by my ol' sniffer and my recipes are simple yet effective, allowing you to have a wonderful soapy experience without the sticker shock.
All my soap is made in small batches with love and passion. The scents are carefully chosen by my ol' sniffer and my recipes are simple yet effective, allowing you to have a wonderful soapy experience without the sticker shock.
Let me tell you a story...
In the days of the pioneers, soap was a task. It took time to create the lye from wood ash, render the fat from the animals and when you finally combined them together, the transformation from lye and fat to soap took hours of cooking and stirring.
Since not much was known about the chemistry behind soap back then once it was made it was very possible for the soap to turn out lye heavy. This means that there was more lye then needed to transform the fat into soap. This in turn causes the soap to be harsh since lye is very caustic when it hasn't changed chemically. Some of you may even know what washing with soap like that can feel like, ouch!
So now that you're completely freaked out about using handmade soap, let me try to persuade you otherwise. :) Science has become so much better that the mysteries behind soap are all but washed away, along with a lot of the work involved. Now there are formulas that soap makers have that tell us just the right amount of lye to use for any given recipe to make a gentle and cleansing bar of soap.
The time it takes to make a batch has been reduced too! This allows soap makers to be more creative and come up with just the right recipe to suit the needs of those who use it. This is great because it gives us so many options to choose from. With so much variety, you can be sure to find just the right soap to fit your needs.
Since not much was known about the chemistry behind soap back then once it was made it was very possible for the soap to turn out lye heavy. This means that there was more lye then needed to transform the fat into soap. This in turn causes the soap to be harsh since lye is very caustic when it hasn't changed chemically. Some of you may even know what washing with soap like that can feel like, ouch!
So now that you're completely freaked out about using handmade soap, let me try to persuade you otherwise. :) Science has become so much better that the mysteries behind soap are all but washed away, along with a lot of the work involved. Now there are formulas that soap makers have that tell us just the right amount of lye to use for any given recipe to make a gentle and cleansing bar of soap.
The time it takes to make a batch has been reduced too! This allows soap makers to be more creative and come up with just the right recipe to suit the needs of those who use it. This is great because it gives us so many options to choose from. With so much variety, you can be sure to find just the right soap to fit your needs.