Our Journey To Soap Making – Part 1: How It All Started!

Soap Making:

So unlike many people, we did not start soap making due to skin issues. For example, allergies, dry skin, or atopic dermatitis. Our road to soaping happened a few years back in a very different way. 

Here is Part I of our story!

We are both nurses and pre-pandemic wanted to start exploring ways in which we could help support our fellow nurses. You see, unless you’re a nurse it’s hard to know what we go through everyday. Granted with COVID, it’s certainly made things much more interesting (if that’s the word), and difficult to say the least. Even beforehand, many nurses will tell you they love there job, and how rewarding it is, which is true. 

However, living a life everyday where you dedicate yourself to other people and seeing them (hopefully) get back on there feet, can be super stressful. Even if you don’t feel those stressors everyday, they are indeed there.

Now, this is not to say other jobs are not stressful, but most likely the stress is different then what we feel.
At the same time as we were brainstorming ideas, we started becoming more environmentally friendly yourselves. Furthermore, thinking about how we could help minimize ours and others carbon footprints in the would. However, we’ll get back to that later.

Spur-Of-The-Moment Idea:

An idea came along. Not what either one of us probably thought ever would. However, we started to think about making customized nurse themed bath bombs. Remember, we were tying to think of simple ways we could inject some fun and relaxation for our colleagues.

Not only are bath bombs really relaxing and stress relieving (which is our goal), but what a fun gift to give a nurse. In addition, what a fun thing for a nurse to buy for themselves. Sure you could go to many bath and beauty stores and buy a bath bomb. However, wouldn’t it be cool to choose from a wide variety of “nurse-themed” ones, that relate to what you do everyday!

So here our journey began. It all started with, that’s right, bath bombs! Low and behold this process turned into quite a big undertaking. As we set off it was important for us to create original bath bomb molds. Molds no one else had or was doing, quite like ours. Fast forward a few months. We were able to get in touch with someone to help us make such molds. After we had quite a nice collection of original ideas, we wanted to do more. This is where soaps came into the picture, and future business planning. 

Why Soap?

After we had a good head of steam going in the bath bomb direction, we started thinking what would a nurse appreciate. We are always educating about safety, like what to do and what not to do with your health. So we wanted something nurses could use healthy on their own bodies. Then we said to ourselves, everyday as nurses we finding ourselves in those “dirty” situations. We’re not only cleaning other people (blood, poop, dirt, and other types of drainage), but our skin and bodies take a beating.

Dry hands, constant sanitizing, sanitizing our already sanitized hands, chemicals for wiping off machines, hundreds of pairs of gloves a day. Yikes! Our poor skin!

So we thought, what if we made environmentally friendly, beautifully scented, easy on the skin, vegan soaps. Now being go-getters and fairly crafty individuals, this seemed like a fun idea. Of course we are not the only ones making soaps, or vegan soaps at that. With such a big push to go organic and vegan, we wanted people to know everything in our soaps is 100% skin safe and healthy.

We wanted those with “dirty jobs”, to those people with allergies, or sensitive skin, to be able to use our soaps without hesitation. 

Now if you’re a soaper out there or have ever gotten your hand into this business (hobby), it is not something you can half-A**. 

Soap Making Is A Freaking Science:

Soaping is something that takes lot’s of research, testing, dedication, formula creation, more testing, colorant exploration (mica’s, clay’s, oxides etc.), lye safety research, more testing, cold process vs. melt and pour vs. hot process soaps, understanding techniques like superfatting, water discounts, lye/water ratio, what is trace, fragrances, fragrance combinations, lye calculators, fragrance calculators, Phthalates, pricing, markets, displaying your soap, cleaning your soap, cutting your soap, and curing your soap. Oh wait….This is just the tip of the “iceberg”.

It’s literally a SCIENCE.

Probably the biggest hurdle is weeding through all the information out there on soap making! Shout out to places like Brambleberry, Tree Marie Soapworks, Moriver Soaps! Keep in mind, sometimes just finding that right person to watch, even if they are not tutorial’s, teaches you a bunch! It’s even better when you can tell they love doing it!

At this time, we decided this was something we really wanted to do. We wanted it to become something that we could not only tell our fellow nurses about to enjoy, but soaps anyone could enjoy. All the while keeping our nurses in the front of our minds. Everything we have done has been our own ideas. From the formulations of our soaps to the designs.

We wanted our soaps to be different. We wanted simplicity, but with our own creativity. This is where the hearts came into play, embedded in our soaps. Keep in mind for us, it was not at all easy to create.

Now we’re not the first ones to embed shapes into our soaps, but I don’t think you’ll find many people that not only have a design incorporated, but have that actually mimicking their logo.

So why us? 

Well, let’s be honest there’re a lot of people that make beautiful soaps. However, this is what you get with ours!

1. Our soaps are 100% vegan. From the fragrances, to the colorants, to all the oils we use!
2. Every batch of our soap is poured by us, here at RN to Zen. Hand-poured, and then set to cure. 
3. We follow all IFRA guidelines for fragrance usage rates!
4. The majority of our fragrances are blended with others to give them original scents and make you stand out from the crowd. This means testing, testing and more testing!
5. We strictly follow all manufactures guidelines for usage rates of colorants, fragrances or any other ingredient within our soaps!
6. Give a nurse a gift to say thanks! Ever have that one nurse you’ll never forget? Have a nurse that’s a friend on family member? Maybe think of her/him this day and make them smile with a unique design or gift they can relate too!

We’re proud of all that we’ve learned, and the process of getting to where we are.

Simple Design. Beautiful Soap. Not Easy To Execute. But Worth It!

Thanks for checking us out today, please be sure to leave us a comment or reach out to us if you have a questions, or just want to say hi!

Whether you choose us for your relaxation purposes, from our soaps, candles, to bath bombs, we wish you and your families a safe and happy 2022!