“Do you make cheese?” This is THE question people ask when they find out we have a diary goat farm and when we tell them no (at least not to sell), that we make goat milk soap they generally look at us puzzled. No one can seem to understand why we would rather make soap than delicious goat cheese. Well there are a number of reasons we made this decision:
- Creativity – Kevin and I are both artists. In fact, we met while attending VCU School of the Arts, where we were both working towards photography degrees. While I am sure there are plenty of creative things that you can do with cheeses we felt that soap would really allow our creativity to shine. The possibilities are endless and we would be able to expand the business into a huge assortment of natural body care products.
- Soap’s lifespan – Our goal is for our farm to help financially support us throughout the year. Soap lasts a long time and you don’t have to worry about short expiration dates. This way we can sell at the same pace year round and if we don’t sell all of our product at a market one week it can go with us to the market the next. At some point we will have the breeding staggered to the point where we are never without fresh milk, but until that happens we can still run our business even when our girls are near the end of their pregnancies and not milking because the milk is frozen and the soap lasts.
- Our commitment to natural and raw – It’s easy to have our soaps natural and raw. We use raw milk, we use essential oils never synthetic fragrances, and we never use artificial dyes. With cheese it’s a little harder. Unless your cheese is aged a certain number of days you are not allowed to use raw milk, so any soft cheeses have to be made with pasteurized milk. We are passionate about raw milk around here and have no desire to pasteurize.
- Facilities – The soap making requires pretty minimal facilities. To have a true dairy operation you have to have specific facilities and go through a process of inspections. While I don’t have a problem going through the hoops needed to make our business legit, the costs of building the cheese facilities is no where in our budget… especially an aging room.
- Product Quality – After using our soap you will understand. Goat milk soap is superior. We are proud to have the opportunity to make such an awesome product.
- Passion – Kevin and I both are very visually driven. We are extremely excited about making beautiful soaps, packaging, etc, and while we consider ourselves foodies and are very passionate about eating healthy and well, we don’t have a passion for cheese. I could sit and look through soap recipes, read books about soap, and browse images of beautiful soap on Pinterest all day long.
Soapmaking is just a better fit for our family, lifestyle, and personalities. I hope that after using our soap people understand why we are so passionate about it!
The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com
