It's no lye...organic soap is sud-sational!

Author: Tamara Hilmes

Larry Plesent was trying to earn some money for college by washing windows when he noticed that the soap he was using was giving him an unseemly rash. He experimented with a variety of soaps, but the itchy, red patches persisted. Sick and tired of irritated skin that made squeegee-holding most unpleasant, Plesent came to a decision: he decided to make his own soap.

What started as Plesent brewing up various concoctions of lye and acids in his kitchen quickly grew into Vermont Soapworks, an organic soap factory and retail outlet located on Exchange Street just across from Otter Creek Brewery.

"Larry had skin issues," said Manager Bill Huntington of the factory's founder and president. "He would get a rash due to chemicals in soap, so he just started to experiment with organic formulas."

Plesent was far from alone in his struggle with toiletries.

"What most people do not realize is that 10-25 percent of people are allergic to chemical soaps," said Huntington. "Using chemical soap is basically like washing your skin with antifreeze≠≠≠-we just want to go back to the old-fashioned way of making soap."

Vermont Soapworks uses only organic and all-natural ingredients to make both their bar and castile, or liquid, soaps. Using a variety of oils including coconut, olive and palm, as well as other natural products, the factory manages to produce soap that is vegetable-based and not tested on animals.

All of the factory's organic ingredients are mixed together in a large metal vat in the first stage of the soap-making process.

"The liquid soap is mixed in our humongous tank," said Huntington. "It can hold up to 36 50-gallon drums of soap at one time."

After the soap is mixed together in the large vat, the solution has to mix and cook for one week.

"It is just like any recipe," Huntington explained. "It is based mostly on time and temperature. The trick is getting the acids to mix with the alkalis, but we use lye as a catalyst which gets them to mix."

According to Huntington, this process, known as saponification, is just the first step in the factory's process. After mixing for a week, the soap has to settle for an additional week, after which the waxy oils that have risen to the surface are vacuumed off. Once the oils are removed, the batch of soap is separated into smaller tanks where different essential oils are added to create the various products that the factory offers. In the last step of the process, the soap is siphoned into bottles and packaged up, ready to ship or sell.

"We do it all here," Huntington said. "We use a rubber hose and pour the liquid into bottles and then we label them and put them into boxes."

With only 25 people employed at the factory, and only 10 of those on the production team, the factory has its work cut out for it.

"If kids at the College are not doing anything, they should come down and help us out," joked Huntington.

The factory workers not only produce bottle upon bottle of the company's popular "Liquid Sunshine," but they also make good old-fashioned bar soap as well. What appears to be large mixers full of vanilla pudding is actually the bar soap in its initial state. After the soap is cooked, which usually takes one day's time, essential oils, such as peppermint or lavender, are added and the soap is poured into molds.

"We make our block soap with what is called a 'cold process,'" Huntington explained. "The soap has to lose moisture throughout the process in order to become solid bars."

Huntington went on to explain that through this process, the glycerin that is removed from the soap is eventually added back in, allowing the soap to retain moisturizing ingredients and making the final product gentler on skin.

"A lot of the more commercial products are made using a faster, more efficient way that involves heated rollers," said Huntington. "The soap loses a lot of moisture through this process which creates a really hard bar."

Although with the factory's method, the soap has to sit on racks≠≠-like loaves of bread at a bakery-in a temperature-controlled room for up to six weeks, the extra time and effort pay off in the end.

"With our soap we do a lot of custom blend work and we do everything by hand," Huntington said. "With a lot of commercial soaps you do not get that."

Once both the bar and liquid soaps are put in their packages, the hand-made soap is shipped to outlets across the nation and even worldwide.

"We are actually really big in Japan," Huntington said. "At one time, it was actually easier to get Liquid Sunshine in Japan than in Burlington."

Liquid Sunshine, an all-purpose cleaner made from a blend of citrus and tea tree oils, can be used for anything from cleaning your toilet to your hands and is just one of the many all-natural products offered by Vermont Soapworks. Some of their newest products include a new line of pet shampoo and even Yoga Mat Wash.

"A lot of people have been getting foot fungus from their exercise mats," said Huntington. "As yoga's popularity has grown, so has the amount of bacteria. Yoga mats are just one of the niche markets that we specialize in."

The retail outlet attached to the factory also offers foaming hand-soap that has been featured in Quick and Simple Magazine, as well as Sudzy Putty, soap that has been put through a meat-grinder to give it a Play-doh-like consistency. For those who prefer their soap the old-fashioned way, the store offers all of their standard bar soaps and even some special blends that cannot be found at other stores.

"In the factory store we sell overruns, experiments and different scents that are not available online or in outlets," said Huntington.

"We do not have very much uniformity here," he continued, "but we do offer handmade soap at a reasonable price."