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Scrub clean naturally
Theresa Seraphim
for Spotlight
The first thing one notices upon entering Blue Light’s kitchen is the smell – a refreshing aroma, somewhat like perfume but more subtle.
The reason soon becomes apparent when Light points out two big slats of soap – orange and patchouli – that she has just taken out of the mold and set out to cure on her kitchen table. These bars will soon be marketed under Light’s company, Driftpile Valley Soaps.
Light, who was originally named Ronda but chose the name Blue in her teenage years, has made soap for about 25 years, ever since her days of living on a Smith-area farm. Several years ago, Light, who now lives several kilometres south of Driftpile, decided to market what she made.
“I started doing this for me and my family (to) make a product we use, that we can feel good about,” says Light.
“I was a back-to-the-lander; I wanted to make everything from scratch and I still have a little bit of that spirit.”
For Light, the most significant part of soap making is that all the ingredients be natural.
“It’s important to me that I don’t have any chemicals in my soaps,” says Light.
To that end, the colours in her soaps come from various fruits and plants, such as annatto seeds and paprika, resulting in earth tones rather than brighter colours.
Light says the essential oils she puts in have several benefits.
“They have the healing properties of that plant,” she notes, adding they are also natural and smell good.
The process begins with Light lining the wooden soap mold with butcher paper. She then puts the ingredients into a pot and uses a stir blender to mix them until the substance traces, or is the consistency of liquid honey. The mixture is then poured into the mold.
“This has to cure before I sell it,” Light says. That means the mixture is covered in blankets and sits in the mold overnight, then is cut into 20 bars the next day and left for one to three months to shrink and become milder over time.
Light says the process is easy, and needs are few – a pot, the ingredients, a thermometer and a measuring scale.
Sometimes, she will go for a marbling effect by pouring some of the mixture into a measuring cup, adding cinnamon or another ingredient good for that, and pour it into the mold, marbling the entire mixture like a baker marbles a cake.
Light began selling her soap by attending the Enilda Farmers Market. Initially, she brought one kind to sell, then two.
“It just kept going from there,” she notes, adding she enjoyed the reactions of passersby.
“The whole time, people would go by and (say) mmmmm.”
Today, Light makes 20 different kinds of soap, handling each bar individually by putting a picture stamp on it.
Making soap can be unpredictable as well, however, she points out. Sometimes the soap doesn’t turn out well; Light does not sell those but uses them for washing dishes or clothes.
Also, Light keeps up with each type of soap and can’t always say when an order will come in.
“It’s hard to know sometimes how much soap to make because I have to do it so far ahead,” she points out.
“I like every aspect of (the process), especially taking it out of the mold.”
Besides bar soap, Light also makes lip balm, calendula ointment and, most recently, soap on a rope.
Her husband Real Gagnon helps her by making the crates in which the soaps are transported and sold. She says he uses lumber already cut from trees on their property and makes crates of various sizes and designs.
Light herself makes the labels for the soap on her computer.
“I’m still small enough I can do my own,” she says.
However, she does have plans to grow, and is in the process of designing a brochure and getting someone to design a web site for her.
For more information call 780-355-2181. Or visit Picture the Memories in High Prairie, or the Boreal Center in Slave Lake.
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These are some of the products Blue Light makes and sells. The crates, of various designs, are made by her husband, Real Gagnon. Her latest creation is soap-on-a-rope.
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Blue Light separates bars of soap after they have set. The bars will sit for one to three months to enable them to shrink to the right size and become milder.
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These orange and patchouli soap bars are just two of 20 kinds that Blue Light makes in her kitchen.
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