Pros: Beautiful handmade soaps with extraordinary scents; a company with character and personality
Cons: Leave some extra time when you order
Rating: 5 out of 5
Visit Soapier online
Soapier.com is a small family-run operation that makes handmade soaps—beautiful, lovely handmade soaps. I found them when a member of the family posted about it on Reddit, and they went on to be “adopted” by the Reddit community. Although that might seem odd, a handmade soap company getting adopted by a geeky, largely-male online community, it was a surprisingly good match. The family in question is sweet, friendly, and has a good sense of humor. They’re happy to listen to their customers and take suggestions. (Case in point: thanks to Reddit Soapier ended up creating bacon-scented soap, which was a huge hit!)
This summer, they announced they were planning to close down. The woman who did most of the work was ailing, and although business had been wonderful, it was just too much for her. As much as I didn’t want to lose access to their unique and wonderful products, I certainly empathized and understood. But then an awesome thing happened. Another member of the family, after much soul-searching, decided to move to Florida and take over the family business. Yay!
Now, let’s get this straight: I never thought of myself as a scented soaps type of person. In fact, distinctly the opposite: perfumy scents tend to aggravate my allergies and asthma, so I always avoided scented things. Their products intrigued me, however, so I decided it was worth a try—and I was surprised. While the scents are definitely strong enough to enjoy, many of them aren’t what I think of as “perfumy.” They just smell… good. Soapier’s people seem to have a knack for choosing scents that are pleasant without being overwhelming. And as time has gone on and they’ve come up with more products aimed at the new crowd they’re attracting, I’ve been finding more and more to enjoy.
Take, for example, their kitchen soap. It looks kind of like a black hockey puck, but don’t be fooled. It smells like delicious mocha, and has real coffee grounds in it to scrub odors from your hands. I’ve found it even works when I’ve been cleaning up cat barf, which is pretty impressive.
My absolute favorite Soapier soap so far is their S’mores soap—chocolate, marshmallow, and graham, all in one bar! You’ll find yourself smiling through your whole shower. The cake batter soap is similarly amazing, and it makes simply walking into your bathroom a pleasant experience.
While I definitely enjoy slightly more traditional scents (amber goat’s milk is quite nice, as well as peppermint goat’s milk, Arabian Nights, etc.), I have to admit to being incredibly partial to Soapier’s smells-so-yummy-you’ll-wish-they-were-edible soaps. They have a “pink sugar” (cotton candy) soap that makes my mouth water; same with their coconut. And not only do the soaps smell delicious, but they’re beautiful too! The colors and designs are just lovely, and will cheer up any bathroom. They’re perfect gift items. The regular-size bars are a generous 6 oz, so you can even slice them into halves or thirds and share them between bathrooms.
Or, and this is my trick right now, slice them up and share with a friend—because otherwise, you’ll end up buying far more soaps than you could possibly work your way through, just because they sound so damn yummy!
Do note that Soapier makes the soaps to order, and so it usually takes some time to get your soaps—don’t place your order at the last minute. They just put up their holiday soaps for this year, including some stunning sample gift baskets (I don’t care that I’m not a kid—I’m SO getting the “sugar rush” basket!), and I’ve already placed my holiday order (think of it more like a pre-order—they’ll ship closer to the holidays). They’ve also just instituted a soap-of-the-month club, in limited supply, in 3-, 6-, or 12-month lengths. Note that while a limited selection of their items are available through Amazon, your best bet is to go directly to the company’s web site.
As a sort of thank-you to the Reddit community for all their early help, Soapier sometimes holds fund-raisers by donating a portion of the funds from certain sales to a cause close to Reddit’s heart. They do this in a very smart way—by denoting specific bars whose purchase price will support that cause, which means that if you don’t agree with whatever cause it is, you can simply avoid purchasing those bars (much better than most companies, which simply donate money behind the scenes and you have no control over where your dollars go).
Think of Soapier as the handmade soap company for the rest of us—and introduce yourself (or a friend) to some of their delightful products today!
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