The Story of Summit Soapworks

I had an opportunity this week to participate in a marketing event at the Vermont Welcome Center in Fair Haven. It was asked that I send some background about me and my "story" and in writing it up I realized that many of my regular customers, those I've known for years, probably aren't aware of my story either so I thought I'd share it here:

The Story of Summit Soapworks

My search for simple, natural products led to the creation of Summit Soapworks Herbal Soaps in my Mt. Holly, Vermont kitchen, in the spring of 2000. Finding myself allergic to commercial soap products that caused me to break out I began making soap. Armed with an old soapmaking book, pot, wooden spoon and my very first soap mold - a recycled milk carton, I was on my way to making the first of thousands of beautiful, creamy, moisturizing soaps! Thank goodness that my father took pity on me and built some real wooden molds, which are still used today. I then traveled around to craft shows in the Northeast, peddling soaps and very often sleeping in the back of my pickup truck, cooking over fires, at many different campgrounds.

In the summer of 2001 Summit Soapworks moved to Ludlow, in a trailer I rented on Pond Street, divided between the soap business and my living quarters. A little cramped and you can guess that I sat in the living room surrounded by bars of drying soap. In the fall of 2002, running out of room again, I moved the soap business into my friend’s basement (the Goodman family of Goodman’s American Pie - next door) and existed there until my husband and I purchased our home in Cavendish, off of 20 mile stream Road. Again I moved into a basement and again ran out of space so Summit Soapworks has come back to Ludlow on Main Street.

Thousands and thousands of Summit Soapworks soaps and other bath products have been made by hand. And hundreds of craft shows in the Northeast have been participated in, with two new members of our family added along the way. And still, today and everyday, I am honored and thrilled that other folks have enjoyed my soaps and found relief for their own sensitive skin. I always welcome suggestions for new scents - some of my favorites were suggestions from clients and friends. And, if you ask my husband he'll tell you, I love to visit with folks so please feel free to stop by at the shop or craft shows and say “hey“. Our soaps are very special to us because they connect and bridge us to nature and a more simple lifestyle, before chemicals and preservatives were used to alter products and shelf-life. I hope that you feel this same connection and enjoy our soaps!

Thanks for visiting!

Ludlow's Big Buddy Program and Summit Soapworks

My store shares a building with Ludlow's Big Buddy Program, a local program similar to the Big Brother, Big Sister program. Before the holidays about 12 teenager came by the shop & we did a class on salt scrubs so that they could make presents for the holidays.

Admittedly, I was scared to death of these children before they came to the shop. I am usually a relatively calm, confident woman, I have spoken publicly many times (even in front of angry taxpayers) but suddenly was transformed into this person who was thinking "well what if they don't want to do this", "what if they don't think this is fun or cool", yikes!

I was pleasantly surprised by this great group of kids. We had a fun (and messy) class and I think in the end they thought I was "cool" and they each went home with their own unique salt scrub. The following will be posted in our local paper this week:


The Ludlow Teen Center would like to thank Christine Balch at Summit Soapworks for her generosity and welcoming our Big Buddy group into her store. Christine took the time to show us some hands-on activities, making salt scrubs, that the group took home and gave to their families over the holiday's. Christine supplied materials, advisement, creativity, and her expertise inside the store located on 106 main st in Ludlow. The Big Buddy Program is through the Ludlow Teen Center, and organized by Gretchen and Jerry Tucker. The program matches elementary age youth with teenage mentors. The group actively engages in fund-raising to help support the adventures and activities in which the Big Buddy program participates with. Such activities have included:collecting and donating goods to the Springfield Humane Society- and a tour and visiting time with the animals. As well as a visit to the Eastwood animal Vet clinic in Rutland, Outdoor activities all season long (including, but not limited to,: hikes, sledding, snowboarding, swimming), visit to VINS, and local animal farms, baking for our future bake sale. At the end of our day we always retire with pizza from an area pizza shop, our Big Buddy tradition. The weekly outings keep everyone busy and engaged, and allows the big buddy group to participate in healthy activities. We are continuing to fund-raise to keep theprogram running, and we are always interested in volunteers to host an activities, as well as donations, made to the non-profit organization.

Next weekend, during Ludlow's Winter Carnival, Summit Soapworks will be hosting a fundraiser for the Big Buddy Program. 10% of store sales on January 30, 31st and Feb. 1st will be donated to the program. There will be Winter Carnival specials. Please stop by and support this great program.

My New Year's Resolutions

So in thinking about my New Year's resolution I've decided that I should keep my blog more up to date. Actually, I had narrowed my resolutions list down to lose 70 lbs, keep my checkbook up to date or write in my blog regularly and decided that the blog was by far the easiest and the one I might actually stick to, LOL! Seriously though in the craziness of the holiday season and with the new store and the maintaining of my part-time job and caring for my family my blog most definitely fell by the wayside.

I'll be finishing out my part-time accouting job in the next month or so and will be able to focus solely on my family and soap business. This was a very bittersweet decision for me as the folks that I have worked for are lovely and amazingly kind and generous people and have taught me a great deal about charity and giving. I went to work for them for one summer, when Claire was very little, and have stayed for three years.

The store has grown from my working studio with a few other friends selling their wares to a full blown crafts shop currently representing over 25 crafters/artisans and with more coming in the next few weeks. Here's one picture of the store, there are a few more on my website, www.summitsoapworks.com. We now have so many beautiful things including handpainted glassware, soy candles, jewelry, knitted items, handpainted wooden ornaments, children & baby gifts, photographs, needlefelted sculptures and wall hangings, quilted houseware items & wall hangings, quilted aprons & pot holders, floral watercolors by a very talented & lovely local woman and of course my best friend's fancy girl's tutus, they make me want to wear one! Over the February vacation I'm thinking of hosting a Fancy Nancy tea party so I may be found in one of those tutus!

Happy New Year to everyone and best wishes for a healthy & prosperous New Year!

Wow, I turned around yesterday and realized that summer is over. Fall is my favorite season of the year, I love the clear days, cool nights, apple picking and changing colors but it is bittersweet for me since summer here is so short. In our higher elevation leaves are starting to turn and fall.

Our garden proved a little less successful than we hoped for but we're newbies and learned much to implement next year. But we did have some HUGE zucchini, my husband made this amazing stuffed zucchini last night for dinner. I learned that you have to thin out your carrots.....LOL! Last weekend we hiked out in the woods and gathered blackberries with the girls, hard picking but made a great pie!

The Vermont Garlic Festival on Labor Day weekend was great! And yes, I tried the garlic ice cream and it was, in my opinion, awful! Yuck!

The girls & I are off to work at the store today. Things are starting to shape up and come together!

Summer Vacation & the Shop's Progress

We've just returned from our abbreviated summer vacation on Peddock's Island in Massachusetts. My in-laws have a cottage there and it's a 10 minute boat ride from where we met them in Quincy. The high mosquito count confined us indoors quite a bit but since our children are still small they are easily occupied and "mosquito hunter" was a popular game. Lucy was cutting yet another two teeth so was quite grumpy and Claire and I both had a 24 hour virus but overall we had fun. Our hosts put up with all of our chaos and fed us great meals to boot! Claire got to, I guess the right word is "pilot" the boat and so has been dubbed "Captain Claire". The island faces Boston which is of course very different from our view of the woods so looking at the city horizon and watching the planes in and out of Logan Airport was also a great and new experience for us. Admittedly, while I love to travel and see new places I am always eager to get home.

The store is progressing fantastically and quickly. I've finished painting (I would never hire myself to do that job!) and all soapmaking equipment has been moved down, hooked up and installed. I'll make soap for the first time there this Wednesday. I was open this weekend for Ludlow's Zucchini Festival and although everything is still quite bare bones many new faces stopped by to welcome and encourage me. I'm located next door to my best friends' pizza shop and so, while not good for the waistline, is great for my spirit as the Goodman clan are some of the most generous, helpful and positive people that walk the earth.

I'll be preparing for Vermont's Garlic Festival in Bennington on Labor Day weekend this week so will be busy brewing up lotions and potions!

The Soapmobile

After listening to the news there are alot of days when I'm not sure that the world has any good, selfless, giving people left. I think sometimes we all wonder that. Then I have a day like I had last Sunday and know that they are still out there all around us.

On my way home from the Shaker Village Craft Show in Albany my soapmobile (our 1999 Chevy Suburban) lost power in Hoosick Falls, NY. I limped it along into the Stewart's store and gas station, my regular half-way-to-Albany-refill-my-coffee stop, and then couldn't get it to start again. This had happened about a month ago in Ludlow and since it started up after sitting for about a 1/2 hour and giving it some dry gas, we weren't sure of the problem, except my husband guessed it might be that the gas gauge was broken so we've been watching it closely. I had plenty of gas this time so after a full day of battling rain and lots, and lots of gusty wind at Shaker Village, I was broken down an hour from home. Now, everyone who knows me knows that I am usually pretty upbeat but this was quite a blow, compounded by the fact that since cell phone service where we live in the sticks is non-existent and I ended our cell phone service 2 years ago, I didn't have a cell phone. Well, actually, that was a mutual agreement between myself and US Cellular after I got mad at them and ran my phone over with the soapmobile but that's another story for another day.

Anyway, so I called my husband from the pay phone (can you believe there was one?) and he packed up the girls and got on the road to retrieve me. When he got there with my two girls, we've been watching alot of "Rescue Heroes" lately so they proclaimed themselves to be my "Rescue Heroes", we still didn't have any luck getting it started. We were all tired, exhausted and frustrated and not knowing of any local towing companies or garages (this was 9pm by then with two very tired little rescue heroes). A very nice local man overheard us discussing what to do and stepped in, gave us the use of his cell phone and helped us to arrange for a tow on the following day. Thank you to him, I feel awful that in all of the chaos I never got your name and maybe by some remote chance you'll read this and know how appreciative we were for your help. And thanks to the folks at Stewarts, Clint, Jeff and Gordy, who were very patient with my questions and generously let us leave the soapmobile overnight until we could come back the next morning and deal with it, especially since they don't like to do that since so many people have left vehicles there, said they would be back and never showed again.

So my husband and I went back down to Hoosick Falls on Monday morning and of course the soapmobile started right back up, so crazy. Jaycob replaced the whole fuel pump system and hopefully the soapmobile is back in business. So thank you to my husband also, the most patient, wonderful man that I've ever encountered.

Thank you to everyone that stopped by to say hello at the Shaker Village Show and offered their well wishes for the new store. I always enjoy seeing everyone from year to year and that show is a great little show.

Plans are proceeding to move into the store on Main Street in the next two weeks. I'm painting display racks and gathering odds and ends for other display pieces. I'm also preparing for the next craft show, Art in Park, in Rutland Vermont in August, and oh yeah, getting a cell phone, LOL! My how summer flies by!

We're moving!

I have moved both myself and my business so many times that when we bought our home 4 years ago I said "That's it, never again!" Well, like so many things, I was wrong. Summit Soapworks is about to move to downtown Ludlow, next to Goodman's American Pie, on Main Street.

The move is going to happen in early August and offers so many pros & cons. I'm excited to have a real workshop but somewhat nervous. I'm planning on being open while I'm there, mostly Friday afternoon/evening and all day Saturday when I'm not at a show and Sundays during the winter. Ludlow is home to Okemo Mountain resort, home of great skiing, and so the winter months bring alot of weekend traffic. This space is in a building that was once both a church and then a movie theater so it's an interesting building with hardwood floors and high ceilings. I plan to put production in the back and sales in the front, hopefully with a wall and picture window between both areas so folks can see soapmaking in progress. I'd like to teach some classes and have some friends, herbalists and other crafters, teach some classes/workshops as well.

I'm excited to move out of my basement workshop or my "cave" as I call it. It seems that the days I have to be down there are the days that it is the nicest weather outside.....And our family is growing, (man these kids accumulate alot of stuff!), and the rest of our house is shrinking so it's time to move out.

Lots of changes and lots of work but in the end I hope it will give me more space to be creative or at least more organized!