Best. Soap. Ever.

Can I be a terrible, horrible person and remind you that it’s almost Halloween, which means it’s almost Thanksgiving, which means it’s almost Advent, which means you will soon be looking at the calendar in disbelief and realizing that you need small but thoughtful presents for any number of people, and you have no idea what to get them?

Be not afraid! (See what I did there, JPII?) Robin’s Soap is here.

You may remember Robin’s Soap Shoppe from my brief brush with glory, when I sang the definitive boozy mom version of “Let It Go” in ~~retaliation~~ gratitude for the wonderful fundraising you guys did, to help Robin’s business get off the ground.

You can read some background on Robin here. Synopsis: super hard-working single mom, proud Army vet, trying like hell to support herself despite having no car, an unstable living situation, and debilitating arthritis and chronic anxiety.

Lucky for you, she also makes magnificent soap.

A layered soap made with lavender buds, rose clay, kelp, coffee grounds, calendula, great for stubbornly dirty hands, scented with rosehips and jasmine. 100% naturally colored.

So if you want to help her and her sweet family out, it will be the lushest act of charity you’ve ever considered. And if you have no interest in supporting a nice lady and just want some wonderful soap, you’re still covered!

I’ve tried several varieties of Robin’s soap, and it is truly exceptional: dense, creamy, and fragrant, beautiful to look at, generously sized and heavy in the hand. They are easy on your skin, and they last like crazy.

You guys. This soap makes my kids want to bathe.

Frankincense and Myrrh Soap

Robin has sensitive skin and so is very, very choosy about which ingredients she uses in her soap (each product has all the ingredients listed). My husband (WHO IS NOT A FANCY SOAP KIND OF GUY. AT ALL.) said that it’s the only soap that really relieved his dry skin. Many are made with goatmilk, which produces the loveliest, gentlest suds you could want.

Simply Goatmilk

Robin’s stock is constantly changing, so it’s a great idea to check back often and see what lovely concoctions she’s invented.

There are 18 handmade soaps available right now, including:

Pumpkin Lager Beer Soap
Oktoberfest Bier Soap
Cherry Almond
Baby Yourself with Lavender (owl or kitty shapes)
Baby Yourself with Lavender (flower shapes — and wouldn’t these pretties make gorgeous favors for weddings or showers??)

these have a “just-picked-from-the-garden” lavender scent

Frankinsense and Myrrh Soap
Baby Yourself with Lavender (Madonna and Child soap — oooh, CHRISTMAS PRESENT!)

Pink Grapefruit Soap
Simply Goatmilk Soap
Sexy Man Lightly Scented Soap

Soaps listed now range in price from $3 to $7.

Please note, handmade soap takes weeks to cure, and for a start-up business with a razor-thin margin, it is vital for Robin to get orders as soon as possible, so she can continue to buy supplies, so she can continue to make soap! So please, if you’ve been meaning to check out her product, don’t put it off! The only downside to this plan is that, if you buy Christmas presents now, you will have to exert herculian self-control to avoid using this soap yourself.

Also, please note that I now have an ad for Robin’s Soap Shoppe on my right sidebar. The ad was generously designed and produced as a gift from Jen Raiche of Sidekicks Marketing. Thanks, Jen! If you have a blog or website, please consider donating some ad space to Robin! Contact me at simchafisher [at] gmail [dot] com and I will get you set up. Thanks for considering it!

And please, even if you can’t buy some soap right now, share this post, or a link to Robin’s shop, wherever you can on social media and among friends. Robin’s gotnothing but good reviews, and I never promote products that I don’t genuinely like.

Thanks!

Robin’s Soap is now for sale on Etsy!

What with all the camping and decamping, I almost forgot to let you know . . .

Robin’s Soap Shoppe is now open on Etsy!

So many of you generous folks made this possible. (For any new readers, I introduced Robin here, sweetened (?) the deal here, and covered myself with glory on YouTubehere.) Take a look at her first offerings, including this Super Gardener’s Soap:

Robin says:

This is a soap for the gardener or the gardener wanna be. If you enjoy getting your hands dirty, this is your new favorite soap. Layers of lavender buds, rose clay, kelp, coffee grounds, calendula – an amazing soap that smells pretty darn good, too. Scented with rosehips and jasmine. 100% naturally colored. This is one of my personal all time soaps!

Please include Robin in your prayers as she begins this new chapter of her life. Thanks!

Robin’s Soap Shop!

Robin has posted some exciting updates and details on her GoFundMe page, including this tantalizing photo of some salves she is preparing:

She has set up an Etsy shop which will open for business on July 4! I believe that if you “follow” the Etsy page, you will be notified when products are ready for purchase. So exciting! (For those not familiar with the Robin Soap saga, here is the original story and here is my ridiculous contribution to her fundraiser.)

Thank you / Don’t you dare

LOOK WHAT YOU DID!

About 24 hours after I first posted about Robin’s GoFundMe campaign, she is fully funded. She can now get started buying supplies and equipment to make and sell lovely, lovely goat milk soap to support her family. This is amazing. This is wonderful. And I don’t mean to sound smug, but this is utterly predictable, because I knew you guys were this generous! People have been donating, sharing, and offering prayers and encouragement for Robin nonstop. So, so great. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for helping my friend.

Robin is over the moon, and can’t wait to start ordering supplies. She has been working on setting up her kitchen and figuring out where everything will go. Now would n’t it be nice if she had a little more wiggle room while she’s getting started? The $3,000 is for supplies and equipment. Anything over and above that amount will go to food, rent, and utility bills, which are still constant worries for Robin and her family.

So, I may have accidentally announced last night that, if Robin’s fund reaches $4,000, I will post a video of myself singing “Let It Go” from Frozen. People seemed kinda enthusiastic about the idea, so I went ahead and listened to “Let It Go” for the first time, because I’ve been wrapped in a miraculous hermetically sealed cocoon of Let It Go Unawareness so far.

And you know what? FINE, I’ll sing it. It’s a stupid song, and has too many notes, but I suppose you all have to work your time off purgatory somehow.

So if you haven’t donated, please consider it! If you haven’t shared Robin’s page on Facebook or Twitter or what have you, please share! If you, for some penitential reason, want to hear and see me singing this sucky little song which is exactly the kind of music I hate the most and am entirely unsuited to perform, then spread the word! We can do this (~~don’t you dare~~).

Can you help my hard-working friend?

This weekend, my friend Robin Broun of Kentucky launched a GoFundMe campaign. Her goal is to raise $3,000 to buy supplies for a soap-making business in her home, so she can support her family.

I know there are fundraising pleas allllll the time. I’m not going to try to guilt you into supporting this one (although if you could take a minute and share the page on Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere, that would be wonderful). The soap is gorgeous and luscious in its own right, allergen-free and lovingly crafted. Take a look at this picture:

Is it weird that I want to eat this soap? Fine, so it’s weird.

I just want to tell you a bit more about Robin.

You have seen movies where a girl grows up and gets dealt one bad hand after another — but she keeps struggling? And where she grows up and has children of her own, and wants a different life for her kids — and keeps getting knocked back down? But she keeps struggling? And where malicious and cold-hearted people seem to hound her at every turn, and no matter how much personal sacrifice and humiliation she goes through, she picks herself up and tries again the next day? And she keep struggling?

This is Robin. She has a number of medical problems which make it impossible for her to work outside the home — but she can’t quite qualify for disability services, because she appears healthy enough to work. She wants to work. She just can’t, right now — not outside her home. She has no car, she often has no phone minutes, and, probably worst of all, she feels like people are constantly judging her and blaming her for her desperate situation. She is afraid that people will think this is just a lark or a hobby she wants to diddle around with.

It’s not. In fact, it could be a life-changing project, something that could lift her out of a truly desperate situation, into self-sufficiency and stability.

Right now, she suffers from constant and severe panic and anxiety. She is selling off her furniture — not nick-nacks, but things like her couch and TV — to make rent. She is working steadily on patching together a more stable means of income, but anyone who’s tried to navigate the social services system — especially with no car and an unreliable phone — knows that these things take time, and sometimes leave you high and dry. She works so hard to keep her family together and to give her kids a stable and dignified life, but she just has so very little to work with.

Robin is very proud of her eight years of Army service. She is very proud of her lovely daughters. She has eleven years of experience making this cold-process goat milk soap. This soap making venture is sensible and achievable. She explains the process, the ingredients, the benefits of goat milk soap, and lists the items she needs to buy to get started on her page.

So I am asking you to donate if you possibly can — even five or ten dollars (although more would be superb!). And whether you donate or not, please share this post, or share her page directly wherever you can.

Robin Broun Handmade Goat Milk Soap! Spread the word!

And please, of your kindness, say a prayer for Robin’s success and peace of mind. Thank you, my friends.