More Natural than Amish

Last summer our regular Friday evening soap adventures included the Farmers Market in Cranberry, PA located behind the municipal building on Rochester, Rd. Each evening the regular vendors included 5 farm families, an organic meat seller, an egg man, and Ashgrove Soaps. Rich, the egg man, and I were the welcoming greeters for customers. Hails of "Welcome to the Cranberry Farmers Market" , and "Thanks for coming by" were received with smiles.

Early in the season one of the vendors - an wonderful Amish Farmer - came over to look at our soaps. He remarked that his sister-in-law makes melt and pour soaps. After a few minutes he said with quiet simplicity, "These are more natural than her soaps." Humm... more natural than Amish..... doesn't get better than that!

The Beginning of Ashgrove Soaps

Ashgrove Soaps began with a trip to one of our favorite places - Colonial Williamsburg, Va. While my daughter and I were there, we found a booklet on how to make milksoaps. The question was "would you like to give this a try?". The response was. "yes".

By the time we left Williamsburg, we were busy choosing our first soap to make - Lemon Honey Milk Soap - and mulling over what would be our company name. Keeping with our interest in reenacting from the colonial period, our first show in October 2009 was at the Depreciation Lands Museum in Hampton, PA. Dressed in colonial costume, we were on "our soap box" helping folks learn about the benefits of handcrafted soaps. It was exciting to see the energetic response of our customers and sales were brisk - warm memories of the start of Ashgrove Soaps.