Bumbletown Bath Works – Handmade soap & other bath products
Bumbletown Bath Works is a tiny business in the Keweenaw dedicated to preserving history by using age-old methods and natural ingredients to create a variety of bath products.
Chemical suspension agents are not used – so some ingredients may sink or float in your soap bar – depending on their character. We’ve tried to limit aromatic ingredients to those available a century ago. Most of our soap additives, such as lavender buds or grains, tend to turn the finished product a soft hue of tan as a result of the chemical processes in the initial caustic phase prior to curing and complete saponification. The six week long curing process also leaves a thin chalky film on the exposed surface of the soap. This is a harmless soda ash that historically was sliced off for finer soaps. We leave it there as a testament to the age-old process. The sizes noted on soap labels are initial liquid ounces by volume; soaps cure to a lesser weight, but do so individually, so we have chosen to note size by their uniform beginning cure volume.
All of our soaps are environmentally friendly as they are true soaps and not petroleum based detergents. While great grandma didn’t prize animal-free products as some do today, she really didn’t enjoy rendering fat into lard either – but she did it anyway. We have found – as she did – that food grade lard produces a most wonderful bar of soap with creamy consistancy, small firm lather and no “soap scum” – overall, a better bar of true soap than an all vegetable recipe. We hope you enjoy a bit of history in your bath.