I was probably seven or eight years old and lucky enough to have my great grandmother living a few houses away. My sister and I spent many an hour with her in the woods learning about life, about history, about plants and the old ways. This is when I was introduced to medicinal plants in nature and their healing powers. Of course, my grandmother had a way of making things fun, interesting, quirky, unusual, almost magical in nature, probably so we would pay more attention, I'm not sure, but it worked.
In addition to herbs, she introduced us to the art of soap making. She'd describe it in whimsical fashion as we watched bug-eyed in curiosity. In the days of her youth, about the same age as my sister and I, she had learned to make soap with her mother from tallow, ashes, and lye. Tallow is a rendered form of beef fat and lye is made from wood ashes. She would gather the wood ashes from fires, put them into a wooden contraption, and pour water over it till it soaked the ashes, and seeped into a wooden bucket underneath. The bucket filled with lye water which she'd use to produce soap. She'd boil the lye and the tallow in a large kettle and stir until it thickened to a goop like mixture. Our favorite part was when she'd let us stir. We felt like ancient witches stirring a big cauldron of magic. We had some knowledge that regular soap was bought from the store, but to actually make it out of the earth was something altogether, different.
Once it was ready, she'd pour it into old wooden bins or old dish molds and let it sit until it was hard. On occasion, and due to impatience on our part, my sister and I would poke it with a stick to see if it was ready. Weeks later, once hardened into a block, she'd let us dump it out on the porch onto old newspapers, cut it into bars and stack it so it could dry. Of course, weeks later when we actually used the soap, I thought my skin had been stripped off. Literally. Lye was harsh back then. There were no other conditioning ingredients to counteract the cleansing, stripping effect and a lot of the lye remained in the soap. My sister and I walked around squeaking, we were so clean.
Fast forward to the year 2015. My great grandmother had passed years ago when I was twenty-three with a newborn but even though she was long gone from this world, I had not forgotten the seeds she planted earlier in my life. In fact, they had only just begun to spout in my mid-fifties.
I had recently started studying herbalism for my own health and wellness, due to an auto-immune disorder that had my endocrine and adrenals all out of sync. Tired of being tired, I changed my lifestyle in every form and fashion. I began to eat healthier, avoid glutens and processed foods and saw great improvement, so the next logical step was not only what I put inside my body, but what I put on it.
I began purging my household of everything artificial or chemical. I began researching homemade laundry products and skincare. It was then I remembered my grandmother's lye soap and if felt right to pay homage to that old ancestral tradition by incorporating it into my home. Although I don't fully embrace the entire old-school method of leaching the lye from ashes like she did or rendering my own tallow, I do cook the soap in a huge kettle pot with a wooden paddle over a roaring fire. This traditional element keeps the memories alive for me. Every time I stir, I feel like that little girl creating magic out of the earth.
In the beginning, it was tough. I had never made soap from start to finish before, so I had no idea what I was doing. I spent eight months buying handmade soaps, studying their ingredients and trying the soaps for lather, conditioning and cleansing. I slowly began comprising a list of what I wanted in a soap and the task officially began. I made countless batches, testing and trying and failing batch after batch of soaps. Goop. Mess. Slop. And something that resembled a cross between slime and coffee grounds. It crossed my mind that this may have been a bad decision but it wasn't until stopping mid-way to tend to my beehives that I had an epiphany. I had been a beekeeper for eight years. I knew the in's and out's of bee life. During my hive inspections, it dawned on me that I could combine my knowhow of bees with a formula for my artisan products. Months later, after exhausting attempts, I finally had a formula that checked off every detail of my must-have list.
Farmhouse No. 5 was born. I combined my love for farmhouses, honeybees and holistic skincare. Five is the magic number of the brand. It seemed like it was meant to be. It all came together. I had recently build a tiny five hundred square foot farmhouse, I maintained five large all natural beehives, and just mastered a formula featuring a five hive signature blend of ingredients for my holistic artisan products.
My brand is traditional handcrafted, back to nature, good for your skin, good for the bees and good for mother earth. If you read the labels of most commercially manufactured soaps, they are highly specialized, lab engineered products, with synthesized animal fats and plant based oil combined with chemical additives, petroleum based products and artificial fragrances.
I wanted no part of that.
Farmhouse No. 5 uses all natural ingredients, pure essential oils, no artificial fragrances, zero chemicals, no parabens, sulfates, phthalates, gluten, or gmo's.
I formulated a unique five hive blend that gives you an all natural luxurious lather, gentle conditioning, and superb cleansing and you never have to worry about toxins, or synthetic materials. Just good, clean, pure products for your skin.
Today I smile and think of my great grandmother and how far I've come from that little barefoot scraggly haired girl on the porch cutting lye soap into chunks and creating magic. Some seeds are planted in childhood and come to fruition later as adults. Or, I like to think so. It makes me happy to know I have a tribe of customers who love my products (I call them my five-hive tribe) and share the same passion for the bees, and mother earth as I do. Plus, I get to carry on a few traditions of my ancestors too. I bet grandma is proud.
~ Barb and the bees