We get a lot of questions about our products, how we make them, and for what purpose. We really enjoy answering these questions, and if you have ever wondered but not outright asked, I wanted to share with you a bit of an introduction to our business purpose, our drive, and our commitment to providing quality, healthy products and services.

Before we were married, my husband asked me what I did to make money, and I answered “I make goat milk soap”. His first thought was “hmmm… that’s nice. I’ll support you in this, but I will keep my day job.” Little did we know that six weeks after getting married, he was laid off from his well paying job, and we were left with very little savings and a lot of ambition. So off on our journey we went as full time soap makers! That was the start Horse ‘O Peace Ranch, and each day we work to make the finest goat milk soaps that are healthy and affordable for everyone.

Our soaps and skin care products are designed for people with sensitive skin. This is a subject that is particularly close to our hearts and home. Two of our children suffer from extreme eczema and skin inflammations. So far the best treatments we have found to work has been careful diet choices, lots of topical moisturizing via our soaps, salves and creams, and dry skin exfoliation. Our integrative health professional has also suggested Nystatin, for candida overgrowth, as we determined that was the cause of eczema for one of our children. It will probably be an ongoing fight for our boys over several years.  But when we began using our goat milk soap on the boys, their skin conditions  improved greatly by our efforts of trial and error.

We make all of our goat milk soaps from all natural and/or organic ingredients. For example, our Oatmeal ’n Honey soap (our bestseller!) is made with organic oatmeal and organic honey. Also our Coffee Scrub soap is made with freshly ground organic fair trade coffee beans, which we grind ourselves to be sure they are the most potent, come soap making time. 

It gives us great pride not using any artificial or unnatural chemicals, fragrances, or dyes in ANY of our products. We don’t even use natural colorants, to be sure the soaps can be easily recognized as not having extra fillers.

Something that differentiates us from a regular popular brands of big name soaps sold at supermarkets and other retail outlets  is that we leave all the natural glycerin in each and every bar of Horse ‘O Peace goat milk soap we make. What I mean by this is, when a retail manufacturer makes a bar of soap, they skim the best part of the soap, the glycerin, out of the base because it’s a natural moisturizer. They will then sell this glycerin at a premium price to make more profit, since it is such an amazing moisturizer. Where does that leave the bar of soap they made?

Well, you guessed it. Pretty much it just leaves the primary ingredient of water, (which, believe it or not is a drying agent), and any of the other nasty chemicals and detergents that they used when making the soap, leaving no original moisturizing properties there for your skin to absorb. This saves them money on the bar of soap, but also double lines their pockets by being able to sell the good stuff at a super high mark up.

So now they have to do something to fix what they screwed up in the first place, right? So in most cases they just add a chemical moisturizer back in to the soap since it’s a cheap alternative or they may add a small amount of glycerin in some cases. In the best case scenarios they add a more natural moisturizer back in (think aloe, almond oil, or shea butter). But, those natural moisturizers are vying for repairing your skin, while the chemical fragrances and dyes they also used are trying their best to destroy it. So it turns out to be counteractive.

Now you know how and why we are leaving the best part of the soap intact and available for your skin. But what else do we do? Is there anything else we can do?… Of course! ;-)

Remember when I told you about how water is actually a drying property in soaps? While this may seem counter intuitive, it’s actually true. After trying a few batches with water as a primary ingredient, and not being happy with the results, we figured, why not get rid of it all together? But wait, don’t you need a liquid when you’re making soap? You’re right! That’s where the goat milk comes into play. We use goat milk as our only liquid in our bar soaps. So at no point in our recipe do we include ANY water in ANY form. Not even a drop.

Goat milk has been known for being a natural moisturizer for thousands of years due to its extremely high butterfat content. Did you know that goat milk is actually the closest thing in the animal kingdom to the real human milk we got as babies? Also, goat milk is high in Vitamin A and lactic acid that nourishes skin.  Horse ‘O Peace goat milk soaps pamper, soften and hydrate skin without toxins you find in most popular brands at retail outlets.  We personally let our children drink goat milk fresh, due to all its natural goodness. So with all this awesome goodness in mind, we got to thinking again. Hmmm is there any way we can improve the goat milk? Well, most everyone has heard how eating raw is good for you in many cases. What about on our skin? During the traditional soap making process there is one critical point where, when mixing the ingredients, the mixtures will end up getting super heated to the point where the milk will essentially get cooked (pasteurized). This means that some of those raw nutrients will get cooked right out of the goat milk and burned away. What we did to solve that, was to develop a process where the milk temperature never gets above 80ºF. Thereby keeping the milk in its rawest, most pure form, and saving all those great naturally moisturizing properties. 

Goodness, what more can you do to a bar of goat milk soap? The answer to that questions is… LOTS! After adding the liquids and the base oils needed for the saponification process, there is yet one more area that makes us different from most other handmade soap makers, even other goat milk soap makers. It is common for other soap makers to use chemical fragrances and dyes in their soaps, to make them prettier, or smell artificially nice (as my husband says, “froo froo”). We don’t do any of that. So your next question probably is “How do you make them smell nice then?” We use yet again, all natural, pure, and in some cases certified therapeutic grade, essential oils that have their own health benefits. Those benefits get carried over directly into your skin for even more healing and/or moisturizing characteristics. 

Don’t forget, we also offer full disclosure of ingredients on each label of our products. We believe you have the right to know, as a health conscious consumer, what you are putting on your skin. Nothing is hidden from you.

My husband refers to our soaps as “ultra moisturizing.” When you think about it, it’s very true and there is nothing in our soap that even resembles what you might find down at your local Walmart or grocery store, and is even better than soaps in your local health food stores too. 

I put a lot of research and time into my goat milk soaps, to ensure that each bar of soap holds up to our standard of being gentle on the most sensitive skin types (our own kids included), while being made with properly sourced natural ingredients.

Wow, there is a lot of time we have put in to something as simple as a bar of soap. Yeah, I know we are starting to sound like real geeks here about soap. Okay, so maybe we are. But we really love this stuff. I, and my husband in particular, never thought we would be making soap for a living. But sometimes things are put in our paths that itches that spot in your life where things just seem to make sense.

Our goal is to grow the Horse ‘O Peace Ranch business, without debt, to the point where my husband can come home and work beside me and our 4 sons, all day, every day. He currently is employed at a regular 9-5 job, working for a wonderful company with great bosses. When he gets home from work, we often divide the evening by spending time with the boys before bedtime, then working on our own business for a couple of hours, and then finally going to bed ourselves just to wake up and do it all again the next day. But deep in our hearts, we know that one day we’ll work for ourselves. Our children are young, and we homeschool them, so every minute together counts.

I want to thank you so much for reading this far. We really are proud of the work and time put in to this business, and would love you to have the opportunity to experience what we have built! Just to prove how confident we are that our soaps will change your life, below you will find a link to subscribe to our monthly newsletter. If you do, we will send you an exclusive VIP link where you can get a completely free (no shipping charges either), no strings attached, trial bar of soap sent right to your front door. It will take around an hour for you to receive the link so hang tight. We are driven to serve YOU, so that you can experience naturally beautiful skin, with products you can trust.