About Oola

I'm very excited to have found this passion that combines creativity (which comes easily) and self care (which is admittedly a little harder to commit to). Creating body products challenges me to walk the talk of taking time for myself, and to care for the body that has been carrying me around all these years with relatively few complaints.

It also combines another love of mine, which is getting to know folks and being able to create something I know they’ll enjoy. Custom orders let me provide products that have no added fragrance or colourant, as well as those who love a product with a certain scent or design.

Soap making is a bit like alchemy, and although I may have a particular outcome in mind, it’s not unlike a potter opening the kiln to see what the chemical process has produced.

But then why stop at soap, when there are so many ways to show a little gratitude for the skin that you’re in?! Shampoos, body lotions, lip balms, scrubs, conditioners, body wash, bath bombs… the list keeps growing, and I’m growing right along with it.

For those who already know me, you know that the poet in me likes to find ways to apply metaphors to my endeavors to add meaning to the experience, so here's the latest one below. 

Judy 

Soap - A Metaphor for Life

The soap making process starts with a recipe that almost always uses more than one kind of oil. They're chosen for the different properties they add, not unlike the relationships we have in our lives that support us in different ways.

Take coconut oil for example. It has great cleaning properties. Similarly, we may have friends in our lives who know just what to do or say when it comes to helping us get back on track, get our act together, or get down to business. 

 Then there's olive oil. You might compare it to those friends who just meet us where we're at. They're the ones who are very good at helping us to feel confident because they're so accepting. Whether the house is dirty or clean, they don't seem to notice those things.

 Some recipes call for small amounts of castor oil; which can be deeply therapeutic as well as a contributor to a fine lather. I compare castor oil to the kind of friends we love deeply, and a little time spent goes a long way. Small doses still make great memories.

 Some oils like palm or tallow take a while to warm up. Like people who take a little more time to get to know, but once you do, become very dependable friends. Softer oils like shea butter remind me of friends who have a nourishing nature. They'll bring the casserole, run the errand, or walk the dog.  Some are just good at going with the flow. Balancing the mix of oils, (or for the sake of this metaphor the people in your life) is important to the long-term outcome of the soap.  

I guess you could say if you don't want to live in a bubble, it's healthy to have a variety of supportive people in your life. 

Then there's trouble, also known as lye (sodium hydroxide). It's caustic and mean and will cause nasty burns if you get it on your skin, or worse, let it get under your skin. When lye is added to water, a chemical reaction happens and the molecules speed up, and this friction generates heat. 

You can't have soap without lye, just like life doesn't exclude anyone from experiencing trouble, pain, or grief. Once lye has been added to the oil everything changes. There's no going back to the way it was, only forward. 

Once there's trouble in the mix, a period of agitation follows. The caustic lye reacts with the nourishing oils, and neither can remain the same. The two opposing states of being must find a way to balance. Eventually it becomes one new substance that isn't oil and isn't lye. The process of saponification has started which is an amazing transformation. The soap needs to have enough oil to fully transform the lye into something else, the way we need the support of friends to help us survive our hardships.

During this process the hydroxide in the lye is transforming into salts. I find the presence of salt to be significant as it reminds me of the salt in our tears, something that often accompanies our own emotional healing.

Then it's time to mold the soap. As in life, sometimes we need a safe space to land.  And like the grief in our life, no two incidents will be identical. We can do our best to replicate whatever we did the last time, but it's unlikely that we can duplicate what we did exactly from batch to batch, or in life, duplicate solutions for our painful experiences. 

Although the soap has found a safe space, it's still not over. It still needs to cure, and it takes a period of time for the transformation to be complete. it's still vulnerable to bumps and scarring. It needs to be assimilated into the open air, but carefully as water continues to slowly evaporate.

When the soap is finished and ready to face the world, all of the original lye (once so caustic on its own) will have been transformed. Yes, it was part of the story, but it is not the result. The experience has become a usable and even beneficial part of life.

I hope that when life brings you pain, you'll think of a batch of soap in the making. The only way forward is through the process. Find the right kind of supports for yourself, knowing they all have a role to play. An amazing transformation is inevitable and underway. You'll need a safe place, and some time to recover. You will not be the same, and while you can't remove the pain that life brings, you will eventually find a way to live with it and recognize that even hardship can become a beautiful part of your story.