The Soap Bar That Started a Series

I was at The Wade House today, not looking for inventory, just looking at a craft fair the way you look at a craft fair. There was a table with soap on it, and a woman running the table who was funnier than anyone selling soap has any obligation to be. I walked away with a bar called Morning Wood. I have not stopped laughing about the name since, and the soap itself is genuinely good, which is the part that actually matters.

Here is the thing about this company that I do not say often enough out loud: a real chunk of what we sell should come from people like her. Not a factory in a country we will never visit, a person, in this state, making something by hand because she is good at it and likes doing it. We are already down this road with a woodworker in Mequon who has been carving toys for forty years. This is the same instinct, just wearing a different apron.

So we are starting something we are calling the Local Makers Spotlight. Every so often, we are going to tell you about someone like this. Sometimes their stuff will end up on the site, sometimes it will just be a good story, and either way you will know exactly who made it and where. If the numbers work out, hers will be one of the first. If you make something in Wisconsin and think we should know about it, you now know where to find us.