Victorian bath soaps

It’s almost comical how these soaps came to be. As you’ll notice in my photos, I often add “props” so you can envision what it will look like in a real setting. One day (on Ebay of all places) I ran across a listing for an antique bar of soap, still wrapped but in tough shape. I overlooked the condition because it passed the “cool” test and kept my eye on it for the few days. It would be perfect to film with my antique towels! When the price rose to the point I could no longer even consider it, a thought occurred to me. I’d make one of my own! Using the antique one for a model, I designed a crude version of a label (it was only for a prop, after all) and made it to fit a bar of soap from my medicine cabinet. Just my luck, when it came time to print, my printer was out of ink. I called my sister-in-law, Donna, and asked her if I could run over and borrow hers. When I got there, despite my efforts to explain it, Donna couldn’t understand what I was trying to do. Finally I just sat down at her computer, pulled up my label picture and printed 3 copies (one to use and 2 more in case I goofed). After trimming and trimming and yet more trimming to get it to fit just right, I wrapped it around the soap and placed it in Donna’s hand telling her it was hers for letting me use her printer. She stared at it for the longest time in awe. Then, with tears in her eyes told me it was the neatest thing she’d ever seen. It made me want to share cool soaps with the world! I spent hours researching old soaps and soap advertisements and played around with different ideas. My original crude label is no more, rather replaced by four others ~ beautiful, elegant and yet delightfully fun with the humerous wording of the era After weeks of deciding what kind of paper and ink I needed and finding both a printer and a soap maker (she’s fabulous!) my soaps were ready to offer to the public.