Don’t be tempted to bite into the appetising array of burgers, ice lollies and doughnuts laid out on Dharita K Vora’s dining table at her home in Thillai Nagar ... they are soaps dressed up as food. The professional finish of the Tiruchi-based homemaker-turned-soaper’s products make it difficult to believe that Dharita started out in the business a little less than a year ago.
“My son’s skin is very sensitive, and he used to get spots even after bathing with branded baby soaps. I got inspired to make my own after I tried some handmade soaps from Chennai,” says Dharita, a mother of two.
A recent fair for artisans hosted by the women’s forum Aura in Tiruchi proved to be a launchpad for Dharita’s handmade soaps and cosmetics that she now sells under the brand name ‘Naature’s Sparshh’ through Facebook and a WhatsApp group.
With over 50 soaps on her catalogue and an ever-growing list of skincare and bath products like glow serums, body butters, bathing salts and even a dry shampoo, Dharita admits that she is smitten with her new profession.
“I’m still enjoying the process, from research to production. You can be creative about it only when you don’t get stressed,” says Dharita.
Her earliest testers were her friends and family members. “We’d use a product among ourselves to decide if it could be made for the market,” she says.
Avoiding chemicals
Soap is a compound made of natural oils or fats with sodium hydroxide or any other strong alkali (known as lye).
Dharita makes soaps using two methods: the melt-and-pour and cold-press. Melt-and-pour is better suited for quick orders because the base ingredients like aloe vera or goat milk are available online from certified dealers. “You just melt that base, put in an additive, such as neem, honey or essential oils and set it. The soaps will be ready in 3-4 hours in the mould,” says Dharita. “Cold-pressed soaps take 4-6 weeks to cure, but you have full control over the oils, which makes it ideal for people with skin problems like acne or eczema.”
Cold-pressing also allows the addition of fresh fruit pulp, even though the soap takes 24 hours to set, and a further 4 weeks for the lye to evaporate.
Herbal ingredients like curry and neem leaves and jasmine flowers are dried at room temperature inside the house to preserve their natural colour, before their powdered form is used in melt-and-pour soaps. “That’s a tip that my mother-in-law gave me,” smiles Dharita.
As lye can irritate the skin, Dharita wears protective eyeglasses and gloves to avoid splatters when making soaps.
To keep her products hypoallergenic, she avoids using preservatives like parabens and lathering agents like Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS).
“Handmade soaps typically last as long as the oils in them. My soaps have a shelf life of three months to one year, depending on their basic ingredient. I started reading the cosmetic labels more carefully only after I started making soaps,” says Dharita.
Future plans
At present, Dharita’s ‘picture soaps’ (incorporating soluble paper printed with the customer’s choice of pictures) and cosmetics for infants have a growing clientele, as do her wedding and party hampers.
With orders being despatched to places like Jodhpur, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Bhavnagar, Dharita is confident of venturing into e-commerce soon. “For now, though, I would like to learn more about soaps. Perhaps at a later stage, I can think of teaching others how to make them too.”
The entire family chips in to help Dharita, dealing with logistics and packaging the products when the orders come.
“It’s definitely a team effort, and the support of family and friends is very important for any entrepreneur to be successful,” she says.
