About Jax and Jaxsoaps

Jaxsoaps has grown out of a love for making and giving handmade gifts and experimenting with new scents, along with the love for soaps, candles, herbs and people.

It all started with my tight knit group of girlfriends who were constantly leaving each other personal, smile inducing gifts on our doorsteps in the middle of the night. Seemingly trying to out do each other with our kindnesses and imaginative givings, I decided to take it to another level and make it all myself. I was determined to learn how to make soap, candles and other personalized bath products which seemed to be the theme in our crazed givings, in order to put together a perfect basket for each dear friend. I matched their colors and fragrances to their preferences and went to work experimenting.

This took me on a crazy internet journey through a maze of melt and pour soap making ideas, thousands of fragrances, and color and design combinations and mold conformations. Then to the candles.. So many waxes and additives and scents and colors and what tempurature to pour and what equipment for melting the wax in and molds to pour the melted wax in. Then the wicks! What wick for what diameter of mold and melt tempurature of the wax for what shape of mold.. Crazy! I jumped in with both feet and my Christmas budget, plus some. I then decided to justify the investment in equipment and supplies, that this would be what I would present to all of our relatives for Christmas too. Decision made.

Well, I isolated myself in the kitchen and forbade any of my friends to enter as I waded through all the information and smelled my house up wonderfully! Of course, they got a bit suspicious but I did not relent nor share my secret. They were ultimately surprised and delighted, and the journey of Jaxsoaps began. As I continued to make and necessarily, to give, so that our home would not be overrun with my creations, the love of creating soaps and candles grew. Then as my friends grew to appreciate the healthy nature of these handmade soaps, they started asking for more Jax's soaps and thus the name of the future business was born. Of course, I was Jax and Auntie Jax to my friends and their little ones so it was a natural. Jaxsoaps it is!

After that Christmas I continued researching, learning and experimenting until I discovered the mystery of Cold Processed soap. With the help of Sandy Maine's Handmade Soap book, I tried all of her recipes. I learned the craft of handcrafted soap, the wonders and terrors of Lye, the chemistry of the process and all the infinite options for experimentation, with base oils and herbs and fragrance oils and essential oils. New words like saponification values and trace. New essential oils to discover for their incredible benefits as well as the herbs and the different base oils, with their saponification values and the qualities that they impart to the soap. I am still fascinated by it all and I am still learning which is one of the things I love about making new products to fulfill the needs of as many as I can.

As I continued to persue all my options and learned of the benefits of different base oils and the qualities they imparted to the saop I started to develope my own recipes, looking for certain specific qualities that I wanted to create in Jaxsoaps. As product developement evolved I had requests for certain soaps, smells, qualities and discovered unique ingredients like Rooibos and Rhassoul and my portfolio of recipes grew, and grew! Jaxsoaps has formulated over 25 soaps using our own unique recipes, some of which are long standing favorites and others that have faded to an occasional request. I still love to experiment and formulate, that is at the heart of Jaxsoaps.

That was all over 10 years ago and Jaxsoaps is still here through six moves from Clovis, CA to Huntington Beach California, to Clovis, to Kingsburg, California to Kentucky where we have landed permanently on our beautiful twelve acres. Jaxsoaps has made new friends and customers all over the country and will continue to grow and share whatever healthy secrets for skin and overall health we can find. Jaxsoaps goal is to provide healthy alternatives to the sometimes stressful and harsh world we all live in and give a moment of serenity wherever we can. If you were to stop by you will always be offered a cup or glass of Rooibos Tea and time to enjoy the sounds of the roosters crowing and a view of the sunset on the porch. We are busy, but nothing is more important than enjoying the little things while not sweating the small stuff!

Welcome to Jaxsoaps.