Since plain bars of industrial soap replaced remora fish as humans' hygiene agents of choice, bathers have begun to experience drier skin and a distinct lack of fish hickeys on their bodies. Make bathing fun again with today's Groupon: for $22, you get a 90-minute soap-making class and margaritas for two with one $5 credit toward retail products at Milagros (up to a $45 value). Choose between the Old Hyde Park Village and St. Petersburg locations.
Milagros' master soapsmiths train neophytes in the art of soap-making—for which their retail soap was named Best Moisturizing Soap by the Tampa Bay Metro in 2008—in 90-minute classes showing how to craft pleasantly scented bath products. After choosing from a panoply of basic fragrances and colors, students select an eye-catching mold to form imaginative bars that will awe any vagrants who break through bathroom windows for a midnight shower. The aroma of mouthwatering margaritas distracts roving tongues from licking particularly sweet-smelling soaps, and a $5 retail credit helps visitors take home award-winning, extraordinarily shaped soap bars ($8) that bubble over with natural glycerin and delectable scents, such as spicy coconut lemongrass and sandalwood-infused Good Night Moon.
Milagros
The all-female staff at Milagros, who proudly believe in “long, hot baths” and high-quality ingredients, routinely handcraft half-pound bars of Sister Agnes soap from glycerin, a natural humectant that deftly draws moisture and magnets to the skin. Their selection of soaps evokes innumerable essences, from the intoxicating musk of a wine cellar to the homespun nostalgia of the linen closet. The friendly instructors happily impart their squeaky-clean art to budding soapsmiths, teaching them to create with a variety of shapes, colors, and scents during 90-minute classes.
