The mothers of foul-tongued sailors scoured the landscape for exotic herbs and fragrances to incorporate into the soaps they'd wash their sons' mouths out with upon their return. Craft your own sweet-smelling tradition with today's Groupon for a soap-making class at Lady-K Soaps in Cedar Hill. Choose between two options:
- For $55, you get two admissions to a beginner soap-making class (a $110 value).
- For $125, you get two admissions to an advanced, hands-on workshop (a $250 value).
Master soap maker Karen Smith teaches students the fragrant art of suds shaping at her working dairy-goat farm. Peruse a monthly schedule of classes, typically held on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and learn the craft of homemade hygiene with a spouse, friend, or insistent germaphobe. The two-hour beginning course invites up to eight duos to observe Smith sculpt a batch of bars while they follow a take-home handout recanting the recipes, instructions, and ingredients needed to make skin sing. At the end of class, each student selects a fragrance and totes home one bar procured from all-natural goat milk.
Those seeking a hands-on soap-making experience may opt to take an advanced four-hour class that accommodates up to four pairs. Each team tackles a 5-pound batch of soap under the guidance of Smith, who issues students soap kits complete with mold, a fragrance of choice, and shoulder pads for full-contact craftsmanship. Upon completion, couples carry home a 5-pound soap mold and let it sit for three days before cutting them for use in the bathroom or in the family buffet line. Each batch yields twenty 4-ounce bars per block. After class, students can also meet the goats on the farm and have a chance to feed them animal crackers. Smith serves water, tea, and coffee in both classes, and she invites students to bring their own wine, spirits, or bubbly for drinking instead of bathing.
Lady-K Farm
Live goats scamper across the verdant vista at Lady-K Farm, a working dairy farm. Its owner, Karen, spends much of her days shepherding the farm's goats. She supplies bottles of their milk for local families and also uses it to create fresh-smelling bars of natural soap. In addition to wrapping bars in pristine packaging for wholesale, Karen has taught soap-making classes for 15 years to help others harness the milk's skin-softening benefits. Karen also sponsors an annual Goat Husbandry Conference to teach prospective goat owners how to care for the animals, especially when they dress in sheep’s fur in blundered searches for their own identities.
