In The Bath

I used to think something was wrong with me because I was never good at “selling.”

I was the quiet one. The wallflower. I tried the high-pressure jobs — telemarketing, electronics, computer sales — and I was terrible at them. Managers kept telling me I wasn’t aggressive enough, that I needed to push harder, close faster, not take no for an answer.

But that never sat right with me. I didn’t want to convince anyone to buy something they didn’t truly want. I just wanted to help people find what felt right for them.

For a long time I carried that like a failure.

Then I started making soap.

And suddenly the same trait that made me “bad” at traditional sales became the only way I wanted to run this little business. I don’t push. I don’t pressure. I don’t do the hard sell.

I make soap with care, share the story behind it, and talk with people like humans. If it feels like a good fit for you, wonderful. If not, that’s okay too.

It turns out I didn’t need to become a different person to have a business. I just needed to build one that works with who I already am — someone more interested in connection than closing. ~ Thank You ~

Our Story
In The Bath was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania—right in my kitchen.
I started, like many moms do, simply looking for natural alternatives to the chemicals and fillers found in so many of the beauty products that dominate supermarket aisles.
Over 15 years, I’ve learned many aspects of the handmade cosmetics industry: compounding recipes, business processes, finance, raw-material handling, editing, photography, social media, advertising, tax laws, FDA regulations, customer service—and I’ll never be done learning. This business is my baby. It’s up to me to nurture it, grow it, and continually make it the best it can be.
When I started, I never actually intended to become a soap maker. I was simply learning about botanicals, essential oils, natural skincare, and natural remedies. It was all for my family.
But I couldn’t help myself. I was hooked.
Research became like breathing. I couldn’t stop learning, experimenting, and discovering. I had to keep going.
Eventually, I wanted to try making soap. The problem? I hated chemistry, and I certainly didn’t want to work with dangerous sodium hydroxide.
My first soaps were made from inexpensive melt-and-pour bases, and honestly, they were horrible. But by then, the hook was set. I needed to learn how to make something better.
So I went straight to hot-process soap making.
I made my first real, from-scratch batch for my mother-in-law. It was scented with White Tea & Ginger and colored white, yellow, and green. I had NO idea what I was doing—but I had a recipe, a little research, and a whole lot of “I want to learn” ambition.
I followed that recipe precisely. I weighed every ingredient in grams, timed the cooking process, and repeatedly measured the temperature. Finally, it was time to put the soap into the mold.
When I was cleaning up, I set the cooking pot in the sink. I turned on the hot water, and it hit the pot.
Soap bubbles appeared.
OMG. I just made real soap!
The excitement, surprise, and amazement of that moment are hard to put into words. I was absolutely thrilled with what I had accomplished.
The journey was officially underway.
Over the next few years—yes, years, not months, weeks, or days—I studied, experimented, and learned. I learned how to develop and formulate my own recipes and how to test them. I learned how to read a label on a store shelf and understand every ingredient: what it was, what it did, and why it was there.
For more than four years, I was an experimental kitchen chemist before I sold a single bar of soap.
My husband, kids, and a few family members encouraged me to get out there and give it a shot—to become a real soap maker and open my own business.
So, in 2016, I did.
There have been plenty of tough times along the way.
At my very first show, I sold two bars of soap.
Granted, it was 50 degrees, raining steadily, and the festival field was a swamp that could practically suck the boot right off your foot!
Those first few years taught me a lot. But I also fell into the trap that many makers do: once you have customers, you want to make them happy. You start taking requests. Then you find yourself wanting to offer every single thing they ask for.
I worked that way for several years. I made natural soaps, glycerin soaps, and a whole lot of other things, too.
More things than I really needed to make.
Then came 2020.
The pandemic shut us down for more than 18 months, with public gatherings canceled. Nearly 90% of my income disappeared. With no income, there was little opportunity to purchase new supplies, which meant fewer products were being made.
But I decided to use that time to rethink and refine the business.
I sold the remaining inventory I had through a few consignment stores, learned how to sew beaded jewelry, and took the opportunity to really fine-tune my product line.
I reduced the variety of products I offered. I chose the recipes I believed in most. I focused on what I loved making and what my customers loved using.
And when we were finally able to get back out on the road, I relaunched.
The In The Bath products you find on the shelf today have been developed over time, through years of learning, experimenting, testing, and refining.
They’re on the shelf because you want them—and because I want to make them for you.
Thank you for being part of the journey.

Bobbi

When you tell your local soap maker you can only use dove....
You are comparing a highly automated multi Continental company to a single individual working from their home or garage. They are working themselves crazy tired on a daily basis to produce a high quality product for you... Please do not dismiss their hard work, time and investment to their craft like that.
Chose Handmade 🫧🧼🫧

I saw this meme today and remembered about a person I met a few years ago telling me they are making soap without sodium hydroxide(lye), and that they use only sodium bicarbonate, because lye is dangerous...

As a soap maker with quite a few years of experience, I attempted to tell them the handmade soap recipe they were suggesting wasnt possible, They argued, the customer knew more about soap making than i did apparently. So I told them a true natural bar of soap made with anything other than lye + fats/oils/butters would earn them the Nobel prize in chemistry because NO ONE has every been able to make a hard bar of natural soap with only oil, water and baking soda. I wished them luck and asked them to bring me a bar of this magic soap so I can purchase it from them.... I never heard from them again.....

Making soap isnt rocket science, but it is Science/Chemistry.

I love to talk about my soap making, please come by the booth if you have any doubts, questions or just want to learn a little, I welcome the conversation.

Here is a little additional info for you

Natural soap cannot be made without lye. There is no workaround, no alternative process, no plant-based substitute that replicates what lye does in saponification. If a bar of soap exists, lye was involved in making it - either directly or in the production of a pre-made soap base that someone else used.
That's the honest answer.
Why does it matter? - and what does "lye-free" actually means when you see it on a label.
Lye - sodium hydroxide for solid bar soap, potassium hydroxide for liquid soap - is the alkali that triggers saponification. When lye contacts oils or fats, a chemical reaction begins: the lye breaks apart the fat molecules, the fatty acids bond with the sodium to form soap, and glycerin is released as a natural byproduct.
Without lye, that reaction doesn't happen. Oils stay oils. There's no soap molecule, no lather, no cleaning ability. Every bar of real soap that has ever existed was made with lye - from ancient recipes to modern cold process. The chemistry hasn't changed because it doesn't need to.
What "Lye-Free" Means
When a brand claims their soap is lye-free, one of two things is true.
1. The bar is made from a melt-and-pour soap base. Premade soap bases are widely available - blocks of already-saponified soap that can be melted, scented, colored, and poured into molds without handling lye directly. The end product is still soap. Lye was still used to make the base. The claim is technically accurate in the narrow sense that the person making the bar didn't handle lye - but it's misleading in the broader sense because the lye was essential to producing the product in the first place so that they were able to purchase it. melt it, fragrance it, color it and remold it. .
OR
2. The bar isn't actually soap. Synthetic detergent bars - the kind that dominate supermarket shelves - are made without saponification. No lye required, because no real soap is being made. Sodium laureth sulfate and other sulfates plus similar cleaning compounds are produced through industrial chemical processes that don't involve lye. The result cleans, but it's not soap in the traditional sense - and it doesn't have the conditioning properties that saponified plant oils carry.
Do Not Fear LYE (SodiumHydroxide/NAOH)
The word "lye" has accumulated a reputation that outlasts its presence in finished soap. Sodium hydroxide is caustic - it requires careful handling during the soapmaking process and can cause burns on contact. That part is true. I have a few scars to prove it.
What's also true is that lye doesn't survive saponification. The reaction between lye and oils is complete - no sodium hydroxide remains in a properly made bar. It's not diluted or neutralized; it's chemically transformed into something else entirely (Soap). The lye did its job and now it (lye) ceases to exist as lye in the finished bar soap.
This is why lye doesn't always appear on soap ingredient labels. Its absence isn't an omission - it's accurate. A bar that lists saponified coconut oil, saponified olive oil, and saponified shea butter is telling you exactly what's in it. The "saponified" prefix is the record of what the lye did.

*personally I list my ingredients individually and specifically include everything that went into it from start to finish, including the oil, fat, butter, liquid(water, milk, b**r etc) lye, color, fragrance, etc)

What to know....
What matters isn't whether lye was used - it always was - but what's in the finished bar.
A short ingredient list of saponified plant oils, with no synthetic detergents, parabens, or artificial additives, is what a genuinely natural bar looks like. The lye that made it is gone. What remains is soap, glycerin, and the conditioning properties of whatever oils went into the formula.

Bubble Your Troubles Away
🛁🚿🫧🧼🧽🧼🧽🫧🚿🛁

bubble your troubles away In The Bath