"A FEW GOOD BARS"

Kate was glad to get another custom-soap order.  This time for a friend to send to "a few good men" (her son and his buddies), all deployed overseas.  The idea, according to Kate, was to honor the troops by creating a special collection based on their proudly worn U.S. Marine Corps logo.  

(Sure hope Kate went easy on the special essential oils, emollients and fragrances this time.  Can't have a bunch of big tough-lug marines going around sniffing and gafawing at each other.)  

What do you think?  Did Kate do the Marines proudly?

THANK YOU! to our soldiers.

And, Chesty...I think Kate put in
a special bar just for you, 

"where ever you are".
 

Semper Fi.

Kate Alley readying soap
for shipping to our troops.

 

HOW KATE MAKES BLACK CROW HOMEMADE SOAP FROM SCRATCH THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

Paul Harvey would love this.  "This is the rrrrest of the stor-rie".  Kate has invested a few years and countless  hours perfecting her processes for making homemade soap from scratch the old fashioned way.  It all started with just "making soap."  (But if you don't even know who Paul Harvey is, you may  just want to click out through the following link.)

Here is a guided laboratory tour of how Black Crow Soap is manufactured.  

But we digress.  What follows is the story behind the story.  

First, to be fair, Kate does not do this alone.  She has help.  Sometimes too much help.

Not to let things stagnate, soon as Kate stuck her toe in the soap, it quickly evolved in to adding various adventurous scents.  So we called those "flavors" (I guess "flavor" is an OK word since, according to Kate, this stuff is far healthier and skin-friendly... to the extent of being down right edible).

Then that eventually evolved by numerous experiments in to creating crafty visual expressions.  (Thomas Edison would be proud.  He "failed" 2,300 times at light-bulb inventing before he found the process that worked.)  

Still not good enough.  Kate turned downright artistic.  In fact, I like to observe that Kate's soap making has evolved from "making pretty soap", to becoming a serious visual artist working in a medium of not oil, or acrylic or charcoal, but "soap".   

Heck.  Why stop there?  As winter evenings grew longer, darker and colder in the northern plains, it just left Kate with too much time indoors to dream even more.

"Sculpture."  

That's right.  And lots of it.  Black Crow Soaps now come in various shapes (round balls, oblique paralellepipeds, flat flakes, swirly obelisks, etc.).  Like they say, a good sculpture is one you want to hold.  

It seems that these days every batch emerges with some new kind of physical cross-stitch pattern woven on top, or a perfect replicate of the swirled meringue atop a pie.  One batch presented a perfect nature scene molded into each bar showing a pine forest, with green prairie, towering ponderosa's, puffy clouds and beautiful blue sky.

Yep, Kate has turned lowly "soap" in to a serious art medium.  

And not just a visual art.  Grab one of these bars of multi-sensory delight and be ready for an adventurous sensory overload with fragrances, textures, colors, tastes (well, maybe not), Dakota culture, and...yes, still gloriously clean, smooth, moist skin.

So, if you are curious how a simple South Dakota woman has found a way to blend sculpture, personal hygiene, aroma therapy, and soap painting, then check out her Black Crow Soap.  It's the only place on the planet you'll get this kind of old fashioned innovation.

2012 FALL HARVEST

She did it again.  Big time.  Here is just one day's haul.  And there were many more.

Mega-gardener, Kate.  Our best friend, Elsa. 
Man's best friend, Sadie.  Lee's best brother, Don

SOAP GETS GOOSE BUMPS

Kate invented a way to embed ponderosa pine trees in her soap.  Even includes a blue sky with white puffy clouds in the background and light green grassy meadows. Look out, Monet and Rubens.

Hey!  You still need help?

BOMBER PRISM

My father, born 1912, scrounged some of his most interesting gadgets from post-WWII "army surplus stores" (back when they truly had military surplus inventories). Dad was a very serious gadgeteer. He always had some kind of Mr.-Wizard tinker project in the works. 

Around about 1979, when his grandson (my son) Paul was 4, Dad came to me with something he thought I may enjoy sharing with Paul. He said it was sold to him at an army surplus store, represented as part of the aiming system for a bomb sight from a WWII era B-29 bomber. 

It was a high quality optical prism. 

So this week I will send this to my son, Paul, in case he may enjoy sharing it with his son, Nolan.

7" High Prism

Roy G. Biv !

Red
orange
yellow 
Green
Blue
indigo
violet