Ludic Soap

Our Story

A Little Bit About The Soap Itself (The Science and Stuff)

Ludic Soap is a lye soap, which is one of the oldest forms of soap known. Before lye could be bought, people used to drip wood ash through rain water to make a lye solution, and before that, there are rumors that people in Ancient Rome would urinate in a big vat of fat, using the strong alkalinity to set off the chemical reaction needed to create soap.
This natural chemical reaction, called saponification, between a fat and an alkali creates a substance made up of unique molecules. Each soap molecule has a “head” and a “tail”. The head attracts water while the tail attracts and traps dirt and grease. After the dirt and grease is trapped, it can be easily rinsed away by the molecule’s “head”. These unique molecules are what make up a real soap.
Most commercial soaps on the market today are not soaps at all, but compact detergent “beauty bars”. Their molecules do not work the same as soap.
Even among real soaps, the quality and properties vary depending on the fats and oils used. Ludic Soap is made with local lard, organic coconut oil, and olive oil. Lard gives lye soap creaminess and stability, coconut oil lends a rich and fluffy lather, and olive oil makes soap luxurious and conditioning.
Ludic is also committed to using pure cold-pressed or steam-distilled essential oils, and only natural colorants such as local honey, black walnut hull, and nettle leaf to enhance each soap differently. I obtain my plants and herbs from local growers when I can.

More About Local Ingredients (And Ethical Counterparts)

In the last year, I have become much more aware of the line of a product from farmer to consumer. Many of our imported products and ingredients are obtained through slave labor and perpetuate human trafficking, and while Fair Trade and Fair for Life practices are starting to take hold in some places, a really great way to ensure ethical consumerism is to source products directly from the farmer, and great for circling local economy and supporting local community is to source food and products directly from the local farmer.
I get most of my lard from Landes Meats in Clayton, Ohio. Landes takes in pigs from local hog farmers. At the Springfield Farmer’s Market, I recently touched base with Fun Guy Farms, a new forest pig farmer in Springfield, and I will be buying all of their lard in the coming year. I was also connected with a beekeeper at the Springfield Market that gave me a big bag of dried, unrefined beeswax, which I was able to melt down and strain myself for Ludic Lip Balm. Local ingredients are fresher ingredients, and fresher ingredients make better end products.
For the things I can't get locally, I try to source direct from farmers that are paid and treated fairly. My essential oils come from Lebermuth, who offer Fair for Life oils and have generations-old relationships with many of their farmers. Many of my non-local herbs come from Mountain Rose Herbs, an organic bulk herbs company with a mind and goal for ethical fair trade sourcing.

More About The Local Market and Community (And How They Impact Each Other)

The local market is largely about offering the things our bodies really need. Things like fresh organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, eggs, meat, milk, honey, and soap.
But the market is more than providing for our physical needs. The market is about cultivating a sense of community and fellowship. It is a time for locals and regulars to come out into the early morning once a week to catch up. It's a time for newcomers to experience an atmosphere much more calm and friendly than a giant tiled-and-boxed grocery store.
It's a time for everyone to reconnect with where our food really comes from, to realize our neighbors, to rediscover the passion so many growers and makers put into the food and products that get put into and onto our bodies. It's about closing the gap between the maker and the nourished. We support each other in a circle--the makers and growers support the people that need food and other essentials, and the people support the makers and growers.
And I believe we need more than physical sustenance. We need each other. We need regular contact with the people we live with and depend on. I think it is good and healthy to see, connect with, trust, and understand the people that give products, and the people that need products. A community rooted in the local markets and clusters of locally owned businesses where there is clear, equal, and continual give-and-take is a strong community.

Why Do I Believe in the Power of Building Community Through Supporting Local?


I have come a long way in four years. Not just Ludic Soap the business, but me, as a person.
The support of the customers, the market and show managers, and the fellow vendors means more to me than they can know. They have not just been supporting a small soap business, they have been supporting, building, and healing an unsure and wobbly girl. I have grown greatly as a person with my little business. I have come to feel much stronger and much more stable. I feel capable and relevant. In every cultivated relationship that started with a soap sale, my being accepted as a part of a community--this community--has been invaluable to me, and I hope to keep building this business, this person that I am, and this, my family and my community, for many more years to come.