What is in a Name?

What is in a Name?

Ok. So, now we have decided to become soap artists. What do we do next? 

 Actually we did the boring part first. We created a spread sheet comparing prices of the basic ingredients we would use. We learned very quickly that we need to find a wholesale supplier.  Maybe we need to repackage and sell the supplies ourselves to help cover the costs of our artistry. Instead of soap artists, maybe we should be suppliers for the East coast.

Oh, fiddle dee dee. We'll think about that another day (right, Scarlett?).

We wanted to do the fun part and come up with a super-creative name that instantly screams success and product identification. Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with a name that is creative, says what you want it to say, and doesn't pop up on the first page of a Google search?! We were shocked and, quite frankly, discouraged. If there are so many soap makers, is there even a place in the market for us?

Nope. We won't even think about it that way. On with the brainstorming...

We started with our last name – since we're married to brothers, at least that is the same. Guess what?! Taken! SO we switched to our first names, but then we had to decide which one of us should be first. Alphabetically? Age before beauty? Nah. We didn't go there.  Our real names were not really the way we wanted to go, so we nixed that pretty quickly. 

 What about nicknames? Every variation of our nicknames showed up in either a Google search or on Facebook. It was quite the bubble buster because we think of ourselves as such original individuals. Oh well, we move on.

We really didn't want a geographically identifiable name because if one day our dreams come true and we are able to own a house on a beach, the name wouldn't travel well. 

We looked out the window and started naming birds. Hummingbird Soap Works, Woodpecker Soaps...taken. Trees were taken. Kitchen Door soaps was taken. Even Kitchen Sink! (I think – or maybe we vetoed that idea because we didn't want it to sound like we throw everything into our soaps.)

My particular favorite was Bubbles Galore, but the one of us who uses real greenery at Christmas thought it sounded too much like a stripper. SO?!

One of the reasons we decided to make soap was because we like the idea of using something that is home made with natural ingredients.  With that in mind, we turned back to nature. There is a group of plants that will lather or suds up when rubbed between the hands with water. My son, the Boy Scout, came up with that idea. 

 Acording to wikipedia, “the juices of the bulb contain saponins that form a lather when mixed with water,[7] and both Native American people (e.g. Miwok tribe [8]) and early European settlers used the bulbs as a kind of soap; this is the origin of the plant's name. It was particularly used for washing hair, since it was held to be effective against dandruff.[9]”

One such plant is known as the Soap Lily. We like the name, we like the botanical qualities, we like the logo possibilities. And, thus, Soap Lily was born.