Why Campfire Soap?

When we meet people outside of Outlaw circles, sometimes people ask us what we do. From years of experience, I have learned that "My husband and I have a small handmade soap company," is the un-catalyst for an interesting conversation. Probably second to "I'm a professional quilter," people just do not care about handmade soap.

Until I say, "We make things that smell like campfire, leather, and whiskey."

And then we get a chuckle. "Campfire?" they usually say.

Actually, often, they immediately mention the name of some friend who would like the whiskey soap, which means I smell a legend... but I digress...

So, why do we make campfire soap?

Back when we started Outlaw Soaps, we knew we wanted to create stuff that reminded us of our favorite things. One of our very favorite things at the time was going out to dry lake beds with our friends and lighting huge bonfires and drinking whiskey until you could see dawn's surprise attack on the distant mountains, and then switching to beer because, well, it was time for breakfast.

There was time for everything - time for hanging out and talking around the fire, time for shooting at real targets against a berm and cans of cheap beer with a BB-gun, and time for reading books or taking a solo hike across the expanse.

It was a lot of fun. And yeah, sometimes we did stupid stuff that could have really caused problems (like that time our friends filled fish tanks with gasoline and set propane tanks on them and then shot them with tracer flares... that was stupid. Don't try that at home), but pretty much everyone made it out alive*.

The odds were good, but the goods were odd.

One May, we had to miss the annual camping trip.

Creatively named "May Trip," we were planning on driving the 9 miserable hours to a little dry lake bed just north of Ludlow. The lake bed doesn't have a name, but I always called it "Death Garden" because there were weird and unpredictable pieces of rebar jutting out of the dirt.

But it was our first year in business and I was working pretty much 'round the clock. The business took priority over every dang thing in the world, and sadly, that included May Trip. We just had to stay home and work.

So we did. But not without a little touch of May Trip in our weekend... that weekend, I made the first batch of what would eventually become Fire in the Hole Campfire Soap.

It was inspired by those awesome times in the desert.

If you haven't tried it yet, I do hope you'll give it a shot. It's a great scent guaranteed to remind you of your favorite wild times camping, or your money back.

Try Fire in the Hole Campfire Scented Sundries

* We have lost a few of our members. Fuck cancer.