All Natural Suds

Lately it seems as if everywhere we look, we see the words “organic” and “all-natural” plastered on the labels of some of our favorite foods. Well, the craze has now hit various cosmetic products as well, including the ever-so-popular: bar of soap.

Right here in southern Connecticut is Connecticut Natural Soapworks, run by Sabrina Santoro at Sunflower Farm of Orange. With her motto, “We’re down to earth clean,” she uses all natural ingredients to make close to 50 different kinds of soap, all outside of her full-time job as a court reporter administrator with the judicial department.

“You know, work is work,” she said, “but I can come home and work down in the soapary for hours. It helps me clear my head.”

Santoro, 54, only uses all natural substances in her soaps so there is nothing to strip the skin. She said that when commercial soaps are made, the makers skim the top for the glycerin that forms because it is a profitable byproduct. They then add extra chemicals, such as parabins, sodium laural sulfates, and phthalates that are not good for the human skin. There has been much debate over phthalates health risks, and scientists have found that women’s exposure to them can cause birth defects of their male fetuses. In most antibacterial soaps is a chemical called triclosan, which is known to cause cancer. The skin will start to absorb the harsh chemicals due to constant use of the commercial soaps.

Instead of skimming off the glycerin, Santoro keeps it in her soaps because it is part of the cleaning power of soap. She said oils bind to oils, so the oil from the glycerin sticks to the oils on the skin to pull them off. Therefore, the skin is left feeling smooth, moisturized, and clean.

“I couldn’t use a regular bar of soap if you paid me,” said Santoro. She is extremely careful to not use any harmful preservatives when making her soaps. Some of main ingredients used at Soapworks are soybean, castor, olive, hemp, palm (she makes sure it’s not trees from the rainforest), coconut, Shea butter, and grape seed. Santoro also adds a lot of fresh herbs and flowers for extra exfoliation and fragrance.

She first started playing around with soap making when her sister passed away in 2000. It was her way of diverting herself from the situation. None of the commercial soaps had what Santoro was looking for so she went online and found a recipe to make her own. With a few changes here and there, she now is an expert at the craft and can make 500 pounds of natural soap in just two days.

Santoro starts with either a goat milk base or a coconut milk base and mixes it with oils. In order for them to “marry”, as she calls it, she pours in sodium hydroxide and lye to cause the chemical reaction of burning the sulfate, which combines the oil and milk. Essential oils and fragrances are added and the mixture is poured into soap logs where they sit for a few days. Santoro then hand cuts the logs into 5.5 ounce bars and they have to sit for three weeks before they can be put on the shelves.

One of her newest recipes is the Egg-Head Shampoo bar, made with beer and eggs. “I have always wanted to try beer in my soaps because in the 1970s it was all the rage to wash your hair with beer because it adds body and shine,” Santoro said. She bought Atlantic Amber beer and let it go flat. She used it as a base and added eggs, tea-tree oil, and geranium oil.

For all of the vegans in the world, there is even a line of soaps out there for you. Santoro uses a base of coconut milk for those soaps because a lot of people don’t want anything with animal products. The top-selling vegan soap is “Happy Hippie Treehugger” which is scented with, as she puts it, “the most popular scent of the sixties” and green tea.

In order to have her soaps be considered certified organic, she would have to go through a long three year process, so for now she is sticking to the naturally grown ingredients. The National Organic Program has strict rules for the process of becoming certified organic and how to go about apply for certification. Businesses must submit the type of operation they are running, a history of substances that have been applied to the land in the past three years, the products being grown or processed, and an organic system plan. Once the company is certified, annual inspections are performed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

By choosing to stay all natural, final products made only from botanical resources, Santoro can sell her products at a cheaper price. Certified organic soaps can range anywhere from a hefty $8-$10 a bar. Inside the small shed at Sunflower Farm where she has set up shop, she sells her soap for just $3.50 a bar or three bars for $10.

“Business has been good. My prices are good, it’s natural items, and people like my stuff,” Santoro said. “We’ll really see an increase in sales when the famers markets open.”

As the largest natural soap maker in Connecticut, Santoro also makes all natural lotions, body butter, a dog shampoo, poison ivy relief bar, and soy candles that can double as massage oil when melted. She runs a farmers market in Milford in the summer and her soaps may be sold in Whole Foods Stores in the near future, as they have approached her about selling in the store.

If you are interested in Santoro’s products, her shop is located at 767 Derby Milford Rd. Orange, Conn. or you can visit her website www.sunflowerfarm.com.

Photos courtesy of http://www.sunflowerfarm.com/

Women Veterans: "We Can Do It!"

It is February 2003 and the 143rd Military Police Company of the Connecticut Army National Guard is training in 35 degree below zero weather up in Fort Drum, N.Y. They stay there for two months and are then told they are being deployed to Kuwait, where they would be faced with 143 degree weather and sandstorms. It then took them two days to make the trip into Iraq where they would be in combat for the next year as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Among the 105 people who made up the unit was a pale skinned soldier with light blue eyes and cropped dark hair. Master Sgt. Jacqueline Milhomme, then 36, was only one of 13 women soldiers in her battalion.

It is stereotypically thought that the military is for men. Some people may not think that women are strong enough, whether emotionally or physically, to fight in a war. Historically, in most of the past wars, women were nurses in the armed forces and not actually on the front line. The turning point came in the Persian Gulf War where nine percent of the recruits were female.

While Milhomme, now 42, was with only a handful of other women in her company, she said there were no stereotypes within the group. “There were times where we showed the men up and there was nothing they could say because they knew we were tough,” she said. Even going as far to say that the males in her unit were all like fathers and brothers to her, Milhomme said she “would go back with them in a heartbeat if I could.”

In 1973, there were 55,000 women serving in the active duty military. That was only 2.5 percent of the entire armed forces. As of 2005, there were more than 202,000 women in the active duty, which was 14 percent of the armed forces. This figure almost quadrupled the previous statistic.

Milhomme received the news in 2003 that she was being deployed. “I had mixed feelings of nervousness and anxiousness. I had no idea what I was getting into,” Milhomme said. Her unit was told they were going to Southeast Asia, but did not know where they were going after that. The 143rd Military Police Company ended up being the first National Guard unit in the nation to enter Iraq.

“We had to put our normal life on hold and wonder every day if we were ever going to come back alive,” she said. At the time of her deployment, she was told she would be overseas for six months, which later turned into one full year.

The scene in Iraq was one that will be imprinted into Milhomme’s mind for the rest of her life. In between the large palm trees and telephone poles lining the dirt covered roads were multiple banged up cars, some of which had been burned to a crisp by bombs. The pictures she has from the war show rocks strewn across the puddles of mud surrounded by all sorts of debris. She even has one picture of a fellow soldier in her unit standing in about a 15-by-10 foot trench dressed in his camouflage uniform, clutching his rifle at his side.

Milhomme served her year long tour of duty but, like many other soldiers, now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those who are diagnosed with this disorder have vivid disturbing memories of a traumatic or life threatening experience they have gone through. Often they have trouble sleeping, get scared easily, and do not enjoy the same things they used to.

In a study compiled by Ilona Meagher, editor of “PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within,” found that about 3,800 women veterans suffer from the disorder. Many veterans are diagnosed with PTSD because of what they witness in combat, whether it is watching a friend get killed, or being sexually abused by another soldier. In Milhomme’s case it was a combination of the loud bombings she heard and the horrific shootings she watched while in the military and as a result she was medically discharged in 2007 because she “couldn’t function anymore.”

She described the transition back to states as a hard change. She said the first few days home were filled with excitement, but then reality set in. Milhomme’s friends and family did not change in the year she was away, but she had been exposed to the bloodshed of war. She spent eight weeks in the hospital getting treated for PTSD and she continues to see counselors at the Veteran’s Center in Rocky Hill, Conn.

“It’s a tough adjustment. I still stay in the middle lane on the highway, I don’t look over bridges, and I’m still afraid of getting blown up when there’s a loud noise,” Milhomme said. “I still don’t go into crowds. I used to love shopping, but you won’t find me in a mall now.” She said she used to run seven miles a day, but her passion for running is gone now due to PTSD. It also cost her job in December 2008 after 22 years working as a parts attendant, ordering different parts for cars as they broke down.

Joining the Army National Guard in 1984, Milhomme did it as a means of paying for school. She wanted to attend college and if she signed up with the Guard, they would pay for her education. When Milhomme began boot camp the following year, the military was still segregated. There were 300 women who went through extensive physical training with her. She said they also learned basic Army skills like how to read a map, how to fire a rifle, combat life saving skills, and emergency skills.

While nowadays she tries to do different women’s things with other veteran’s when she can, Milhomme’s life now revolves around her 17-year-old niece who went to live with her in Broad Brook, Conn. three months ago. She said she would love to go back to Rocky Hill to help other veterans, but she is not sure she is able to. Milhomme now joins the other 15,353 women veterans in Connecticut.

Women Veterans Around New England (as of 10/08):

1. Massachusetts--26,818
2. Connecticut--15,353
3. Maine--10,132
4. New Hampshire--8,741
5. Rhode Island--5,094
6. Vermont--3,710

Photos courtesy of Jacqueline Milhomme

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