Ben and Polly Gorringe, Martha's Bath and Body, Alexandria, Ohio
We didn't set out to start a business. It all started with too much grass to mow! We live on about six acres near Alexandria, Ohio, and the upkeep of the land was getting to be just too much. Sometimes we choose unconventional solutions, and in this case, instead of getting a better-equipped mower, we decided that it made a lot of sense to fence off a big chunk of our land and get a few goats to mow it for us. We've always been hobby farm enthusiasts, so we were excited about venturing into goat care. Our very first goats were Spanky and Fritz. These two guys weren't the nicest, and so we traded up for some calmer, kinder goats. Eventually, we purchased two of the cutest, sweetest kid goats -- two sisters we named Martha and Penny. We bottle-fed them and watched them grow into the best goats we had ever had! They adjusted to life in our small herd and eventually started doing their part by keeping the grass trimmed and entertaining us with their antics. As time went on, we loved looking across the peaceful meadow and watching our content little herd chewing grass and lazing about.
Then one very cold evening, we noticed something strange. There was something else in the goat herd! From a distance we couldn't really tell what it was. A small dog? A large cat? We walked closer to inspect. It looked like a small goat!!! Did someone drop off a small goat and leave it in our field? Who would do that? Then we realized what had happened! You see, we had a male goat in our herd, and, well... biology. Martha had a kid! Martha gave birth to a kid on one of the coldest nights of the winter, and the kid was going to freeze to death if we didn't do something!
We acted quickly and brought the tiny, cold, almost lifeless baby into our house. We fixed up a spot for her in our shower and set up a heat light to give her warmth. We weren't sure she was going to make it. She eventually began stirring, and our spirits were raised. We knew she needed to eat, and we sure weren't going to bring Martha in our bathroom! We knew we needed to milk Martha, but neither of us had ever milked a goat before. Thanks to online video tutorials and a very patient Martha, we were able to get what was needed for the kid! We bottle fed her with her mama's milk until she was well enough to reunite the mama and daughter.
This is how we came to milk Martha. It turned out that Martha had a steady and full supply of milk, more than her kid could ever drink. We started using the milk for our family and experimented with making cheese and ice cream. We had more than we could use, so we started giving it to family and friends. We still had plenty of milk, so we decided to try making some goat's milk soap with it. We really enjoyed the benefits of this natural soap, and we shared the soap with family and friends. Our friends told us that we should sell the soap because they loved it so much. And that is how we became soap makers!
We originally named our business Martha's Milk Soap, after our sweet Martha. Making soap requires oils and butters, and the more we learned about the fabulous properties of these oils and butters, the more excited we became about how these oils can be used to feed our skin. We began to branch out and create other skin care products like lotions, lip balms, masks, body oil blends, natural deodorant, scrubs, and Castile soap. Many of these new products didn't contain goat's milk, so our name of Martha's Milk Soap didn't make much sense anymore. We renamed our business Martha's Bath and Body, and we are still creating nourishing new products using ingredients such as organic jojoba oil, shea nut butter, rose water, coconut oil, babassu oil, argan oil, lanolin and essential oils!
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Thank you so much for stopping by! We value our customers and our community. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to catch glimpses of behind-the-scene moments, skin care tips, and the latest on new products. We have more content on our blog page here and in our monthly newsletter, including coupon codes and special deals. You can sign up for the newsletter on our home page.
Mabel and kid