By Brett Fisher
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Homemade soaps and bath products by Michelle O’Brien. -
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Cinnamon sticks arrangement in porcelain. -
Hand-made soaps by Michelle O’Brien. -
Hand-made soaps by Michelle O’Brien. -
Hand-made bath products by Michelle O’Brien. -
Vintage3 honey pot and corn whiskey jug. -
Vintage kitchen tins. -
Essential oils. -
Vintage Spice of Life cookware. -
Do-It-Yourself aromatherapy station. -
Retirement was the green light for Dayton resident Michelle O’Brien to start working again.
Once she retired after 20 years of state service with the Nevada Division of Welfare and Supportive Services, O’Brien decided she would finally have the time to devote to soap-making, a hobby that has grown into a creative endeavor.
“I have been making soaps for five and a half years,” she said. “I had always wanted to make soap, but didn’t have the time to learn the processes until I retired.”
After making several trips to the California Bay Area to learn the art and the science behind soap-making, O’Brien’s interest in the subject soared. And, so did her inventory of home-made soaps.
She eventually decided to open her own retail business in which she could engage her favorite craft.
“Owning my own business was a childhood dream of mine,” she said.
O’Brien opened Desert Plains Mercantile, located in the Frontier Plaza at 1917 N. Carson Street, on June 30 of this year.
Her business resides in a tidy 640 square foot space, just right for her collections of home-made soaps, salt scrubs, body butters, bath salts, and other hand-made spa and skin care products.
The center of store will eventually be devoted to studio work, O’Brien said, because she wants to share her love of soap-making with others by conducting workshops and classes.
“It’s just really creative, and I love the smells,” she said. “And it’s so wonderful for your skin also.”
O’Brien said her soaps are made from all-natural ingredients, including coconut, olive oil, shea butter, aloe vera, ground alfalfa and even goat’s milk.
She also uses premium oils to provide maximum benefit to the skin.
“The oils I use for the salt scrubs are all premium oils and all really good for your skin, with exfoliating and moisturizing qualities,” she said. “These soaps are all super fatted by five percent so they are all very moisturizing for your skin.”
The five percent means the amount of moisturizing oils remaining in the soap bar after it has cured, O’Brien said.
She said her products are very different from the commercial soaps and cleansing agents found in large retail stores.
“Most commercial soaps aren’t really soap anymore,” she said. “They are facial or complexion bars, from which the manufacturers extract all of the glycerin out of them. They are very drying to your skin, and not true soap.”
O’Brien said the soap-making process isn’t complicated, but it can be time consuming, so patience is required to make really good soaps.
“The soap is primarily cold process, which is from scratch,” she said. “There’s a lot of steps in involved.”
After the ingredients are combined, the mixture is poured into a mold where it sets to cure for about six weeks before it can be used or wrapped, she said.
The curing time ensures the soap dries out sufficiently to be packaged or used, she said.
O’Brien said her soaps are beneficial to people with medical skin conditions, such as eczema or psoriasis, because of the all-natural ingredients and the low levels of allergens in her products.
“I use natural colors, micas and oxides, that are just ground up,” she said.
Some of her soaps are even unscented and uncolored for those with super sensitive allergies.
“There are quite a few people that have skin conditions,” she said. “One of my soaps is prairie grass. I call it my healing bar, made with ground aloe and alfalfa. The grasses are really good for your skin, especially for eczema or psoriasis.”
And she said some customers swear by the goat’s milk soap, too.
O’Brien feels her store fulfills a niche in Carson City for all-natural skin care and spa products, because most of what exists in stores here are made commercially by large companies.
“Some of the beauty shops have a few products, but they are not their own products,” she said. “These are manufactured by the big companies.”
O’Brien’s products, on the other hand, give new meaning to the phrase locally made.
As in made right in her store.
O’Brien said a benefit to buying locally made products is there’s no mystery about what goes into them. They are also made with love and care.
In fact, O’Brien is such a believer in making and buying things local that she is actively seeking out local artisans to display their hand-made crafts or artwork in her store.
She said she eventually wants to open up the studio portion of her store to artists and crafters to teach classes on making their products.
As for her own classes, those are currently in the works, including a children’s workshop she plans to conduct in early December during the Christmas season.
“Those won’t be cold process soap, so there will be no chemicals involved,” she said. “Kids can pick out the molds, scents and colors they want to use.”
Besides hand-made bath and skin-care products, Desert Plains Mercantile also features vintage kitchenware from Pyrex, Corning and Spice of Life, among others, for those who share O’Brien’s love for antique kitchen collectibles.
For more information on the products for sale at Desert Plains Mercantile or to stay updated on upcoming classes, contact O’Brien at the store at 775-220-6420. Or visit the store’s Facebook page here.
