I don’t make soap in the shape of small woodland animals or in colors to match your bathroom curtains. I don’t picture my bars sitting untouched next to dusty flowers or folded towels. My soap is not decor, it’s made to be used. Wayward & Wild soaps are meant to be packed, scrubbed, worn down, and lived with. I don’t want to sell soap that keeps up with trends, because while your skin may change with each season, why fix something that isn’t broken? 

Growing up in Alaska into a family of blue collar, resourceful people, living simply and well within my means isn’t a romanticized aesthetic, it’s where I feel the most grounded and sane. Hauling water from a local spring, cutting wood to heat the home, and hunting, trapping, fishing, and foraging to fill the freezers is survival. It helps my mental health to create systems that work without relying on others. It is practical, functional, and having these daily chores without the convenience of city hookups felt like closing all the obnoxious tabs open in my brain. There’s a predictable rhythm to it. I think that the comfortability that most people of upper classes are used to isn’t impressive. I actually find it quite overwhelming. Living off grid, living simply, living with the land, it’s not deprivation, it’s finding “what can I do to provide for myself?”. 

Nearly all of the men in my family, on both sides, are handy. They fix things professionally, like my dad who turns wrenches on anything from a mini bike to the city ambulance to a front-end loader, or my grandpa who tinkered on airplanes and was the town’s only Dish Network Tech. The skills that come with building, fixing, and fiddling with are valued nearly as much as reading and writing. It was instilled that you must be educated enough to succeed, but curious enough to experiment. The number of times I heard “you paid someone to do this??” and “yeah, I can still fix it” taught me that not only did we learn skills for self-sufficiency, but also to help our neighbors, to build community. I grew up seeing effort and function, not display items, and I’m proud to say I make soap the way my family makes race cars: with intention of use. 

With this tinkering comes a lot of thinking. Spending time alone has always been easy for me. I could go days without seeing another person, and as long as I had a good dog and a project, I’d be set. Living in the bush of Alaska seemed normal to me, and this isolation many people feared, I welcomed. It was time to be introspective, to question my own behaviors, and drop any that no longer served a purpose. It was time to plan, and invent, to solve some problems and better my situation. Soap-making fits into this beautifully. As of right now, my husband works hitch work for a mine in Alaska meaning he’s home for a few weeks, gone for a few weeks, rinse, repeat. This quiet time alone with my dogs is not only vital for my business and allows me to get fully caught up on things that I may have slacked off on when he is home, but is equally important to me as a quiet human. Time to recharge, eat the same meal 3 times a day for a week, and be fully immersed in the continuous list of business tasks without interruption. 

In more than a few ways my business reflects who I am. This self-reliant living isn’t a marketing angle, it’s a hope that more people will decide to do one or two more things for themselves. This kind of preventative thinking takes back control so when things do go wrong, or worsening weather conditions due to climate change make traveling nearly impossible, we are prepared and not stressing. So, no, I don’t make soap for pretty bathrooms, but I did learn how to make soap to keep mine and my neighbor’s shower stocked.