ENTERPRISE ENCORE
Lathered in Love
Unordinary times cry out for the desperately ordinary by
JENNIFER CLARK
S
Brian Powers
ince the pandemic hit, my sister, Molly Appledorn, can’t stop making soap. Or talking about it. We’re on her back deck, six feet apart, sipping strawberry jalapeño margaritas. This soap thing rocks! she says. And she’s rocked quite a few soaps, from Sassy Citrus to Date Night to Grandma’s Lemon Bars, turning out loaf after beautiful loaf. To make her soaps, Molly buys refined shea butter, rice bran oil, essential oils and pounds of sodium hydroxide, all delivered safely
16 | ENCORE OCTOBER 2020
through the mail. She obtains avocado, castor and hemp oils from Sawall Health Foods. For some batches, she snatches eggs, still warm from her hens, and adds them in. Into others, she drizzles milk from coconuts or goats. Three months into the pandemic, she placed a custom order with some guy named Jeremy for a soap cutter made from solid cherry. She drove 76 miles, from Kalamazoo to Sand Lake, to pick it up. She Molly Appledorn, right, has found a new purpose creating soaps, like those below, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
