Soap Alchemist, Herbologist, Usui Reiki Practioner & Owner
Meet the creator and owner of The Dark Island Soap Co. Chiara, originally from Edinburgh, now resides in the beautiful Stirlingshire countryside with her young family, where she has been a full-time self-taught soap maker since 2022. At the end of 2022, Chiara studied for and completed a business diploma in soap making, learning about the importance of creating cold process soap safely, making her first cold process soap in December, 2022. Along with being a traditional soap maker, Chiara is also a herbologist and creates wonderful herbal and botanically infused soaps. In the autumn of 2022, after the loss of her father, Chiara, a natural healer, studied Reiki therapy. She is now a certified Usui Reiki (level 2) practioner, with a Shamanic Energy Healing and Crystal Healing diploma, who is now training to become a Reiki Master Healer (level3).
Here at The Dark Island Soap Co. we make our cold process soaps from a base recipe of certified organic natural oils and raw, unrefined organic shea butter. Cold process soap making is the original, traditional method of making soap by combining fat or oil (animal or plant based) with sodium hydroxide (lye), then blending in an addition of essential oils, fragrance oils, and/or colourants as required. This treatment causes a chemical reaction called saponification which takes up to 48 hours, and the final stage of "curing" (which hardens the bar) takes between 4-6 weeks.
