Thing: Homemade natural soap

Price: $4 per bar

Made possible by: Jada-Moon Gridley

Who also makes: Massage candles

And: Lip balms

And: Shampoo bars

And: Shaving bars

And: Lotion bars

Not found in: Drinking bars

Or: Behind prison bars

Not to be confused with: Candy bars

I have my moments of cleanliness. Most of the time I'm organized.  Sometimes I'm punctual. When necessary, I come prepared. 

My interview with local soap maker, event planner, teacher and henna artist Jada-Moon Gridley was not-so-organized, nor was I really prepared.  Where was my handy-dandy Mead notebook with the pink roller skates on the front that I usually use to take notes? No idea. Nowhere to be found. Really could've cared less. Instead, I salvaged a crumpled-up Tapco bank deposit receipt from the bottom of my purse, flipped it over and questioned Gridley as though my unorganized fashion was simply meant to be.

As she presented me with delightful soap scents like Cornmeal Spice, I obnoxiously sniffed each and every one ... repeatedly ... as though they had some sort of medicinal weight-loss quality and I was going to drop a good 50 pounds. Damn those little sudsy cubes smelled good.

With her three-legged dog, Pogo, by her side Gridley tells me she began her soap fascination at Christmastime seven years ago. 

"I was looking to give gifts that were natural and handmade," she says.

Gridley tells me she perfected her current product with "a lot of trial and error and searching the Internet." 

Gridley's soap line, also referred to as "Moon Soap," is made in her kitchen on Tacoma's Hilltop with ingredients you'd find in the average kitchen. Olive oil, coconut oil, turmeric, cloves, kelp, poppy seeds, tea tree oil and local lavender are just a few edible examples. 

Molded in an eight-pound, 12" x 8" Gridley-made mold, the soap bricks are then cut and left out to cure for one month.

Gridley's soaps are food-based, biodegradable and minimally packaged in order to reduce carbon footprint.

"The products didn't show up on a semi-truck," says Gridley. You can find her handcrafted beautifully scented bars in Tacoma businesses such as Mad Hat Tea Company and Box Top Vintage.

Now if only she would handcraft me some sort of organization bar. I'd bathe with that, no doubt.