About Us
WHO WE ARE
Welcome to our little corner of the world! We're so happy you found us! My name is Erin Dakins and my hubby is Brad Dakins. Both of us are retired, Brad is a Disabled Veteran via Operation Iraqi Freedom and I am a Retired Veterinary Technician (Purdue 1984 - yeah, I'm that old). We have been blessed immensely with a large family that is still growing:) We live outside of Parker City, Indiana and make soaps, candles, graphic tees and hats, tumblers and coffee mugs etc etc etc from our small farm. We are also campers and we have camped off and on most of our lives. Enjoying family time and the outdoors are what make us complete. Oh, have I mentioned we have critters too? We, ehem, live on a small farm which enables the animal lover in me to have many critters from dogs, a super-mouser house cat, a sugar glider, a salt water aquarium, fresh water turtles, chickens, a couple of old turkeys, a few ducks to swim in our pond, and we have a few alpacas. We are busy and maybe just a bit bonkers as well!
WHY WE TOOK THIS JOURNEY
We have had issues for years finding candles that didn't give us headaches and wreak havoc with my asthma so we set out and began researching candle making...and here we are. Then we discovered cement candle vessels and changed up everything, well, not totally though because we still love classic glass vessels too. So, now we offer both!
I have also been pretty particular about the soaps that I use, not wanting tons of chemicals in them that are really unnecessary. Sigh. Soap making, that was a challenging road, lots to learn but I am pretty stubborn and didn't give up even when I had to heave batches of soap that were EPIC FAILS. I have now figured it out - great soap, good for your skin, gentle and smells pretty good too without harsh chemicals. Soap that we comfortably bathe our critters in, give to our children, grandkids and use ourselves.
We have added graphic tees, tumblers, coffee mugs, tote bags, and hats into our bailiwick too simply because we love making stuff. We also purchased a freeze dryer and now offer freeze dried treats!
OUR GOALS
Not only did we want to make candles and soaps that were healthier, we wanted to eliminate what waste we could. Single use plastics are a major problem so we choose to use glass or concrete for our candles that can be upcycled. We took care in choosing the vessels that we thought people would want to reuse instead of just tossing in the trash when the candles were gone. Our plastic shrink wrap for soaps is biodegradable.
All of our candles are handcrafted by us using ParaSoy Wax and/or soy wax, cotton wicks or wooden wicks and clean, phthalate free fragrance oils.
ALL OF OUR SOAPS, BUTTERS, BALMS AND SCRUBS ARE HANDMADE, VEGAN AND CRUELTY-FREE.
All of our soaps are SLS, paraben and phthalate free.
We hope that you love the soaps, candles and more that we make...just for you!
So...
EMBRACE LIFE and cherish every single moment of every day!
We have 2 new furry additions to our family! We now have English Cream Golden Retrievers! We plan on breeding them in about a year and a half!
We got 2 puppies at the same time in the winter so I am pretty convinced we might have some mental issues! Nah, just kidding! Actually having 2 pups at the same time was much easier oddly enough and so worth it as they bring laughter, love and joy into our home!
Cooper Mabel Mae
