“It all started with one pony we got for the girls, and the pony needed a friend, so we got a goat, and what to do with this goat?”

What to do with this goat, indeed. That’s the question Kira Bixel asked herself (and probably her husband, Jason) after starting a collection of barnyard animals at Bixel Family Farm in Herron. The obvious answer? Make soap!

“We bred her the next year and I thought, well, I’ll try making soap,” Bixel said. “I wasn’t happy with soap products in the store.”

She said she didn’t feel comfortable putting them on her kids because they are too harsh on skin and have too many chemicals in them.

“After reading that body washes are not soap, they’re detergents, I thought I’d try my hand at soap,” Bixel said. “I started giving it as just gifts to friends and family, then I went to Wilson’s Crafty Christmas and sold some soaps there and thought, well, I might as well try my hand at this at market.”

She explained her inspiration for soap-making on Oct. 27, with her natural soap and other products for sale at the Indoor Farmers Market at the Alpena Mall. Other products she offers, made with natural emollients and essential oils, include lip balm, sugar scrub, hand salve, bug spray and even beard oil and “Spicy Mustache Wax”.

She gets creative with both the names and scents of her soaps, calling one “Dapper Dude,” and making another with the scent of leather. She has made 24 different scents so far.

How does she come up with these scent ideas?

“It varies. Ideas vary,” Bixel said. “Customer input, what they come to me looking for. I’ll google different essential oil blends … like that black leather scent, I bought a tiny little jar of it just to try it out and people loved that black leather smell. You either love it or hate it. The same thing with patchouli.”

Her addiction to lip balm led her to try her hand at making that, too.

She offers lip balm in the following scents: Lavender & Blood Orange; Lime & Ginger; and Peppermint, Rosemary & Lavender.

Lip balms are made from coconut oil, cocoa butter, beeswax, lanolin, vitamin E and essential oils, she said.

“The lip balms kind of went hand-in-hand with the soap, and I was using Burt’s Bees lip balm like crazy, and I was very addicted to it, I had to apply it all the time, so I made lip balm,” Bixel said.

Her “Bug Off Spray” is “a natural alternative to bug spray, loaded with essential oils that ticks and fleas and mosquitoes don’t care for,” she said.

Her daughters, Jona, 14, and Juliet, 11, have been helping her sell the soap and products for the past four to five years. They don’t help make the soap, though, because it involves the use of lye, or sodium hydroxide, which can burn your skin in its raw form before it is cooked into the soap.

Bixel taught a group of adults how to make hot-process soap from start to finish on Oct. 25 at a Community Education Class at Alpena Community College. Hot-process soap takes about two to three hours, but cold-process soap is cured, or left alone to set, for four to six weeks.

“Commercial soap is stripped of its glycerin and pumped full of synthetic ingredients,” she explained to the class. “Homemade soap keeps its glycerin, providing skin-nourishing emollients.”

Her soap recipe makes about four full-size loaves of soap, but it can be pared down to make smaller batches. It requires 44 ounces olive oil, 36 ounces coconut oil, 32 ounces palm flakes, 6 ounces shea butter, 4 ounces cocoa butter, 39 ounces goat’s milk (or beer or water), and 19 ounces lye (sodium hydroxide).

First, Bixel explained the importance of safety when handling lye, which is an alkali, a highly corrosive product that should be handled with care. She never makes soap in an area with children or pets, or with any distractions that could cause a spill or an explosive chemical reaction. She wears long sleeves and uses latex gloves, a face mask and safety goggles during the process.

Before mixing the lye with the cold goat’s milk, water or flat beer (carbonation causes a reaction), measure the oil and butter ingredients and pour them into a high-walled, stainless-steel pot, heating it to 108 degrees. Never use an aluminum pot, because that metal causes an unpleasant reaction with the lye and makes the mixture harden prematurely, making a huge mess that’s hard to clean up, Bixel said.

She explained that you must add the lye slowly to the goat’s milk or water, and not the other way around, or a violent reaction occurs. The liquid will begin to heat up upon mixing. When it reaches 108 degrees, you can add it to the melted oil pot.

She uses a stick blender to blend it until trace occurs, or until it has a pudding-like consistency.

If she were making cold-process soap, that is when she would add the essential oils and coloring, and pour the mixture into molds to cure for four to six weeks. But, since she is making hot-process soap, that is when she puts the entire pot into the oven at 170 degrees for at least an hour. She noted to use caution when checking the mixture, because, as it reaches saponification, it will let out steam. So, a mask and goggles should be used when checking on it.

Saponification occurs when the composition of the oils change, reacting with the lye to create soap.

Then, after the soap is done curing, you can add the essential oils and coloring of your choice. She uses a variety of different brands of essential oils, but she said you can notice the difference in quality, so be careful that you choose a higher-grade oil. She pours the soap into silicone bread loaf pans first, then adds essential oils and coloring into each loaf pan. Her coloring comes from a fine mica powder available from most craft retailers.

Let the soap cure for a week before using it, then pull it out of the mold and cut it into slices using a knife or pastry cutter. Bixel likes using a corrugated pastry cutter for a wavy effect.

“Last year, I estimated I’ve made 500 pounds of soap since I started in 2012,” Bixel said.

Bixel enjoys making and selling her natural products to the local community.

“I like being my own boss,” she said. “I like being able to offer a natural alternative to what’s in the store and providing what the customers want and talking to them. Having repeat customers is nice. You create a bond of friendship, and you get to see the same people each week.”

Bixel Family Farm, owned by Jason and Kira Bixel, is located at 9750 Taylor Hawks Road in Herron.

For more information, call 989-464-2757 or email bixelk@gmail.com. The Bixels bring their products to the Farmers Market, open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each Saturday.