A Peek at What’s New in the Soap Room
Sister Maria Rose packages a shampoo bar - one of our new products!
The novitiate sisters have been hard at work in the soap room lately cooking up some new ideas! We’ve introduced some new products for the shower, including shampoo bar soap, body wash, and bath bombs. We’ve had fun experimenting with some new fragrances and colors while we’re at it! You can take a look at some of our new (and old) products here.
While as Dominicans we are part of a mendicant order, meaning that we rely on the generous donations of our benefactors to support ourselves, we also have an obligation to do what we can to help provide for our needs. Our constitutions emphasize the importance of work both as a means to stay psychologically healthy and avoid idleness as well as an identification with the poor who must work for their living.
The soap department was started after our community experienced a surge in new vocations and a corresponding increase in expenses.
More than just a way to “earn our keep” though, work in common has its formative aspects as well. Our constitutions state that “work is demanded by religious poverty and serves the common good by building up charity through cooperation.” Even though our work is done in silence as far as possible, there is a real unifying aspect to working together towards a common goal.
Sister Lucia Marie makes a batch of our face cream. One of our sisters says that it works better for her eczema than the medication!
Sister Bridget mixes up a batch of our new body wash
Work in the monastery has a slightly different character than it can take on out in the world. Our work is meant to serve our life of prayer, and is never an end in itself. Many of our tasks are quite ordinary, which far from being degrading, is both a close participation in the kind of work which Joseph and Mary would have engaged in, as well as a form of work which easily lends itself to continual prayer. The purpose of our work is not to be as efficient as possible or even to complete it as quickly as possible, but rather to do it well, for the glory of God, and in a peaceful, prayerful attitude. And, of course, it can have its ascetic aspects as well. Our constitutions remind us that our work can also be a form of penance, as we have all felt on some days!
But our work is also a participation in the creative power of God, and working in the soap room can be an easy way to see that. There is something very satisfying at the end of the day to look and see the bar of soap that you made, knowing that what you made is made well and has a purpose that it will serve.
We asked the novitiate sisters what some of their favorite scents and soaps are:
Sr. Lucia Marie: Favorite scents - Vanilla Bean, Verbena, and the fragrance for our new shampoo soap. Favorite soap - well, not a soap, but our face and hand creams! Also, the Oatmeal & Honey liquid soap.
Sr. Maria Rose: Favorite soap - A lot! Cloister Garden, Sugar Plum (a Christmas soap) and Country Apple (Fall). Also, not a soap, but our peppermint foot cream. Smells so good and is so relaxing on your feet (or anywhere else). Favorite fragrance - Japanese Cherry Blossom (one of our Spring soaps)
Sr. Bridget: Favorite soap: Gardener’s soap, and our White Citrus body wash. Favorite scent: Cloister Garden
Comment with your own favorites or any suggestions for products you think we should make!
