Artisan Spotlight: Adopted Acres Soap Co.

Good soap. Good people. A whole lot of heart.

Doug Layne is a close personal friend of mine, so let’s get that out of the way before somebody launches a congressional investigation into the integrity of my soap opinions.

Yes, I’m biased about the man. I’m putting that right on the label.

Adopted Acres Soap Co. started with Doug sharpening a straight razor and falling headfirst into the wet shaving rabbit hole. You know the one. You buy a brush, try a soap, and suddenly you’re explaining to your wife why a closet full of shaving supplies is a perfectly reasonable use of household space.

Doug eventually went from collecting soaps to making his own, using beef tallow rendered from suet from Cara’s family’s Angus cattle farm in Ohio. That is a level of knowing where your ingredients come from that makes the rest of us checking a shipping notification look pretty lazy.

But the reason I want you to know about Adopted Acres goes well beyond what’s in the tub.

Doug and Cara are parents to six adopted children, several of whom have disabilities. As their kids have grown, they’ve been working toward something bigger: a business that can eventually provide meaningful employment for their children and others with disabilities in their community.

Their dream is a brick-and-mortar location near Ashville, Ohio, where people can do purposeful work, contribute, and have those contributions valued.

That part matters to me. These are my friends, and this is the future they’re working to build.

They make shave soaps, aftershave splashes, shave creams, skincare, fragrances, and other small-batch creations themselves. Every order helps move that dream a little further along.

Full disclosure, I stole a healthy chunk of their story from their About Us page. Doug’s a close friend, so I’m calling it borrowing and hoping he doesn’t send an invoice. Make sure you read it when you visit. There’s a whole lot more heart behind this company than I can fit into a soap spotlight.

Go meet Adopted Acres Soap Co. and have a look around.

Tell Doug Mully sent you. I can’t promise that gets you anything, but making him put up with me is a tradition worth keeping alive.

Love Does Hard Things.