MI Love: City Girls Soap

If you've been following this blog, you know that sometimes I am frustrated to live in Michigan. Without full access to equal rights, I worry about my family, my career, and our future. Still, that's an incomplete picture. If we had really, truly hated everything about Michigan, we could have left by now.

What's keeping us here? For many years, it was our educations and the promise of in-state tuition rates. Our families are also here. But we wouldn't be so far from our families in the Chicago area or parts of Canada or Buffalo. And there are planes and trains and cars if we were farther.

The truth is that many Michiganders are simply amazing. The community here isn't something we're guaranteed to find if we move. And problematic as things are in Detroit, there is so much beauty there. We're loving Royal Oak as well - it has a small town feel with lots of young families, charming mixed architecture, and access to good grocery stores and a farmers market (in case you haven't noticed, we're kind of foodies).

One person I got to know when Rebecca and I were working to start Urban Agricultural Initiatives of Detroit (UAID), a now-defunct non-profit attempting to ease logistics of urban farming, starting with public health and financial issues related to goats, was Amy McIntire. She and her husband started City Girls Soap, a business that uses products from Detroit to make body soap, laundry soap, mosquito repellent, and lotion that cleanse and moisturize like these products should. Best of all, the ingredient list is simple and supports local non-profits.

Yesterday, I had a chance to visit Amy at their brand-spanking-new production facility in Pontiac. They wanted to work in Detroit, but the city told them that they would not be permitted to keep the goats that produce their goat milk on the premises, something they couldn't live with. City Girls now has a great relationship with Goldner Walsh at their beautiful nursery/florist/landscaping facility. I got to love on their goats - Winnie, Sophie, and Wren - and see where the magic happens. I also purchased a rosemary lemon soap, an orange calendula soap, and a Skeeter bar (the mosquito repellent I mentioned earlier) with their three for $15 deal. I'll be picking up some of their goat milk lotion as soon as it's back in stock. I didn't purchase any of their laundry detergent, only because I haven't run out yet. It's powerful enough to remove stains, but gentle enough that it doesn't irritate Rebecca's sensitive skin.

Amy and I discussed the urban agriculture gossip going around and I got a chance to hear more background about City Girls Soap.  We also discussed some of the issues on my blog - Amy is definitely an ally. It was great to chat about these issues again - Rebecca and I loved discussing ideas related to urban agriculture and meeting like-minded people, but when she started med school and I started grad school, we were suddenly far from Detroit and too busy to seek out those opportunities. We're back now, and I have enough free time to keep up with the happenings.

You can find City Girls Soap at Eastern Market in Detroit on Sundays, at a few other places, and at their website. I hope that my readers will support this business, which is also committed in the Mitten - to local business, to sustainable practices, to Detroit, to their family, and to their goats.