Herbal Soap Factory; Goducate Livelihood project in Laguna Philippines

The title “Herbal Soap Factory” sounds impressive. In most of our minds it conjures up the image of a spotless, high-tech factory with white-coated lab technicians. However, the Goducate Herbal Soap Factory is in a little wooden Goducate Learning Center building. And it is run by a few old ladies (one a widow) who have learned to make herbal soap for a livelihood.

The technique of making herbal soap has been learned by Jonathan, the Goducate Learning Center supervisor at Mabakan, Laguna, from a government sponsored course. He has since transferred the skills to these ladies. The equipment is rudimentary – a few pails, many plastic molds to contain the liquid soap, some paper to wrap the soap. The raw materials are simple – caustic soda, vegetable oil and herbal essence, eg. crushed papaya, crushed guava leaves.

The ladies patiently stir the mixture of caustic soda, oil and herbal essence for about 30 minutes before the dark brown liquid is poured into the plastic molds. When the dark brown liquid is left to cool, it turns into pure white soap! When the soap is hard enough it is knocked out of its mold and left to “mature” for a month before it can be used.

The soap is then wrapped in simple paper and sold to their neighbors for 12 pesos (about US 20 cents). The proceeds from the sale of the soap are shared between the Goducate Center, the soap makers and those who sell the soap. So far sales are satisfactory. However, efforts are being made to produce smaller pieces of soap to sell to the nearby hot-spring resorts for their guests.

Though the amount earned is small, soap-making encourages the spirit of enterprise among these people. Jonathan has also learned how to make dish-washing liquid and will be teaching the students at Goducate Learning Center to make and sell this soon.

Goducate wants to help Filipinos to help themselves through enterprise.