One of the questions we're asked more than almost any other is why our soaps are made without coconut oil. It's a fair question. Coconut oil has been used in handmade soap for generations, and if you spend even a few minutes looking at traditional soap recipes, you'll quickly notice how often it appears. Before Janae ever poured her first batch of soap, we assumed we'd probably use it too. At the time, we didn't know enough to think there might be another path.
That changed as she began learning the craft. What started as curiosity slowly became careful observation. Every batch revealed something new. A slight adjustment to one ingredient could change the way a bar lathered, the way it cured, or simply how it felt after rinsing your hands. The deeper we went, the more we realized there isn't a single perfect soap recipe waiting to be discovered. There are thousands of thoughtful decisions that eventually become someone's formula, and every soapmaker has to decide which choices matter most.
For us, one of those decisions became coconut oil. We have a great deal of respect for soapmakers who use it well, and this isn't a story about one ingredient being good while another is bad. Coconut oil has earned its place in soapmaking for good reason, and many beautifully made bars include it. We simply found ourselves asking a different question. Instead of wondering what most people were doing, Janae kept asking, "Would we be happy reaching for this bar every single day?" That question became the compass for every recipe that followed.
As we continued testing, babassu oil slowly worked its way into the conversation. At first it was simply another ingredient to experiment with, but after batch after batch it became clear that it was helping us create the kind of soap we wanted beside our own sink. We liked the way the finished bars felt. We appreciated the lather. More importantly, it fit the direction we believed Curtis & Kin should take. Looking back, the decision feels obvious now, but at the time it was simply the result of paying attention and refusing to rush the process.
Something unexpected happened after we began sharing our soap with other people. We started hearing from customers who had been looking for coconut-free soap because of allergies, sensitivities, or personal preference. We hadn't built Curtis & Kin around the idea of excluding an ingredient. We were simply making the bar we believed in. It wasn't until those conversations happened that we realized our decision had quietly filled a need for families who had struggled to find another option. Sometimes the things that make a product meaningful aren't the ones you planned from the beginning.
One thing we've tried to avoid over the years is turning ingredients into heroes and villains. The internet is very good at doing that. One week an ingredient is celebrated, and the next week it's something to avoid at all costs. Real life is rarely that simple. Coconut oil has a place. Babassu oil has a place. The goal isn't to convince everyone to agree with our choices. It's simply to explain why we made them and allow people to decide whether those choices fit their own home.
If we're honest, babassu oil isn't the reason people come back to Curtis & Kin. It helps shape the bar, but it isn't the heart of what we do. The part people never see is the time spent testing recipes, listening to customers, making small improvements, and refusing to settle for "good enough." That's the ingredient we hope people experience every time they unwrap one of our bars. Not because it's printed on the label, but because thoughtful products have a way of speaking for themselves.
We didn't choose babassu oil because it was unusual. We chose it because, after countless batches and careful adjustments, it became part of the kind of soap we wanted our own family to use every day. In the end, that's still how every decision at Curtis & Kin is made. We begin with our own home first, trusting that if something quietly earns its place here, it may earn a place in someone else's home too.