HOW SOAP IS MADE & WORKS

A simple explanation by British mathematician Hannah Fry.

WARHORSE: Soap from a 55-Gallon Fire Kettle

About 20 years ago, while teaching high school, I stumbled into an unexpected chemistry adventure: turning used restaurant cooking oil into biodiesel for our family’s diesel cars, truck, tractor, and lawnmower. With a lot of trial and error, help from my husband, and a local mentor, I was making 40 gallons a week. Pretty fun stuff.

That process left me with plenty of leftover fats and glycerin—and a lot of messy buckets to clean. Then I discovered something even better: those same leftovers made a fantastic soap. Tough on grime, surprisingly gentle on hands. That’s when WARHORSE was born: fierce clean, gentle care.

At first, I gave it away—schools, vets, neighbors, and horse farms kept asking for more. After making (and gifting) hundreds of gallons, I I refined the recipe using better plant oils and created one hardworking soap designed to clean hard working hands and dirty stuff. I bottled WARHORSE, completed testing and certifications, added barcodes, and started selling.

What began as a curious side project grew into a real business: bigger kettles, a rented industrial space, my husband building larger equipment, a small team—and 300-gallon soap batches.

The WARHORSE soap project was fun.

Several years later, I tried to get WARHORSE to more people, more stores. Teamed up with more key people. Sell, Sell, Sell. Marketing brochures, new bottle labels, exporting, free samples, social media gurus. Planes, trains, automobiles. Go, Go.

Six years later I was not having fun.

I traveled too much. Grandchildren on the way—I’m not missing that! Tired. All money went back into the business to grow more. Came home. Done. Closed up the WARHORSE shop, all manufacturing, all sales. Took several years to tie up all loose ends and give away a tractor trailer full of soap cases that was now stored in my husband’s shop.

Whew! Now what? I still enjoyed making soap, and many WARHORSE soap customers called me. “Where’s the soap?”

With the help of my husband, I revived my little soap shop, and I got back to cooking it the way I started—in a 55 gallon drum over a fire.

Now, I can hang with nature loving grandchildren, take care of the animals, keep my 60 something hens roaming around, take the goats on hikes in the woods, garden, cook… fun stuff. I rarely travel outside my local area, except for a flounder or red fish fishing adventure.

I cook every batch over an open fire on my little North Carolina farm, the way I started.
Same focus on well known, functional ingredients. Same fierce clean, gentle care.

Try it. Not happy? I’ll refund you.
Shop Now → WARHORSEsoap.com

The Journey in Pictures and Old Press

If you're curious about the biofuel days, the high school program, or how all this began, here are some pieces of the story: