Even though I live in the great city of San Francisco, I am really a country girl at heart. I was born and raised in the South, with beaches to the east, and the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains to the west. Nature and the outdoors were always just a few steps away. I am a huge nature and animal lover, and have spent a lot of my past camping, hiking, rock climbing, and anything else I could do just to be outside. Because of that, and because of the way I feel about the future of our planet, I try to be as green, organic, local, and environmentally friendly as I can.

In the second half of 2005, I was living on a farm in Tennessee—it was in the middle of nowhere and it was beautiful. I loved feeding the goats, playing with the dogs, and chopping firewood. I loved the absolute silence of the country and the crystal clear star-filled skies at night. I loved to go rootin’—southern speak for driving your truck off road, in mud, and at speeds otherwise idiotic. I loved being in the outdoors all the time, waking and sleeping with the sun.

One day, when it was still early fall and the temps hadn’t dropped yet; I was filling up the water tanks for the house. We had a perfect little creek on the property, and using a garden hose and a pump, I had to fill up the tanks that provided our kitchen and bathroom water. It was late in the afternoon, and I had been doing chores all day, so I was pretty hot and dirty.

When I filled the last tank, an idea popped into my head. I thought about how nice it would be to take out the middleman—the shower—and just bathe out in the creek. Our nearest neighbors were acres away, so I would have the privacy I needed. But like all girls, I needed a good product. What could I use for shampoo and soap that was green enough to use in the creek that supplied all of our water?