Sam'Splains the World Field Trip Edition to Muddy Creek Soap Company

Located in West Reading, PA

Having always had sensitive skin, growing up with limited availability to anything that was not mass produced procured many years of strife. When everyone swore by a product that absolutely made my skin break out it always felt like heartache. It took decades for me to discover products that actually made my skin feel good and look great. If I could go back in time I would study to be an alchemist, but the next best thing is befriending someone who basically is.

When you discover someone who is curious, researches, and tirelessly tries different recipes until finding the perfect balance, you have struck gold. I have been so lucky to have befriended Beverly the founder and owner of Muddy Creek Soap Company in lively West Reading, and I have never looked back.

If you are like me, then you absolutely cannot pass up a good sniff-by when walking past the artisanal soap display. Often looking more like art than the soap you grew up with, but so far removed as the ingredients are superior in every which way, often vegan.

Artisanal soap boasts about the ingredients that make your skin feel quenched, supple, and treated right. Ditch the bad ex (manufactured drying out soap) and treat your skin to the recipes it deserves. Made with ingredients you have actually heard of and can pronounce!

Before I became so lucky as to have found a place around the block from me, I met Yvette. During the pandemic I had the privilege of becoming friends with Yvette who hails from South Africa, a Nat Geo Explorer, scientist, ornithologist, and so much more. She started the movement of getting female products to girls so that they could stop missing school and start feeling human. Yvie makes artisanal soaps. Often making videos of soap making and creating the most delicious smelling and feeling soaps I had ever experienced. How? Yvie sent a huge box of assorted soaps that she made via her amazing in-laws who carried it back from South Africa to the UK where they reside and then shipped it directly to me. How I Iong for the days in which we are not separated by so much distance.

Ever since, I have been chasing that artisanal soap high, and finally, after all this time, found a local artist and member of the international Soap Guild a mere five minute drive from my house in beautiful and fun West Reading. Muddy Creek Soap Company is a delightful and vibrant shop that is always filled with customers who exclusively use Beverly’s products.

Bevery Kelly-Carfagno is the wizard behind the endless products being introduced into the store. Having grown up with skin issues, not surprisingly exacerbated by the harsh ingredients that dry out skin found in most major soap brands, and exhausted by being told to just use ivory by doctors, Beverly began experimenting. She happened upon hand crafted artisanal soaps at markets and such, and realized oh my! These feel so much better on my skin… I am no longer having the issues that ivory always led to. Beverly did her research, and through trial and error, and joining the Soap Makers Guild, she found her sweet spot.

She and her supportive husband hustled her soaps all the way up and down the east coast, until one day her husband saw a sign for rent in West Reading. He believed in her so much that he helped her land in a great location on the bustling West Reading main strip and they never looked back. This February will be her tenth anniversary in that location! So much to celebrate, and yet so much to keep experimenting with.

Beverly was kind enough to show me and the Sam’Splains audience how her best selling products are made. The science and the baking measurements of it all, and it was as thrilling as it was scent-sational. Muddy Creek is my go to when having friends and loved ones visit our hamlet in PA. It is always a huge success! Ranging from grabbing great gifts for those you care about, to treating yo’self to the skin care you deserve.

Case and point, a gorgeous male couple was in the shop while I was filming, stocking up on their favorite products made by Beverly before making their move down to Del Ray! If that isn’t a testament to the quality and popularity of Beverly’s magic, I don’t know what is. The best part, they can and will be ordering online and having it shipped once they go through their stock. But they didn’t want to move without it!

Please enjoy the half hour segment airing on BCTV 9pm on Friday, which now lives on youtube under the Sam’Splains Playlist.

Wanting a bit more? Enjoy the extended version and learn how two other best selling products are made! It is the closest thing to being a wizard or a witch that I have discovered outside of playing DnD.