Shirley’s Soap for Little Dogs with Problem Skin

I make a "baby skin safe" dog soap for little dogs (and big dogs, too) with delicate skin and skin problems. I make the same type of soap you would make for a human baby, both milk and water-based, and I infuse the oils in soothing herbs like calendula petals and chamomile. The only scent I add is a small amount of lavender EO, which is also soothing, and I superfat with jojoba because of its healing properties.

I first became aware of the type of skin problems small dogs especially can have when we "adopted" a little gray Lhasa Apso nearly twenty years ago. She simply could not tolerate commercial pet shampoos, and even the unbelievably expensive ones that came from the vet gave her a horrible rash. The rash would be followed by welts as large as your finger, and these itched, so she would scratch and make the welts into raw sores. Finally, in desperation and because I didn’t want to follow the vet’s advice of keeping her on strong doses of cortisone, I tried my home-made "baby soap" on her, and it completely cleared up her skin problems. We also regularly used this type of soap on another Lhasa Apso and a Shih Tzu, and would never have considered using anything else.

Someone with a dog with skin problems is more than willing to pay a good price for a product that works. This dog "baby soap" will readily sell when it is priced at $5.00 or more for a 2.5 to 3 ounce bar. You can make it look special by wrapping a bar in paper or cloth that has been stenciled with simple paw prints (quick and easy to do), or by putting several individual little dog bone or paw-print soaps in a candy-sized paper bag with stenciled paw prints... and the extra packaging effort will make these soaps sell even faster.

Personally, I have safety concerns about some of the strong EO’s that are often put into dog soaps. I also would personally not use fragrance oils in a dog soap because of the allergy factor. Just my opinion... also, I have tried the coffee soap on a larger dog who had an encounter with a skunk, and it worked better than all the tomato juice, commercial products, etc. Kind of interesting, huh?

submitted by Shirley

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