About Us

Hi, I'm Jackie. I'm the owner, soap maker, and goat herder at Jax Soap Company and Calmir Farms. Here's the story of how we came to be.

It all started with Tom, Dick and Harry...

In early 2018, we decided to get some goats. Nothing fancy, just a few fainting goats for fun. Tom, Dick and Harry were their names. They were going to be fenced in our yard for the sole purpose of having less grass to cut. A few months later, I said "What the heck, let's get some more goats!" Betty and Barbara Jean were introduced to our herd. Our herd of 5 goats multiplied, then we bought some more for good measure. Fast forward to 2024 and we now have over 75 goats (and we've been as high as 140)! We have 9 different breeds of goats represented on our farm including Toggenburg, Alpine, Saanen, Nubian, Lamancha, Savanna, Boer, Kiko and Myotonic.

   

Some of the menagerie - Helen, Midas and Dusty.

My husband thought we should add dairy goats at some point and I said "What are we going to do with the milk?" His suggestion was soap. I knew next to nothing about making soap so I started my research and bought my first container of lye and a quart of goat milk from the grocery store.

In January of 2021, our dairy goat herd was started with Helen and her daughter Haylee, and after they kidded in February, we started milking them twice daily. 

That first batch of soap was made using a cardboard box for a mold and was cured on my living room bookshelf. I'm a food scientist in my day job so making up recipes and testing stuff is right up my alley. After quite a few batches, I realized how much I like formulating, making and more importantly, using handmade goat milk soap. I've never been much of a body wash user so I just suffered with commercial bar soaps containing synthetic detergents. Who knew there was a better option?

The crew. 

I never thought that making soap would become such a passion for me. Pretty soon after I started, I realized that soap making was here to stay and I needed to share my passion for handmade goat milk soap with others. So, along came Jax Soap Company!

We are located in Southeast Minnesota, just south of the Twin Cities metro area. My husband is the 4th generation of his family on the farm and we have a son and daughter who love the farm life just as much as we do. They help with the chores, and have each claimed a few goats as their own. Along with the goats, we still milk cows daily and our son has a flock of chickens and ducks. Of course, we have a menagerie of dogs and cats on the farm too, and we recently added two donkeys named Betty Crocker and Little Debbie, and a couple rabbits names Chubby and Bunny.

Vision for the Future

Our dream for the future of Jax Soap probably doesn't look like what you'd expect it to. For us, it's all about the goats!

We love our goats, love sharing about them and love sharing our farm life. The vision is to provide a "goat experience" with all the soap and goat milk products you love included too. A Goat-stravaganza, if you will! We'll have a soap store, windows into the goat barn, and maybe even some baby goat cuddling or goat yoga. It's really all about the animals that make these products possible. We're a long way from making this happen, but every purchase helps get us closer to our vision becoming reality.