There is a balm in Soap Lake

SOAP LAKE — It’s never been a secret that there’s something, well, healing about the water in Soap Lake.

“Soap Lake has 23 different minerals in it,” said Soap Lake Products owner Andrew Vozniy. “It's a unique thing. There's nothing in the world like this. There's only two lakes like Soap Lake and the other one is in Germany. So there's no product like this anywhere.”

Those products are creams, lotions and balms, among other things, all containing the famous Soap Lake water. Vozniy, 20, took over the business last year from Diana and Norm Perrault, who retired from it after 20 years.

The water and mud from Soap Lake have long been believed to have healing qualities. In its heyday in the 1920s, the town boasted a host of sanitariums for people to bathe in its water, especially those who suffered from the degenerative Buerger's disease, a swelling of the blood vessels most typically in the feet and hands.

Currently, Soap Lake Products sells primarily online at www.soaplakeproducts.com, Vozniy said, but there’s also a small section set aside for it in the Buck-n-Up Dollar Store at 332 W. Main Ave., which is owned by his mother, Lubov Vozniy. It’s very much a family business, Vozniy said; his brothers Nikita, 13, and Kirill, 10, help as well.

“They mainly do packaging, labeling and that kind of stuff,” Vozniy said. “The manufacturing parts are usually just me or my mom. We'll take a day where that's all we're doing is manufacturing, running the batches, because it does take time.”

Vozniy was reluctant to have his manufacturing space shown, because it’s in the basement underneath Buck-n-Up. He’s hoping to have a dedicated space for manufacturing next year. The process itself isn’t complicated, he said.

“We get our mixers together, our oils and everything, and then you have the Soap Lake water that we add into it,” he said. “The longest process is the curing process. So once we melt everything together, put in the water and have it mixed and put into forms and let it sit for 24 hours. Then after that it dries, take it out of the forms and let it cure for two weeks. It's the same thing as making a cake; just follow the recipe, that's all.”

Those ingredients go into a variety of products: sore muscle lotion, calendula ointment, foot balm, lip balm. Vozniy recently expanded into a line of men’s products as well, with scents like spearmint and eucalyptus, and one called “rustic wood and rum.”

“We have sore muscle lotion, which is hugely popular for arthritis, joint pain, muscle pain. I have people that live by that.”

The products are all natural, Vozniy said, with no synthetic chemicals to be found. The oils are palm oil and olive oil, and the beeswax comes from his uncle’s farm. The water and mud come directly from the lake itself; Vozniy and his family simply step outside and scoop up whatever’s needed. They filter the water, he added, but that’s all.

Besides online and at Buck-n-Up, Soap Lake Products can also be found at the Smokiam RV Resort and the Dry Falls Visitors Center, Vozniy said. He and his brothers try to get to farmers markets and fairs as often as they can, he added, but his part-time job with the post office makes it difficult.

“I'm not doing this to make money, you know?” he said. “Yes, profits are in, but we're doing this because of how effective it's been to us. We have people that come into Mom's store that swear by it, that come in and tell their testimony. And it's absolutely incredible that we can provide a product that works like that.”

Joel Martin can be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.