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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Woman Doesn’t Get On Soapbox To Sell Her Soap

The chocolate-brown bars packed in tubs in Rani Sullivan’s living room beg for teeth marks. But the bitter taste quickly discourages nibblers.

Each bar of soap emits a gentle chocolate aroma that teases the nose rather than assaults it. No fake scents or unnatural ingredients make it into Rani’s Angel Works Soaps. She wants the most healthful product possible to match her lifestyle.

Rani never intended to sell her soap. She doesn’t even like making it until the handling stage. But then she can’t keep her hands off the silky stuff.

“It’s like creating something so perfect,” she says.

Rani grew up health-conscious. She was into juice fasts in the 1950s when other teens were gorging on burgers and Cokes. No health fad was taboo to her.

She didn’t impose her leanings on her husband and three sons until 1994 when her husband broke out in a heavy, itchy rash. Asthma had plagued him for 15 years, and the rash prompted his doctor to triple his medicine.

“I said, ‘Randy, they’re killing you,”’ Rani says.

Rani decided to rid his life of chemicals. She tossed out detergents, disinfectants, deodorants. She cleaned house with vinegar and water and sterilized with grain alcohol. She washed clothes with borax and washing soda. And she made soap.

She mixed fats - olive oil, coconut oil and vegetable oil - with alkaline water and aroma oils. Her husband’s rash disappeared in three weeks and never has returned, she says.

Rani refined her soaps, adding rainwater and oatmeal, and was so excited about her product that she took a few bars to craft fairs. She soon had a following.

“I’ve always been a searcher for myself and never tried to introduce anyone else to anything,” she says. “This is the first thing I’ve done that’s gone beyond myself and made an impact. I get really emotional over that.”

Now, a tiny house across the street from her home in Blanchard, Idaho, is her soap factory. She weighs and heats ingredients in the kitchen, blends and pours in the bathroom, cools and molds in the bedroom, dries and wraps in the living room.

Her one-woman operation exhausts her sometimes, but she still makes enough soap to share and sell.

“I’m not covetous,” she says. “I just want people to be healthy.”

Heartsick

Remember Bob Twohawks, the Coeur d’Alene man who discovered his Indian heritage by carving Indian flutes? Sudden chest problems recently sent him to the hospital, where doctors discovered a cancerous tumor between his heart and lungs.

The prognosis wasn’t good until Bob found a surgeon in California who specializes in the removal of such tumors. Within five days of his diagnosis, Bob went under the knife and now is recovering. The surgery went well, but Bob still faces cancer treatments - and staggering medical bills.

Friends are trying to raise $18,000 to pay for his surgery. They’ve opened the Robert Twohawks Savings Fund at Bank of America in Kootenai County and Seafirst Bank in Spokane. Deposits can be made in his name at any branch.

Santa boxes

Mixing nursing home residents with children usually ends up with everyone smiling. The people at Coeur d’Alene’s Life Care Center won’t see the smiles their gifts produce this year, but they’ll know the smiles are there.

Life Care residents are packing shoe boxes with small toys, school supplies, toothbrushes, etc., to send to children in Bosnia, Croatia and Rwanda. In the holiday spirit, the center is encouraging the community to join in by dropping off filled boxes at 500 W. Aqua Drive by Monday.

What’s the best package you ever received when you were far from home? Favorite cookies? Family pictures? Get teary about it for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; or send a fax to 765-7149, call 765-7128 or send e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo