Creating the Soap Club

I have always wanted to be in a club that combined my interests in chemistry, cosmetics, and arts, but it was hard finding one that integrated all of these different fields. Thus, I am excited to announce here at EF Academy NY the very first Soap Club! In short terms, the Soap Club is a club where students can express their creativity inside a lab while making soap bars for the students living in triple rooms (since they are the ones that have their own bathrooms). For students who do not take subjects that allow lab experiments, the club is a great place to explore you inner scientist, since we make soaps from scratch! We also get to decorate the soap bars however we want, and I even proposed some themes such as Halloween and Christmas to inspire the students while making their soap designs. Yet, I believe that the best part about this club is the fact that the soap bars are made by students and for students. Basically everyone wins from the Soap Club, since members are able to get a first hand experience of the soap making process, while all of the students are provided with free (awesome) soap bars.

So far, the Soap Club had three meetings. In the first meeting, I presented the students to the expectations for the club, as well as an introduction to lab safety. In the second meeting, the students watched me doing one batch of the “Soap Club Secret Recipe”, so they would be ready to do by themselves in the next meeting. And this is exactly what happened yesterday in the third Soap Club meeting! The students were divided into four groups, and each group made one gorgeous batch of soap! At first, it was a bit overwhelming to get everyone ready to start, but once they began measuring the materials and mixing them together, I felt a lot more confident about the club!

Being the creator and leader of the Soap Club has been an amazing, yet challenging experience. Although I have already had some experience with teaching before starting this club, I had never been in charge of students in a lab environment, which has dangerous chemicals and fragile equipment that could potentially hurt one of the students. For this reason, I am really thankful for having Ms. Kasanuki as the teacher responsible for the Soap Club. Ms. Kasanuki has not only helped me with creating the club (from developing the soap recipe to asking for the school’s permission), but also with running the meetings every Wednesday.

Overall, I am really happy and proud with how the Soap Club is going, and hopefully in a few weeks all of the EF students will feel the same way about this club after trying the soap bars!

Written by: Aline Saruhashi