Artigianati.com

Tom Curtis, aka the Renaissance Man, has turned his garage into a soap-making lab. 'Everything here smells terrific,' he says of his home business. 'You can't beat that.'

Open the door to Tom Curtis' three-car garage in Gordonsville, and out wafts the sweet scent of citrus fruit and oil of bergamot.

Curtis, whom friends have dubbed "the Renaissance Man" for his varied abilities, has used the skills he learned in the tool-and-die industry to create a soap-making lab in a space normally reserved for the family car.

There, amid chemistry beakers and customized KitchenAid mixers, he makes 18 scented organic soaps, plus several scented sprays and bath salts that he sells under his own Renaissance Man label and that of other companies.

Among the scent blends Curtis has concocted over the nearly 20 years he's been in the business is citrus splash, whose grapefruit, lime, tangerine and bergamot essential oils were perfuming the air on a recent morning......

Read more at -  http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/102009/10032009/497590