Soap!

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Soap making has begun! In this crazy year, soap is crucial, so I will be making sure my shop is full to the brim this holiday.

If you visit my Etsy shop, you can pre-order, all shipments will go out the first week of December. 

 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtBotanicalsandMore 

Catnip is in my Etsy Shop

I now have my home grown catnip for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Catnip is a member of the mint family originally native to Europe that is now naturalized just about everywhere else. The herb is aptly named since it contains a chemical that house cats find to be irresistible. This is cat tested and cat loved, they go crazy over this!

You'll enjoy the dried leaf and flower in teas and other beverages almost as much.

This catnip comes in a canvas pouch with a drawstring opening, ready to hand over to your cat, or to use to fill a toy that you make yourself.

Catnip has been used in European folk medicine for generations as a calming agent for body and mind. Not only catnip leaf, but cut of leaf, buds, stem, and seeds. The principal constituent of catnip is nepetalactone, which is what makes cats respond to catnip.

My son's cats go CRAZY over this. As soon as the package arrived in the mail, they could not stay away!

We have soap in the shop!

I am gearing up for my new soap making season, with my home grown organic calendula, and imported vervein from France.

I found 5 bars still in my inventory from last season, so I am offering them on my Etsy shop.

and if you put "bonus gift" in the comments, I will send along a surprise jewelry gift from my shop, please state your preference for earrings or bracelet.

Thanks, and come back in the Fall for the 2018 soaps!

SHOP LINK

Soap, 2017

Due to a personal family matter, my soap production had a limited run this season.

Please come back in February for the 2018 soaps, chock full of my own organically grown calendula, for it's antiseptic and healing properties.

This year's soap

This year’s version is extra rich in calendula for its antiseptic qualities, all grown organically in my garden here in Colorado.

I am also using more shea butter this year, to make the soap extra moisturizing. It's basically lotion and soap in one!

My calendula thrived in the garden, and I have enough to enrich the soap, and make tea!

Look for first shipments to go out in the beginning of December.

Traditional soap making

Here is a fascinating video showing the ancient process factories used to use to make real soap, not the detergent kind that mass manufacturing produces today:

Soap Making

The scale of this operation is something to behold. As well as the skill of the workers - using special mallets to imprint the soap, cutting with such accuracy. Before machinery, humans had to develop incredible manual dexterity. Now we just operate machines. So much has been lost. Not the recipe for this soap, though, which is from the tenth century!

and the ingredients? Just three: olive oil, water and "mineral salts." The mineral salts are one form of sodium hydroxide, coming from the Dead Sea. You can actually buy a bar of this on Amazon. (and the purchase does support a Palestinian company.)

Here is the description of how they make their soap:

"Nabulsi soap is a type of castile soap produced only in Nablus in the West Bank, Palestine. Its chief ingredients are virgin olive oil, water, and an alkaline sodium compound. The finished product is ivory-colored and has almost no scent. The compound is made by mixing the powdered ashes of the barilla plant which grows along the banks of the River Jordan with locally supplied lime (sheed). The sodium compound is then is heated with water and the olive oil in large copper vats over fermentation pits. The solution of water and the sodium compound becomes increasingly concentrated in a series of 40 cycles repeated over eight days. During that time, an oar-shaped wooden tool known as a dukshab is used to stir the liquid soap continuously. The liquid soap is then spread in wooden frames to set. After setting, it is cut into the classic cube shape of Nabulsi soap and stamped with the company's trademark seal. The soap cubes then undergo a drying process which can last from three months to a year and involves stacking them in ceiling-high structures resembling cones with hollow centers which allow the air to circulate around the cubes."

I learned about this kind of soap when I lived in Aix-en-Provence. This part of France is known for it's ancient soap making, and the soap really is a whole other product than what we think of soap today.This is when my skin learned to love the all natural ingredients, and when I learned I don't need to use any moisturizer if I am using soap that moisturizes.

Once you use this kind of soap, you will never go back.

Thank you

Thank you everyone who purchased soap this year -- selling out this quickly has me making a note to my future self next year to double my batches. Happy Holidays!