A Day at the Farmers Market

It was a lovely day at a local farmers market! The trend in soap fragrances was again citrus, Bergamot and Lemon Verbena. Citrus scents can be used throughout the year. Cinnamon and Orange make a wonderful scent combination for the Christmas season. Bergamot, Lemon  and Orange can be mixed with other fragrances such as Mint and Lavender to create a crisp and light fragrance for spring. Fall usually calls for warmer fragrances such as Sandalwood, and Vanilla which can easily be combined with citrus scents.

Thanks to all that stopped by!

Gina💗

Making it pretty with flowers!

 

Our set up for the day.

The Value of Sharing Something You have Created

I was listening to a gardening podcast and the gardener spoke about the joy of giving flowers from her garden to someone. It was that special feeling of satisfaction knowing that she helped create and nurture these beautiful flowers and now she could share them with someone else and hopefully bring them joy in receiving them. Maybe they will even sow the seeds and create their own flowers the next year to share with someone else. 

It is the act of sharing our talents, be it cultivating beautiful flowers, growing vegetables, making soap, painting, carpentry you name it, that makes doing them so rewarding. Whether you sell your products or just share them with others it makes both you and the recipient  happy to partake in this shared experience!

When you buy handmade products or products that were cultivated by someone you can often hear the story behind what someone has made, how they made it and thereby make a connection with that person. People are  passionate about their creations and enjoy telling you about them. It can be a wonderful learning experience.

I encourage everyone to share what they are passionate about. Take up that hobby that you've been meaning to try, you never know where it may lead you and you just might bring joy to others too!💗

Gina

The creating, cutting soap.

 

 

Next step, cutting into smaller pieces.

Melting Soap

Upcoming Farmers Market

I am so excited for the Farmers Market at Limar's Farm and Nursery in LaGrangeville, NY this coming Saturday, September 24th 2022. I am thinking ahead to the holiday season and making gift boxes. Soap is a wonderful gift to give because everyone can use it. I have Spa Gift Boxes which include my soaps, bees wax tea lights and a natural sea sponge, to help relax and unwind in the bath. I also have an Autumn Gift box which is pictured in the fun video below! I hope if you live in Putnam or Dutchess County N.Y. or the Connecticut area you can stop by and say hello!

Autumn Gift Box, the perfect gift for someone special!

Gina 💗

 

The Secret Ingredient in Your Honey

Let's talk about honey. Honey is most commonly used as a delicious treat in our tea, in baking, on bread etc. but honey has been used for thousands of years for medicinal purposes and is starting to gain popularity again. The use of honey may date back as far as the stone age with cave paintings depicting it's use. We know ancient Egyptians used it for embalming purposes and it was used in wound care because of it's antimicrobial properties. Honey has long been connected to treating the skin, it has been used for dressing burns, dandruff, dermatitis, psoriasis and a host of other skin conditions. 

Honey does not expire, what is that I just said? Yes, honey does not go bad and this is mainly because of where it comes from, the bee. Honey is a sugar, in it's natural state sugars contain minimal amounts of water and can take in moisture if not sealed properly. Due to honey's low moisture state bacteria can't grow, they are suffocated by it. Honey is acidic, with a pH of 3-4.5 which makes it inhospitable for organisms to grow. These factors do not only exist in honey, there are a few other foods with similar properties, but they will spoil. So what's the deal with honey? The answer is the Bee. Bee's dry out the nectar by flapping their wings, but just this alone would not make honey not spoil. The secret ingredient that keeps honey from spoiling comes from the bee's stomachs!  The enzyme that bees have in their stomachs is called glucose oxidase, when bees regurgitate nectar, the enzyme mixes with the nectar and breaks it down into two by-products: gluconic acid and a second by-product, here is the secret ingredient that I did not know about until I researched this article, hydrogen peroxide! The hydrogen peroxide kills whatever else could be growing in the honey that the other properties did not kill. The only way honey will spoil is if you leave it out unsealed or if water gets in it.

So why is honey soap good for your skin? Firstly honey sucks in moisture, therefore passing it on to your skin as you use it to wash. It moisturizes while cleaning with it's antimicrobial abilities. Honey was used throughout the centuries as a natural bandage because nothing would grow on it. There are currently companies that make bandages covered with honey for medical use!

I was told by two pediatricians that using honey to sooth a sore throat was better than any over the counter medicine you could buy. I guess the "old wives tales" were right, honey and their amazing makers offer many benefits to us humans! I am including two links in case you would like to read more on the subject. Smithsonian Magazine and National Library of Medicine.

Check out my Etsy shop to see my honey soaps. They are very fun to make!

Gina💗

A very busy bee in my garden.

 

Honey and Castile Handmade Soap

Honeysuckle Honey Handmade Soap

Long Before Your Parents Made You Eat It...

Almost everyone can remember eating hot or cold oatmeal as a child, some of us thought it was delicious and may still eat it to this day, others ate it because they had to and never touched the stuff again once they had a say in what they would and would not eat! Oatmeal is not just good for the inner workings of our bodies, it is also beneficial to our skin. The earliest documentation of oats being used in skin care dates back to Egypt as early as 2,000 BC. People during this time and continuing on through the ages, used oats as treatment for skin irritation. I can remember as a child sitting in oatmeal baths when I had the chicken pox,  it was a very welcomed relief!

In 1945 a colloidal oatmeal was produced by grinding the oats into a fine powder and then boiling it to extract the colloidal material. This formulation made it readily available for use in bath products, shampoos, shaving products and moisturizers. Colloidal oat's cleansing abilities come from saponins, a naturally occurring toxic chemical that protects plants from insects, fungus and bacterial pathogens, this chemical produces a soapy lather that is beneficial. Colloidal oatmeal cleanses, moisturizes, buffers and has anti-inflammatory properties.  The FDA regulates the use of colloidal oatmeal as a skin protectant.  For more interesting reading on colloidal oatmeal I have included this link. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17373175/

Who would have known when we were eating our hot oatmeal in the morning that it could improve our health in so many ways? Pictured below are a few oatmeal base soaps I offer in my Etsy shop.

Gina💗

Lavender Mint Oatmeal Handmade Soap. You can see the fine oatmeal on the top of the soap.

Bergamot Sandalwood Oatmeal Handmade Soap

Oatmeal, Milk and Honey Handmade Soap This soap has an oatmeal and honey base, it is very moisturizing and gentle.

 

Wonderful Time at Local Craft Fair

My first September craft fair of this season was a lot of fun! The soaps customers were most interested in were anything Lemon Verbena and Coconut! Thanks to everyone that stopped by!

  

Honey Lemon Verbena Handmade Soap

Lemon Verbena Castile Handmade Soap

Coconut Handmade Soap

The Soap of the Ancients, Castile Soap.

In my next few postings I would like to write about a few individual soap bases, their origins and why they are good for your skin. With that said, there could only be one soap to begin with and that is Aleppo Soap, from the Syrian city of Aleppo. The earliest account of Aleppo Soap came from 8th century writings, but there are accounts of a "soap like substance" dating back to 2000 BC from ancient Babylon. Soap products have been with us for a long time! The original recipe for Aleppo Soap was olive oil, sweet bay oil, which is oil that comes from bay leaves and is also called laurel oil, water and sodium hydroxide. It is often referred to as "Syria's green gold". 

This wonderful soap made it's way along the Silk Road and and finally to Europe. It found a soap making home in Castile, Spain, which had ample amounts of olive oil, one of the key ingredients in Aleppo Soap. Due to the fact that the Castilian's did not have large quantities of laurel oil they made their soap of pure olive oil. This new variation of Aleppo Soap produced pure white soap that was an effective cleaning product and highly prized. Hence Castile soap.

Today Castile soap is often mixed with other oils, but still has the most important ingredient, olive oil. Castile soap is gentle for all skin types, including sensitive and dry skin. Castile soap can open pours allowing for a deeper cleaning. It is just wonderful on the skin!

Join me for my next post when I will be writing about oatmeal soap and it's origins. Please visit my shop for a variety of Castile soaps along with oatmeal and honey soap bases! Hope you enjoyed reading this brief history, until next time! 

Gina

Pouring melted soap into molds.

                                                                     

Presentation, Why it's Still Relevant

In a modern era that views things as disposable, transient, or just something one will have until the "next upgrade" happens, why does having a spectacular presentation for your product and brand matter? For one thing it shows your customer that you care about the experience they will have on the other end of transaction. You took the time to wrap, package, include instructions, etc. for the product they were buying. Maybe you even included a personal thank you note! All that care creates an important connection with your buyer, it is the beginning of customer service with a personal touch. This is very important for a small business that does not have a big advertising budget and name recognition. It also gives your customer confidence in your abilities and your brand. When you have a cohesive, well organized presentation it says, "I am confident in my product and I am here to stay!" You and your product become recognizable. The great thing is, you don't have to spend a lot of money on a great presentation, you just have to use your imagination and be resourceful. 

Whether I am selling in person or on Etsy, I view each sale as a special one. When selling online I try to personalize each sale, I wrap or box each soap, and including information about my shop. When I sell in public I have scent bottles for each soap, customers can smell the scent of the soap and determine if they like it. I love to answer questions and try to be as informative as I can.

All of these reasons and some I have probably forgotten, make it so important to present your product well. On a purely selfish note it gives me great joy when my customers are happy with my product, it tells me that I got it right! Visit my Etsy shop and check out some of my reviews! 💗

Gina

Presentation! Some pretty packaging.