Meandering Through Thoughts of a New Garden

Growing up in an apartment in Yonkers, NY, I never had a back yard. My back yard was the parking lot behind the building, but scattered all around in between streets, apartments, and houses, were little strips of green "wildness." I can remember playing with friends in the short-cut next to the apartment. We would chase each other and run through the "tall flowers," which I now know were weeds! There was time spent at the local "duck pond" or over friends' houses. Even though I grew up in a suburban area, nature was all around, and as a kid I loved it! 

My first adventure with gardening was on an apartment terrace my husband and I had when we were first married. The yield we would get from the window boxes was something to behold! Years later we bought a house and now I have a more traditional garden. This year we set out to expand our garden to include not only vegetables, but a plot of pollinator flowers in a meadow style. We figured we'd help our vegetable garden by planting flowers that attract bees and other pollinators. I believe it is so important that we try to get back to growing our own food and growing it naturally. I am so excited to see how it all works out! Stay tuned for pictures!

As I mentioned before, flowers and their beautiful fragrances are a big inspiration for creating my soaps. This spring I will be growing some verbena and lemon bee balm in my garden. I love the clean, crisp smell of lemon, which is one reason I love to use lemon fragrance in my soaps! All my soaps have a vegetable base or a honey base. I purchase my soap bases from SFIC. Read more about how SFIC got started back in the 1960's. SFIC Soap History

I encourage everyone to think outside of the box, be creative in making your own garden. You don't need a house or a big area to plant things you and your family love to eat. When you make your own garden YOU  have control of the soil, how you grow your plants--hopefully with no pesticides--and what you grow. Growing your own can be a very rewarding experience for everyone; maybe you can even share some of your bounty with friends and family! Gardening, as with making handmade soap, is all about putting things that are natural and healthier for you on and into your body. So go out there and get your hands dirty!

For further inspiration here is one of my favorite podcasts! A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach

Gina💗

 

                                     Beginning spring garden, some oregano and radishes
                                                                    

Echinacea started from seed indoors and transplanted to the garden.

 

Wild flowers growing in my front yard!

 

Paris Coral Bells that came with us from my terrace when we moved to the house!

How Failure and Mistakes Help Us Learn

When I started to learn about soap making, I did as much research as I could. I'm one of those people who approaches something wholeheartedly. I researched different kinds of soap making: cold process, melt and pour, where to buy the best products to make my soap, how to make designs in the soap, etc. However, as with most things in life, one needs a balance between book knowledge and actual hands-on learning. 

The first soaps I made looked nothing like what I thought they should.The soaps were perfectly usable, nothing wrong in that department, but the design that I thought was going to be there was sadly absent. It looked like I had just dropped color chunks into the soap! I also had to learn how much color was just enough-- pro tip: less is more! Although disappointing, the experience showed me that I needed to do a little more research and keep trying.

Failure and mistakes can teach us so much. It can be a motivating factor to help us figure out what went wrong, or sometimes it can even lead to new ideas. The bottom line is, we should not shun mistakes, because they can make us better and wiser if we learn from them. So embrace those mistakes and don't be afraid to make them! After all, no one is perfect; think of what a boring world it would be if we were! 

Visit my shop by clicking on this link BlogMemorialDay to get 10% off when you buy 3 soaps!

Gina 💗

Some of my very first soaps!

Another one of my first "designs".

Soap, Not So Sweet Smelling in Colonial America

In previous articles, I have written about just how ancient soap making really is. See my posts on Castile Soap: The Soap of the Ancients, Castile Soap; Oatmeal Soap: Long Before Your Parents Made You Eat It...; and Honey Soap: The Secret Ingredient in Your Honey. I was curious about how past generations made their soap, and at what point did soap become the familiar, fragrantly lovely bar we would recognize today. My research taught me some interesting things.

As I have stated before, I use the melt and pour method of soap making. I purchase my soap bases from SFIC, a very reputable soap company that has been in business for over 40 years. I melt them down, add fragrance, color (or not), and pour the soap into molds. This is different from those who make cold process soap; they actually mix the lye and all the other ingredients to make the soap base itself. This method is very similar to how it was done in the past, but with very distinct differences.

In Colonial times people (usually the women of the family) made soap for their household. A family would save their animal fat and wood ashes. The wood ashes were combined with water very slowly, and eventually this process would make lye. The lye was combined with the animal fat in a big iron pot outside, because the rendering smelled awful. The soap would have to be stirred constantly and was not always a success. This process would produce soft soap.

At the beginning of colonization in America, people believed that water spread disease, which in fact was true for many parts of Europe at the time. Poor sanitation practices were the norm, especially in larger cities. This misunderstanding of how disease from tainted water worked lead people to bathe less. It was the Civil War that made civilians finally see that bathing was healthy. It started to become more widely known that bathing and regular washing with soap and water kept army camps sanitary. 

Commercial soap as we recognize it in America today began with Proctor and Gamble in 1879. Ivory Soap, "the soap that floats," was one of the first scented soaps. There was a mistake made in the processing of the soap that made air bubbles get trapped inside the soap, which made it float. P&G used the "mistake" in their marketing campaign. 

Unfortunately, as the years went on, commercial soap became less and less like the homemade soap of old. Most of the commercial soap we use today contains synthetic materials that are considered detergents, as opposed to real soap which is made out of natural products. Some of the synthetic additives you should look for in your soap are:

• Parabens
• Sodium Laureth/Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
• Formaldehyde
• Phthalates

I encourage you to leave your comfort zone and try some handmade soaps! Local craft fairs, farmers markets, and local specialty shops are the best places to find these soaps. Find me on MercurialGirlbyGina@Etsy, @Promenade on 6, and at Resurrection Furniture in Carmel, NY.

 

Cutting up conditioner base.

 

Conditioner base poured.

Heating and stirring a conditioner base. You can see the vegetable oil.

                                                                                    

Capturing the Grandeur of Spring in Soaps!

When I think of soaps for spring and summer I think of nature and try to use it's bright spring and summer seasonal pallet as an inspiration. The colorants I use in my soaps are all derived from nature, mica's, iron oxides, tin oxides and dioxides. These fantastic colorants are purchased from highly reputable soap companies. This insures that they are skin safe and free of any impurities. These natural colorants are easy to use and they make for interesting soap designs. As I have mentioned before I always try to have a "theme" or color scheme that goes along with the fragrance of the soap.

I also make use of activated charcoal and kaolin clay. Both have wonderful benefits to the skin and provide deep cleaning. Along with the benefits these additives have for the skin they can also color soap. As one would expect, activated charcoal can color soap to be a gray to black color, and kaolin clay turns soap a rusty, pinkish color.

During this season visit my shop to see what spring and summer soaps I have to offer! Use this special coupon code Treat your Senses for a 10% discount when you purchase two soaps. 

 If you live locally visit me at my upcoming craft fairs, at Resurrection Furniture in Carmel, NY and at Promenade on 6 in Carmel, NY.

I will be at the local event listed below, also at the Putnam Valley Grange on June 10th and at the Putnam County Fair on July 29, 2023.

First flowers, beautiful Dianthus in my garden!