Calendula

One of the many enjoyable aspects of soapmaking is formulating new recipes.  I try to choose ingredients that are beneficial to the skin or performance of the soap, while being beautiful at the same time.  My favorite botanical ingredient that does all of these things is Calendula officinalis.

This flowering plant is also commonly called pot marigold (though it has no relation to the ornamental marigolds you buy at the garden store).  The plant contains a wide variety of natural compounds such as carotenoids, flavonoids, mucilage, polysachharides, saponins, glycosides and sterols. Many people make teas or poultices out of calendula to treat skin problems and promote healing.

In cold process soap, calendula petals are unique among flowers because their beautiful color holds strong against the intense chemical reaction that brings most flowers to their knees.  Most flower petals turn brown or black when exposed to the heat and alkalinity of saponification.  Many customers ask me to use lavender buds in soap, but I have to give them the disappointing news that their soap will look like it has dead flies in it, if I do. Calendula petals don't do that.

We grow our own calendula in the back yard and harvest and air dry the petals.  I like the richer orange variety for use in our soaps and my daughter LOVES to help me pick all of the petals off of the freshly cut flowers.  It's like a kid's dream come true..."yes honey, please DO chop the heads off and tear off all the pretty colors!"  Bliss.

Real Soap, Drugs & Rock and Roll

This is incredible...hilarious and very informative.  I had no idea that I was producing such an illicit substance!

Thanks to the folks at Dr. Bronner's for putting this video together.

Low-Cost, Natural Skincare

image courtesy of  Tack-O-Rama

Over the years my morning and evening skincare routines have gradually evolved. That’s partly because of age and becoming a parent, partly because of what I’ve learned about ingredients, and partly because of negative reactions I’ve had to certain products. I never considered myself to be someone who had “sensitive skin”, but I’ve found that many of the drugstore moisturizers and skin cleansers that I’ve used over the years have either been too drying or have actually made my skin break out. That’s actually one of the reasons I began making my own soap…I prefer knowing exactly what’s in the product, and the easiest way to be confident about that is to make it yourself.

I have a friend named Deanna (a fellow parent at my kids’ school) who is an environmental advocate, author and wildly successful blogger on her site Crunchy Chicken. She often writes about the skincare items that she uses, and it’s inspired me to try some new things myself. I’ve been in this trial and error stage for over a year now and am finally feeling pretty good about what I’ve come up with, on many levels. What I use now is truly all-natural, makes my skin feel clean and smooth, is very moisturizing, and is really inexpensive. So…I thought you readers might like to hear about it!

Here’s what I do:

In the morning, when I shower, I run my face under the hot water for a minute to open up my pores and flush out dirt and oil, then I use a soft washcloth and one of my soaps to gently scrub away any impurities.

I also wash my hair with the same bar soap, or sometimes Dr. Bronner’s pure castile liquid soap. I keep that on hand because my daughters prefer using a liquid for washing their hair, rather than bar soap. After my hair is washed, I use a very diluted vinegar rinse (1 part apple cider vinegar to 10 parts water).  This washes away any soap residue that may remain and closes the hair cuticle, which makes the hair more shiny and smooth. I rinse that out at the end of the shower.

Before I exit the shower I use a little bit (smaller than a dime) of green tea infused hemp oil on my face and neck. When I first buy the hemp oil, I take several tablespoons of green tea leaves and let them sit in the oil for several days, then strain them back out to store the oil. Green tea is a natural antioxidant, and helps to maintain elasticity in the skin, as well as many other topical benefits.

I began using hemp oil after lots of trial and error with other natural oils and moisturizers. I started with regular “all-natural” skin creams that I bought at the store, and they always clogged my pores. Then I tried a variety of whole oils like coconut, sweet almond and wheat germ. They all caused problems on my face eventually, though I recommend them on the rest of the body. I finally settled on hemp oil because it has the lowest comedogenic rating of all of them and is extremely high in nutrients. It also fights inflammation and is a great anti-oxidant in its own right.

I put the oil on my skin when I’m still in the shower and my face is still wet. I gently dab it around my face and neck. I then take the warm, rinsed (now soap-free) washcloth and wring out as much of the water as possible and gently dab off any extra oil with it. I let my face air dry after that. My skin is soft, totally clean and well moisturized. Once I’m out of the shower I dab a few drops more of the hemp oil under my eyes (but not too close) and let it soak its way into the delicate skin there. Any excess gets wiped off with a tissue before I put on makeup.

At bedtime I use a similar system, minus the shower. The key is to apply the oil when your skin is clean, warm and still wet with water. It seems to trap in moisture well, while still keeping the pores open and not leaving a greasy layer because the skin absorbs the light oil so quickly. I’m careful not to let it get into my hair though, as it really weighs it down and makes it greasy. This whole system has been working great for me and costs next to nothing. It makes me look years younger too…see?  ;-)

I’d love to know if you’ve tried any of these methods or have something that you think works even better!

Beeswax

More in-depth information about the ingredients that I use...this time, beeswax!

Beeswax is a golden yellow wax produced in the beehive of honey bees (genus Apis). It’s made up mostly of the esters of fatty acids and is chemically very closely related to the other oils used for soap, lotions and balms.  The beeswax that I use in my products comes to me in small beads that have been cleaned of impurities and are easy to weigh and pour.

In the hive, beeswax is used by bees as the structural foundation for their honeycomb storage system. People have used beeswax for centuries for a variety of purposes. In candles, beeswax is preferred because it’s clean burning and does not produce smoke like petroleum based waxes do. The Roman Catholic Church requires that the Easter Pascal candle be made of beeswax.

It has been traditionally used in art for lost wax casting and to make beautiful Russian Pysanky eggs. For many generations, beeswax was used by bagpipers to wax the hemp that protected the joints on drone and chanter stocks. The smell of beeswax always reminds me of my early years in music.

I melt a bit of beeswax with sweet almond oil and gently rub it onto the wood in my house to protect it.  This is especially great for the cabinets near the sink that seem to always get splashed with water.

In body products, beeswax makes a wonderful, natural thickener and adds a protective barrier which locks in moisture. It also smells wonderful on its own and adds a hint of lovely amber color to products.  I use beeswax in my highland Fling Soap, and in all of the lip balms and lotion bars.  It's a wonderful, natural addition!

Shea Butter

I've decided to start a new series of blog posts that give a bit more information and background on many of the ingredients that I use regularly when making my soaps and personal care products.  I'm going to start the whole thing off by taking a look at shea butter.

Shea butter is an ivory colored natural fat that comes from the nut of the African Shea or Karite Tree (butyrospermum parkii). It’s high in un-saponifiables and is richly moisturizing. It’s also believed to have anti-inflammatory, humectant and emollient properties. The shea butter that I use comes from western Africa and is extracted by cold-pressing.

In Africa, shea butter is used for everything from hair care to cooking. Outside of Africa it is used primarily for skincare products and, occasionally, in chocolates as a replacement for cocoa butter, since it’s entirely edible. Shea butter will start to melt on contact with warm skin, making it a great ingredient for lotion bars, lip balms  and soaps.  I use shea butter in several of my products.   A little goes a long way, and it 's a wonderful addition that nourishes and moisturizes the skin.

Tallow

When I first started making soap a number of years ago, all my bars contained a large percentage of tallow, which is rendered beef fat. It is an extremely hard, white substance that is so pure that it can be stored at room temperature for extended periods and doesn’t require refrigeration. I used tallow because the vintage book that I first learned soapmaking from recommended it, and also because I had an abundant and inexpensive supply as the daughter of a cattle rancher. I love the quality of soap that you get when tallow is mixed with other vegetable oils like coconut, palm and olive. It produces a hard bar with lots of stable lather and abundant bubbles.

Tallow is arguably the most traditional ingredient for cold process soap in the United States, particularly in the West. Homesteaders and settlers who had to make their own soap from scratch on a regular basis would use whatever fats or oils were handy. They would mix them in a tub with water and the potash left from burning wood and could achieve a very soft, but usable soap from those ingredients they had on hand.

 Most handcrafted, cold-process soaps on the market today do not contain tallow. This is probably a result of a couple of factors. I think that generally folks don’t like the idea of washing with something that contains animal fat. Most people don’t understand that even though fats and oils are base ingredients in soap, the chemical process that occurs in soapmaking doesn’t leave any fats or oils behind (unless it’s on purpose). The sodium hydroxide actually changes the base ingredients into a whole new chemical substance, so there’s no beef fat being rubbed on your body. The other issue is an environmental one. By using beef tallow in soap we are consuming beef products, the production of which puts its own unique strain on the environment and natural resources.

I switched to making all vegetable soaps when I began selling to the general public, but I have struggled all along with how to choose my ingredients and balance their performance in the soap with the environmental impact that their use has on the world we live in. Most of the best soapmaking oils are produced far, far away and require a large amount of energy to harvest and transport to where I use them. To me, this makes the choice of vegetable oils over tallow less straightforward. Like leather, tallow is more of a by-product of the beef industry than a driving economic force on its own, and it’s local…in my case, very local.

I will now add one more variable to the tallow equation: shaving. There is a growing and very vociferous contingent of wet-shaving aficionados who swear by tallow as an ingredient in their shaving soaps. Visiting a site like Badger and Blade will give you some sense of the spirited debate that is going on in the burgeoning wet-shaving world about traditional tallow soap pucks and the rapid decline in their availability. The world seems to need more tallow shave soap.

So, I have decided to re-introduce tallow as an ingredient in a limited fashion to my soap offerings. My two new shaving soaps both contain a generous amount of tallow and are mixed with other vegetable oils to produce a great, foamy lather and memorable shaving experience. It’s taken me longer than I expected to hone my recipe and perfect my finished product, but it’s finally done! I am happy to announce the arrival of Filthy Rich Shave Soap and Old School Shave Soap, which are added to my all-vegetable Smooth Shave Soap to round out the selection. I sure hope everybody likes them!

Palm Oil Quandry

I have been wrestling lately with the issue of palm oil. WHAT issue with palm oil, you say? It's ridiculously complex, and I'm not joking when I say that sometimes it keeps me awake at night pondering how I should deal with it as a business owner and world citizen.

I have been making soap since the early 1990s and have used palm oil as one of my base oils for many years. Palm oil is produced primarily in SE Asia and is, in many ways, an excellent kind of vegetable oil. From a soapmaking perspective, palm oil has replaced traditional tallow in soap because it makes a very hard bar that cleans well and is also mild, yet is not animal-derived.

Many food industries use palm oil in their products. It is the oil that is most often used at movie theaters for popcorn and in many other food preparations, including fryers at many fast-food chains around the US and abroad. It's very high in saturated fats, but does not contain trans fats and does not need to be hydrogenated, since it is solid at room temperature. The palm oil industry makes claims about its health benefits based on this, but one could hardly call it healthy, since saturated fat is a major contributor to high cholesterol.

Until recently, it was the 2nd most widely used/produced vegetable oil (after soybean) in the world. Palm oil production is a basic source of income for many of the world's rural poor. The oil palm is by far the highest-yielding commercial oilseed plant, which lowers palm oil cost, comparatively. In 2004 it became the most produced oil because of the sudden interest in bio fuels as an energy source.

Because it has become so popular across many industries and demand has grown so much, its a very enticing source of income for small (and large) farmers in palm oil producing countries...often to the detriment of the land and native species. Palm oil production has been blamed for massive deforestation, wetland and peatland degradation and the rapid demise of several species, including the Sumatran Orangatan .

A joint palm oil industry and environmental organization group has formed to try to address the many issues and to make the production of palm oil both an environmentally sustainable practice and commercial industry. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) issues certifications to palm oil producers who meet certain farming requirements. Participation is voluntary and the cost of the oil is slightly higher than non-certified palm.

As a consumer and as a soapmaker it's hard for me to know what to do. I could stop using palm oil altogether in my soap. The best substitute for palm in a soap recipe is tallow (rendered beef fat). That has its own set of issues (future blog post, perhaps?). I could substitute another type of vegetable oil which has inferior properties for soapmaking, but fewer environmental impact implications. I could continue to use palm oil in my recipes and reassure myself that my comparatively tiny palm oil consumption would not have enough effect to do any real damage. Or, I could use only RSPO certified palm oil. Right now, I'm choosing the last route. I feel that there's something to be said for creating a consumer demand for the RSPO certified palm. The palm oil industry is too big and too much of a moneymaker for poor SE Asian countries (and farmers) to think that it will go away any time soon. I believe that our best bet is to encourage (if not force) regulation in farming practices and be willing to pony up the extra money to support the farmers who are trying to produce sustainably. I'll let you know if I change my mind...