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We are so ready for our beautiful Arizona spring! Warmer weather and gorgeous sunny days are here. This is what we love about this wonderful state! This weekends market starts our March with one of our favorite places to be, Peoria! We will be at the Campbell's Restaurant Farmers Market this Saturday March 2nd from 8 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. We will have lot's to offer, so come on out and see us! Our next two markets will be in Pinal County at the Avocado Creative Market Saturday March 9th and the Casa Grande Elks Club Craft Fair put on by the Waves on Saturday March 23rd. These two little markets are a wonderful way to spend a Saturday for you local Pinal County people that isn't a long drive. So get out and soak up some warm Arizona sunshine! We will also have our new batch of Cheers To Your Skin, our beer soap at these markets. We changed our recipe to include some unique ingredients and make this bar a little more rustic. We replaced the shea butter with coffee butter and omitted the milk. We added buttermilk powder, brewed coffee, coffee grounds and a little bit of nutmeg essential oil ( for a nutty, earthy smell ). We left the olive, coconut and cocoa butter in the mix for a less drying clean. This is a perfect kitchen or gardening soap. And, for all of you that prefer a light or unscented bar, this is your kind of soap. Plus the beer has a skin softening effect! What a pleasant bar of soap. We will also have some bath bombs and our Confetti soap balls for the kids ( or the young at heart :) We are looking forward to seeing you all! 
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We are going to discuss the five best reasons to choose handcrafted cold process soap to clean your skin. There are more reasons to use handcrafted soap but these are the top of the list so we will focus on them. If you are new to this blog and want an explanation of "cold process" go to the previous blog to learn about this traditional way of soap making. It also discusses the use of oils and why we use or don't use particular oils in our soap. So lets begin! #1 Ingredients: The very best reason to use handcrafted soap is the ingredients. Typically handcrafted soap is made of vegetable oils (there are some soap makers that utilize lard and tallow which make some very amazing soap!) and butters that are rich in antioxidants, vitamins and nutrients that are vital to healthy skin. I can't count how many times individuals have told me that handcrafted soap has not only improved their skin, but changed their lives by relieving them of itchiness, dryness, and even skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and acne. Everyone wants healthy skin and switching to daily use of handcrafted soap is the best place to start! If you need help finding the right soap for your needs, don't hesitate to ask your favorite soap maker questions. We all take take pride in our ingredients and are excited to share our knowledge with you. #2 Real soap: It is commonly called soap, but that mass produced commercial stuff that you get at the grocery store is anything but! You have a large amount of products to choose from that are labeled as deodorant soap, body bars, body washes and the ever popular beauty bar. These are just chemical cocktails made of detergents and downright disturbing synthetic ingredients that dehydrate and age the skin, cause allergic reactions and have been linked to various forms of cancer. Handcrafted soap is just soap, nothing more nothing less. And one of the most appealing aspects is all those harmful and unnecessary ingredients are not added to make handcrafted soap. #3 Glycerin: Glycerin isn't added to a handcrafted soap recipe-it's created during the soap making process! Glycerin is a precious emollient that softens the skin. It is proven to be so beneficial to your skin that it is extracted from commercially made "soap" and reserved for higher priced body care products, hygiene and pharmaceutical products. Handcrafted soap retains all of its natural glycerin and is the reason handcrafted soap produces such a rich and luxurious lather. #4 No harm: When you purchase handcrafted soap from your local soap maker you can be pretty certain that no communities or natural habitats were laid to waste by run off from a large chemical factory and we don't test on animals, we actually use the products we make! I think most soap makers would agree that we all have the utmost respect for the earth and all of its creatures, reverence to a kinder way of living is a big part of why the community of handcrafted soap makers do what they do! #5 Variety: If you like variety this is definitely a product for you! You won't be disappointed with all the different scents and blends available. Not all handcrafted soap is alike and there are so many to choose from. So, have fun and up your bathing experience! Make it spa like or choose something more simple. What ever your pleasure is, we are positive you will find it! So, keep calm and soap on!!!!!!  It is now two and a half years since we launched this business and we are always trying to move forward. The packaging has been a constant search to fit our bars as we make our own molds. We finally think we have a winner! Pictured below is our bars in the new boxes. We would love to hear what your thoughts are, please comment and let us know. Next, we made changes to one of our most popular bars. We changed our Goat's Milk and Oatmeal look. It has the same ingredients with the addition of white kaolin clay. We decided to remove the loose oatmeal on top and do a swirl throughout. We are very happy with the way it turned out and we think this just might be a keeper! We will have these bars available at the Avocado Nursery's Creative Market this weekend, come check them out! Now we would like to talk about ingredients, specifically oils. We do not make soap from what they call a "melt and pour" base. A "melt and pour" base is just as it sounds, you buy a block of soap to your liking (goat's milk, shea butter, olive oil, etc......) and you melt it, add color and scent, make a design and pour it. You have soap! The soap we produce on the other hand is called "cold process", we blend our oils, mix our liquid and lye solution and carefully, emphasis on carefully, mix clays, micas, pigments, essential oils, fragrances and other additives to make a soap with ingredients we meticulously record for each batch. Our soaps are never made with soy or corn. Soy is not chosen because of the high estrogen levels in it, corn oil is not used in our products because 80% of the corn grown in the United States has been genetically modified. Our goat's milk bars have an oil base of 70% olive oil. Almost all our blends have olive oil in them. Then we add coconut oil for hardness and castor oil for bubbles. Our other soap bases include palm, sunflower, meadowfoam and butters of shea, mango, cocoa and avocado. Other important oils used in less amounts are jojoba oil and apricot kernel oil. If you ever have a question regarding any of our ingredients please feel free to contact us.   Above, our new packaging. Below the new Goat's Milk and Oatmeal.
This coming Saturday we will be at the Avocado Nursery for their monthly Creative Market! Come on out to this outstanding local market. It is located on Overfield Road near Central Arizona College in Casa Grande. They have a beautiful setting and some wonderful local vendors. We will have our new bars of all your Valentines favorites, the Country Rose Garden, Lavender & Rose, Lavender & Spearmint, our new Coconut & Lemongrass just to name a few. Also available will be some $12.00 and $15.00 baskets with soap bars and bath bombs, what a treat for the special ones on your list! We will also have available the newly redesigned Just For Me (peppermint & tea tree oil) and our new bars of our best selling Fresh & Clean. So come on out and enjoy your morning at the Creative Market!!!! See you there!
Fast approaching is that fabulous day that we all can show our significant other how much we appreciate them! What better way to do that than to get them a special gift of soap! We have some very wonderful blends curing right now that would be the perfect gift. Below are some examples for everyone, no matter your scent preference. At our up and coming market we will have some bath bombs available to partner with these luxurious soaps. Just check out these bars, some we have changed and one blend we brought back. Hope to see you in February!!!!
 Clockwise from top left: Coconut & Lemongrass with Silk, Country Rose Garden, Fresh & Clean, Lavender & Spearmint, Sweet Lavender and Just For Me (peppermint & tea tree oil). Center is Honeysuckle & Calendula.
Just a reminder that we will be at the Campbell's Restaurant Farmer's Market this weekend in Peoria Arizona. It will be from 8:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. We will have a limited amount of free samples and a basket full of our $3.00 close-out bars. These bars are from last year's batches and some are oops bars ( bars we made that were missing a color or scent ), and bars that we changed either an ingredient or look. And if you check out the market Facebook page they are going to have some baby donkeys there! Start your 2019 with a fun day in Peoria!   We say good-bye to 2018 and hello to our new year 2019! Our holidays are behind us and it is time to unwind a little from all of our holiday stresses. We hope that your Christmas and New Year were full of special moments and you have plenty of fond memories that include all those close and dear to your hearts. This post has us wanting to thank all the people that we met and had the opportunity to listen to and talk to throughout the year. We appreciate each and every one of you and can't wait to see what 2019 has in store for us! I just got back from spending New Year's in Munds Park Arizona. Oh how beautiful it was and thought I would share some of these pictures from my stay. The snow was so light that we couldn't make snowballs or a snowman. But that didn't keep us from enjoying the scenery! Absolutely serene! So, Welcome 2019!!!!!
This coming Saturday December 8th will be the last market we will be attending before Christmas Day. It will be at the Avocado Nursery/Distinctive Earthscapes Creative Market in Casa Grande Arizona. We will have the last of our holiday blends which includes the Peppermint & Vanilla, Festive Eggnog, Frosted Evergreen, Berry Berry Frost, Three Kings, Orange & Clove and the anise scented Hunter/Fisherman's Soap. Along with these we will have our gift baskets all wrapped up and ready for gift giving! The market is from 9 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. It should be a beautiful day to finish up any last minute gifts or stocking stuffers for all those special people on your list. There is a little something for everyone at this great local market, lots of unique and special items to choose from. So come on out and support all these small vendors and buy local!  The holidays are upon us and the shopping is at its peak! Soon we will sit back and relax and enjoy time spent with all the ones we love so much! Hope you all are not stressing to much and that you are enjoying this wonderful holiday season! This Friday November 23rd we will be offering our Black Friday special of free shipping on any order of $20.00 or more just enter code TURKEY20 in the coupon box at checkout! Also, we would like to show you two of our seasonal customer favorites, Festive Eggnog and Peppermint and Vanilla. We changed these a lot from last year and we think they are fabulous! They are also made with goat's milk instead of cow's milk now. We added a little cosmetic mica to the top to dress them up a bit too! Check out our other seasonal scented bars under SOAP on the website also. Just to give you all a heads up we have a few blends, the Honeysuckle & Calendula, the Sweet Lavender, the Arizona Citrus and our Aloe & Alfalfa, that are curing right now and they will soon be available online and at the markets we will be attending in the next few weeks, so keep a look out for these beautiful bars! And Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas to everyone!!!!
As promised here are the different gift baskets, boxes and pails we will be offering at our future markets. We have now included a crate box that has six bars of soap with a tie and tag for $30.00! You choose from soaps we have available and we pack them in a crate for gift giving. If you are interested in one of these and want to choose the bars you can email me at dora.landin0590@gmail.com and I will have the box ready for you to purchase at any of the upcoming markets. Also check out the new crates with a cow, pumpkin or apple label on them, they are just too cute! The pails, crates and boxes will have two bars of soap, a soap net and a ribbon with a gift tag. All ready to give for just $22.00! And, remember the Campbell's Restaurant Farmers Market will be this Saturday the 3rd. They have moved the location across the street from the restaurant, so keep a look out for that change. Hope to see you all there!
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AuthorDora O'Brien and Ally Kelley Archives
March 2019
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