Labor Day for most signals the end of summer break and the return to school. But not for all of us in Arizona. Most of our schools here start their new school year in mid-August. So for many of us it just means that summer is winding down and fall is peaking around the corner. Fall is an exciting time for us here at Desert Blossom Soap because of all those earthy, comforting scents we create for this season's return. Scents like our Orange & Clove and the super popular Old Fashioned Oatmeal. These blends are full of the fall scents like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla and orange. These bold, spicy and sweet smells compliment each other and get us in the mood for cooler weather, pumpkin spice lattes and campfires! Oh speaking of campfires, we have a new soap blend! Introducing our new Smokin Good Soap! You guessed it! This bar has a light campfire like scent created by the essential oil blend of birch tar, cedarwood atlas and balsam fir. Birch tar and cedarwood atlas essential oils both have been known to help alleviate skin issues such as acne, eczema and psoriasis. Balsam fir essential oil has  anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties to help with removing germs from your skin. Combine these with the organic non-GMO oil base of coconut, palm, sunflower and castor makes for a perfect skin loving bar. Also added is coconut activated charcoal that lifts and removes dirt and oil. This has been my favorite bar by far, not to mention that I love campfires on a cold night! You all will have to check this one out :)
Next up is our new Palatial Peacock. I know some will say the word palatial means a big extravagant area, but it also can mean lavish or luxurious. So I chose Palatial because our peacock (who was the inspiration for this bar) has the most beautiful feathers of any bird I have seen. Pictured with our bar is some of our peacocks feathers, but the color is not what makes this bar special. The scent is what is so luxurious. We had a contest a few months back for the scent blend for this bar. One of our wonderful Facebook followers, Cindy, was the ONLY one who entered, lol! But I am so glad she did because her scent of choice was sandalwood, ylang-ylang and vanilla! Oh my, if you are a lover of sandalwood you are going to love this bar. It can be both masculine and feminine, the blend is luxurious and a bit mysterious. To add to the luxury of this bar it also has silk protein in the mix.  Both of these bars are now available on the website for purchase along with our new batch of Eucalyptus & Spearmint.
Another product we are trying to get on our website is accessories to compliment your soap. We now have some beautiful soap dishes and a few soap pallets, but coming soon we will expand our line of pallets to include a few mahogany wood versions and some painted white also. We are also cutting and preserving some mesquite wood soap decks. These will be available in October 2021! 
Well we hope your Labor Day weekend was safe and relaxing, but tomorrow is back to business as usual! Have a blessed week and make sure to hug your family and friends!

Yes! We love our Arizona inspired bars, these bars are designed and formulated to reflect some of our state's most important attributes. We add ingredients that represent what the beautiful state of Arizona has produced either in the past or what it is producing currently.
Both of these bars have a luxurious lather although they both have very different ingredients. First we will start with our Arizona Blend. This bar contains some of the most incredible oils, it has cocoa butter, jojoba oil, avocado oil and sunflower oil. The sunflower oil has been infused with the leaves of the chaparral bush, we sometimes refer to it as the creosote bush. The chaparral gives off a unique scent when it rains here in southern Arizona, it is a very earthy scent. Also added to this bar is juniper berry essential oil. If you travel to the north eastern part of Arizona you will most likely see juniper trees/bushes. This oil is loaded with benefits, research it and you will be amazed! To top of the look of this bar we add a beautiful copper mica swirl.
The second bar pictured is the Arizona Citrus. This is one of our ever popular goat's milk bars. The oil base blend we have added in the past was a predominantly olive oil base, but recently we started stocking a wonderful non-gmo organic sunflower oil. So now it is olive oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil and castor oil. This blend is very gentle especially when added to goat's milk. A perfect bar soap for the whole family. To this oil base we wanted to incorporate the citrus farming representation that was so prevalent here in southern Arizona, have you ever had one of our Arizona Sweets oranges? Oh my they are so juicy and sweet, yum! So our bar contains the essential oil of orange along with pink grapefruit and lemon. We know so many who grow these wonderful citrus trees. This bar is also topped with a copper mica swirl, yes Arizona was a major copper producer in its day. This bar also contains a little known essential oil called vetiver. Vetiver is known for its calming properties. If you are having a stress filled day this bar is the one to use!
We have a third bar, the Aloe & Alfalfa, that is also an Arizona Inspired bar. But, that will be another post. So we will close this post wishing you a wonderful week! And remember, always remind your friends and family how much you love them!

This picture is from our resident peacock. One afternoon we returned home after shopping in the valley and there, lo and behold, was a peacock in the front of our property! And now we have a permanent peacock resident. So, a few evenings ago he was resting on the side of my truck with his beautiful train hanging down reaching the ground and all I could think about is GO GET YOUR CAMERA! This is one of the pictures that I took and as soon as I viewed it I knew this was going to be my new color scheme for a new soap. Now mind you, I know a lot of you will have a picture in your mind of a peacock soap, but this will just be my color scheme. Emerald green, Peacock blue (ha, ha!), copper and black! My only issue at this point is a fragrance, hmmmmm. What to scent this beautiful color combination with? That is where I am going to ask my customers, friends and family to help. I need some ideas for a scent that will do this palette of colors justice! So I decided to ask all of you to post your recommendation to this blog post with your ideas and if your scent is chosen you will receive a FREE BAR WITH A 15% OFF COUPON FOR AN ANY SIZE ORDER! This contest will run from today until June 4th 2021. Just post a comment with the description or name of your scent with your name (can be first name only) and we will announce the winner June 5th, 2021! Can't wait to hear your ideas! You all have a beautiful weekend!

So this blend of ours will remind you of a winter holiday but there is more to this bar than the reference to the gifts brought to baby Jesus. If you want to know the essential oils of frankincense and myrrh were revered oils of that time and still are. I can imagine that the representation of the kings bringing these oils to this child showed how important he was, just because they were oils that not just anyone could have possession of. They were ceremonial oils that were important and I can imagine quite expensive, along with the gold that was given. Today the oils of frankincense and myrrh have purported benefits that have become very popular, it is an oil I frequently  use in our household. I use a 3% dilution frankincense for joint pain on my knees, ankles and hands and I use both of these oils in a salve that I make for personal use. I will encourage you all to research these oils and the magnificent history and benefits they offer.
The third oil we add to this bar is Ceylon cinnamon. This is not the Chinese cassia cinnamon that is used for baking, this is the therapeutic type of cinnamon, yes there is a big difference! This is another oil I will encourage you to research, I will never tell you any essential oil will do something for you, I believe you need to research it for yourself to make an informed judgement. Another point I would like everyone to make a note of will be that I never, ever recommend using an essential oil in its pure form. Always dilute! My safe recommendation is 3%, especially when using a "hot" oil like cinnamon or oregano. 
This bar also contains the skin loving oils of jojoba and sunflower and the luxurious cocoa butter. These oils are added to this bar to make it less oil stripping. You will never hear me say that a bar of soap will add moisture, instead I will tell you it will remove less oil. The fact that some will mention that soap will add moisture to your skin is debatable. Soap is a wash off product, it is meant to clean. So this bar is less stripping. Which is a real treat for your skin!
Also added to this bar are the "natural" colorants of cocoa powder and white kaolin clay, then we add silk protein for a very silky lather. On top we add a beautiful gold and purple mica swirl, love this bar!
These bars will be available May 22nd 2021 and this batch will be the last batch until fall, so get them while they last!

We have a new bar! This beautiful, light, lemony bar is our new Lemon Lift. We used our goat's milk base for this luscious bar and added the essential oils of Niaouli (a species of tea tree), lemon and clary sage. It is has a pale lemon color achieved by adding a filtered tea made with turmeric root. We swirled a contrasting white base with added white kaolin clay through the light yellow. Such a pretty contrast. So far I am loving this soap! I think this is going to make a perfect kitchen bar, although anyone that loves lemon will enjoy this in the bath as well. This bar was a customer inspiration and we always love requests for bar scents or looks. Sure to be a favorite this bar will be available end of May 2021! We will announce its presence on the website as soon as it finishes curing. 
And to all our mother's out there have a super Mother's Day tomorrow, enjoy your day!

We have a new bar! Introducing our Pumice & Clay! This rugged looking bar is our first pumice soap bar. We have had several customers ask us about doing a pumice bar and we finally have one! We choose to combine several qualities into this bar the first being a ruff exfoliating soap geared toward removing those stubborn grease and dirt stains. So then we wanted to add the benefit of a salt bar, so we added Himalayan Pink salt in the mix. Salt helps deep clean, balance oils on the skin and thwart bacterial growth. It also softens skin. What a perfect combo, don't you think? The little white specks you see on this bar is the salt. We also added coconut activated charcoal and Pascalite clay for color and their attributes as well. We decided to scent this bar with a combination of peppermint & rosemary essential oils, both of these oils have an astringent scent and we do not have another bar with this blend. Then we added a splash of Midnight Waters fragrance oil to the essential oils, it has a very pleasing fragrance. The look turned out to resemble granite which we are very happy with. If you are a mechanic or spend a lot of time tending to a garden or yard work or if you have ruff heals or elbows this just could be the bar for you. This bar is currently still curing and will not be ready until May 22nd, the salt in the bar attracts moisture and needs more time to dry. 
Well that is this weeks Soap Spotlights, more to come next week! You all have a fabulous weekend!

This bar, the Fresh & Clean, is our number one seller! Every batch sells out after three to four weeks on our website and I really think it is because of the ingredients. It is also a very nice looking bar but the oils and raw ingredients in this blend are what make it our hot item. The oil base is simple but is a nice balance for most soap bars, it includes olive oil, sunflower oil (our newest edition to this base), coconut oil, palm oil and castor. We are now only using organic non-gmo oils except for the olive oil (organic non-gmo olive oil is very expensive even at wholesale). Our palm oil is a rain forest safe brand which is sustainably produced. This bar has been our favorite blend since we started this business and it shows as our customers number one pick. 
Now lets talk about the additives, essential oils (yes, this bar is one of our essential only bars, no fragrance oils allowed!) and raw ingredients. The essential oils in this bar pack a punch! We start with peppermint and spearmint then add lemon, rosemary, thyme, wintergreen and litsea cubeba (a fixative lemon-like scent to extend the lemon scent). This blend of oils gives this bar it's wow factor! So, we don't stop there, next we mix in a bit of menthol crystals. It does not take much of this raw ingredient to add a little pow! We color this bar with coconut activated charcoal and French green clay, both of these products are used in this bar to bind and lift away oils, dirt and foreign debris from your skin. We have now added to this mix of raw ingredients Pascalite clay, another superior ingredient that lifts and binds toxins, it is definitely worth your time to research this amazing clay! In this current situation our world is in everyone should have a bar like this in their bathroom, all these ingredients are geared toward anti-microbial and anti-bacterial removal! Watch out coronaviruses!
So, we have one more bar to showcase! Our new Pumice & Clay! We will post it this afternoon, then on to our next batch releases! Will keep you all posted :)

Introducing our newest limited edition floral bar! The Japanese Cherry Blossom! We have introduced ever so often a new floral bar and this is our newest scent. This tradition for our company started with a request for a honeysuckle scented bar and from there we continued to make bars scented with fragrances that were not available or were extremely expensive as essential oils. After making our Honeysuckle & Calendula we released our Jasmine & Coconut Milk, then a lilac bar that was just lovely, then the Island Plumeria (which will be back in June of this year) and now we have the Japanese Cherry Blossom. The Japanese Cherry tree (also known as the Sakura) is a fruitless blooming ornamental cherry tree with it's origins in Japan. The scent of some varieties has been described as faint, sheer and powdery. The scent usually has soft rose and lilac qualities followed by almond, honey and vanilla notes. Our scent that we used has these scents with a cherry fruit coming out at the end.  I am enjoying this bar sample in my kitchen and I have to say this just might be a keeper! We chose the coconut milk oil base for this bar because of it's creamy and silky lather for a luxuriant bath experience. Then colored it with a blue mica (representing the beautiful blue sky), pink mica mixed with rose kaolin clay (for the blossoms) and a sparkly amber mica (for the tree branches). Then dusted the top with a white mica, love this look! These will be on the website late next week and will be a limited edition bar. These bars will go fast!