What is Petitgrain essential oil? Petitgrain oil is obtained from the bitter orange tree, Citrus aurantium, which produces three different essential oils: petitgrain, neroli (from the flowers) and bitter orange (from the rinds of the fruit). Petitgrain oil is steam distilled using the tree’s twigs and leaves. What does it smell like? Petitgrain has a refreshing, …
Spices are about traveling. They take you on journeys. And that is why we love them so much. Turmeric or curcuma has always been about sunny, faraway India to me. Although my feet have not touched the mysterious Indian land yet, my soul has been there many times. The turmeric we use comes from India …
Alkanet or Alkanna tinctoria is a plant used for naturally coloring cold process soap and other cosmetics, as well as candles. In cold process soap, if you’re in the Soap Fairy’s graces, you can get beautiful shades of purple. Or grey, equally beautiful. Being a natural colorant, you can never be 100% sure that the …
Not many things in life are as simple as black or white, but some things are. Such as activated charcoal or Night in the Forest, our black and white soap. The activated charcoal we use is a fine black powder made from coconut shells and activated through being processed at very high temperature. Coconut shells …
Since we use clay in three of our soaps and we are also collaborating with a ceramist who is making for us a collection of bath accessories using clay, we figured it’s a good moment to talk a bit about clay. What is clay? Clay forms under the action of nature, over long periods of …
“You don’t need inspirational quotes, you need essential oils”. I don’t know who said this, but I find it… inspiring. Essential oils have been a part of my life for very many years and have accompanied me successfully through pregnancy, labor and birth with both my children, as well as throughout the postpartum period. Nothing …
This is a class of colorants that have been used for centuries to color soap. Oxides or pigments are considered natural origin ways of coloring soap. They are obtained on the basis of minerals, which are technically all natural and come from the ground, and then they are purified and treated so that they become …
Since we are in full nettle season, why not talk a little bit about nettles? My very first memory of nettles are of them growing in my grandparents’ garden, bordering the corn field. No matter how careful I was when walking there, they always got my legs all red and itchy. Urtica dioica, the common …
This period at the beginning of summer seems to be mostly about beauty for us so we’ve decided to dedicate this week’s article to one of the ingredients we use in our soaps with beauty as a main purpose: the manjishta ayurvedic powder! The manjishta we use is 100% pure and natural, grows freely and …
What is it? How does it work? Why do we use it? It’s time we start discussing ingredients in our soap. When choosing the soap you’re going to trust your skin with, the ingredients are of utmost importance. So the first ingredient we’re going to discuss is one of our favorite: shea butter! We love …