Handmade Organic Soap

A person holding a piece of cheese in their hand.


How We Clean Up After a Hard Day’s Work

Many of you know we are avid gardeners and own an heirloom seed company, but you may not know we also have a small farm. Gardening or working with our horses, ducks, and pigs always leaves our hands and body dirty.

We’ve searched for a good, all around soap, but it didn’t seem to exist. All of the bars we tried – and we tried a bunch – either cleaned well while stripping all of the moisture from our hands or left an unsettling film after rinsing. Almost none lasted very long and we had just about given up hope of a non-chemical, non-commercial soap we could use and really enjoy.

Researching what goes into soap opened our eyes – especially commonly used ingredients and processes used to make it. We began to understand why most soaps irritated our skin, didn’t clean well or melted too quickly.

The more we learned, the more we knew we wanted a natural and organic soap – something made entirely from plant-based, unrefined ingredients.

When we found and tried this particular soap, we knew our search was a success. We use and love this soap daily, so it made sense to offer it to our customers!

Just like our seeds, we contract with a small family company to produce the absolute best soap possible. Join us as we explore what goes into a great bar of soap!   

A close up of the back of a business card.

Unscented Soap

Get your organic soap this way!

What Makes a Great Bar of Soap?

A bar of soap appears simple sitting in your hand, but it must balance and maximize its best qualities – creamy fluffy lather that cleans while moisturizing, feels good and lasts well – all in one bar.

This takes work – research, experimenting, and testing – to accomplish. A perfect bar soap is a result of carefully choosing and balancing the various ingredients to boost the bar’s hardness, lather quality, cleaning, and moisturizing ability. For example – moisturizing ingredients don’t contribute much to lather quality, and what makes great lather often dries our skin out.

All soap is made through a chemical reaction where part of an oil molecule attaches to a sodium ion from sodium hydroxide, commonly called lye. This is called saponification.

A properly produced soap consumes all of the lye during the saponification process, eliminating any chance of skin irritation. Superfatting assures that all lye is consumed. This process retains extra skin-nourishing oils in the finished soap. Superfatting won’t make your skin oily, it helps it to maintain natural moisture levels.

A close up of the back of a business card

Lemongrass Tea Soap

Can Soap be Certified Organic?

The USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) sets the standard for organic production. Soap falls under the “Made with Organic” section – Products made from a minimum of 70% organic content up to 95%. The USDA has set 70% as the minimum percentage a product can have and still use “organic” in its labels and marketing.

So, what does this mean for you?

Organic certification guarantees there are no synthetic fragrances, colors, or preservatives in the soap, as well as that all the oils and herbs were grown and processed according to organic standards (no pesticides, no radiation, and environmentally friendly methods).

To us, this means a soap whose ingredients are plant-based with no artificial substances such as synthetic fragrances, dyes, and preservatives. Our pure herbal soap is scented with essential oils and colored exclusively with organic herbs and plant extracts. 100% certified organic oils make up the soap base recipe.

We feel it’s worth the extra time and effort to meet organic standards and make truly organic products. Your skin will know the difference!

A close up of a bar of soap

Gardener’s Hand Soap

Why Essential Oils are Better

Essential oils are concentrated plant extracts from the roots, bark, and plant leaves.

Fragrance oils are always synthetic, even though they have perfectly natural names and might contain natural ingredients.

Fragrances smell great initially but quickly overwhelm your nose once you get it home, then it’s not so nice or enjoyable.

Essential oils are less “pushy” up front but retain their appealing qualities throughout the life of the bar, never overwhelming your nose.

A close up of the label on a box

Peppermint Soap

How Organic Soaps Get Their Colors

Natural colors can be bright and lively, creating a beautiful bar of soap.

Some essential oils, like citrus oils, have their own color that can be just what certain soaps need.

The easiest way to add or control soap color is with herbs or clays. The desired colors are created near the end of the mixing process by adding herbs, clays or a combination.

Steeping herbs in oil create richer and more vivid colors.

A close up of the back of a business card

Citrus Lavender Soap

Why Exotic Ingredients Aren’t Included

Don’t be fooled by trendy or exotic ingredients on a label. If you don’t start with a well-formulated base, exotic ingredients won’t produce the soap you’re looking for. For example – palm kernel oil can be a great enhancement, but it can’t fix a poor formulation. Specialty ingredients are most commonly used as advertising hooks or as recipe magic in the hopes of creating a great soap from a poor-quality base. Glamorous ingredients or celebrity endorsements don’t produce extraordinary soap.

A box of soap that is sitting on the floor.

Lavender Soap

Try the Most Natural Soap Available

There’s virtue in products as natural as your skin. There are also practical benefits to using essential oils in skincare products.

Read labels carefully. If you see any variation or combination of the words fragrance, fragrance oil, or natural fragrance, don’t be fooled. There’s nothing natural about them.

Purchasing our handmade, organic soap gives you much more than just a great soap that leaves your skin clean. You support our small company and our soapmaker.

They, in turn, support growers for the ingredients of your bar of soap – ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly methods that increase the soils over time and improves the communities where they are grown.

It turns out that a simple bar of soap can do some real good for many people!

Get your organic soap this way!

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Shea Butter Heals Hands While Healing Lives

A table with some food and a bowl of ice cream


A Short history of Shea Butter

The Shea tree – botanical name Butyrospermum parkii or Vitellaria paradoxa – grows in the dry Savannah belt of West Africa, stretching from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east.

It has been an irreplaceable natural cosmetic pharmaceutical for people in Western Africa for millennia. Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly important in the skincare industries.

Most Americans know Shea butter as a highly touted skin care ingredient in a variety of soaps, lotions, balms, and butters.

Few realize the Shea advertised in the majority of cosmetic products in the US is nothing more than another highly refined food grade oil churned out of an industrial plant, regarded as just another commodity.

Pure hand-crafted Grade A Shea butter is a world apart from this!

Real Shea butter is wild-crafted, hand harvested and handmade

Shea butter has been known as “women’s gold”for centuries for its light golden color but also because it’s historically been the work of women to harvest and produce Shea butter.

Millions of women across Western Africamake their own incomes and are improving their lives producing traditional Shea butter.

Women-owned and organized cooperatives harvest the ripe Shea fruits from wild growing Shea tree forests. Fermentation removes the fruit, then the nuts are sun-dried, crushed and lightly roasted, concentrating the Shea butter.

Finely ground Shea nut powder is mixed with warm water and constantly stirred until it thickens. Warm, liquid Shea oil is collected from the surface, then strained and slowly cooled to form Shea butter. After packaging it is sold at the local markets or exported.

It takes approximately 44 pounds of fresh Shea fruit to produce 3.3 pounds of pure Shea butter.

 

Find your Shea butter here!
A close up of the flowers on a tree

Shea Tree Flowers

What is Fair Trade?

Fair Trade certification is awarded after meeting certain standards, similar to organic certification. There are benefits and challenges, just like with the Certified Organic label.

This adds to the overall cost, but there are benefits most consumers never know about.

Beyond Fair Trade – Partnering with the Producers

We – our supplier and ourselves – work as closely as possible with women’s cooperatives to keep the quality high, and also to pay them fairly.

Working directly with the cooperative and the Fair Trade organization, we eliminate as many profit-taking intermediate layers as possible while having a larger positive impact than we could by ourselves.

For example – currently, Shea nut harvesters earn 15 cents per pound and the women’s cooperative we work with want to pay the harvesters 25 cents per pound, only 10 cents more but a whopping 66% pay raise.

However, it isn’t as simple as just paying them more.

Regional and local politics, combined with existing laws, are making it difficult to simply give the harvesters a raise, so the Fair Trade organization is working with our women’s cooperative to change this.

A Shea nut harvester might earn $60/month, which allows her to live in a straw-thatched hut with no power in a communal village and walk up to a half mile for water at a common, communal well.

A 10 cent per pound pay raise will give her and her family a solid walled, roofed apartment with running water and a community generator for electricity.

Shea processors – who actually turn the nuts into Shea butter – make about $175/month, and the women’s cooperative is working to raise that to $225/month.

The additional income almost always paysfor schooling, whether it is getting all of their children into schools, or enrolling them in full-time private charter schools with a full curriculum.

A plate of food on top of a wooden table.

The Virtuous Cycle

Buying your Shea butter from a company engaged in direct, positive impact on the local producers gives your purchases a much larger effect simply because much more of each dollar makes it to those producers. This is exactly how one person makes a difference!

The standard commodity approach to Shea butter has so many layers – traders, intermediaries, transportation expenses, and investors – between the Shea butter producers and the US consumer that not even one penny of each dollar spent on a commercial Shea-labeled product reaches those in Africa.

According to The New York Times, a survey of a Burkina Faso village by USAID in 2010 found that every $1,000 of Shea nuts sold generated an additional $1,580 in economic benefits, such as reinvestments in other trades for the village. Shea butter exports from West Africa bring in between $90 million and $200 million a year, according to the article.

Much like the disproportionately large positive effects of spending your money at a Farmer’s Market instead of the grocery store, purchasing pure, unrefined Grade A Shea butter from a dedicated company partnering with a small producer ensures a better life for those making it.

Ethically sourced Shea butter heals our hands and skin while healing the lives and villages who make it.

Find your Shea butter here!

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Ethel M Botanical Cactus Garden

A yellow flower with many petals and a bee on it.


Chocolates with a Side of Cactus Garden?

Las Vegas is often thought of for its glittering lights and heady atmosphere of the Strip. That’s exactly what lost me about its appeal, even though Cindy and I had visited numerous times for gardening trade shows along with a few personal trips.

A few times down the Strip and we started looking for something other than the glitz and glam.

We found Ethel M and its unique botanical garden that focuses on cacti and species from the Southwest US and other countries with a similar climate. Cindy searched for something interesting and relaxing after the bustle and noise of a garden trade show and came across this treasure.

Ethel M chocolate factory – as in Ethel Mars –  is part of the Mars family with the factory store housing the botanic garden in Henderson, NV just a few minutes south of Las Vegas. The self-paced tour runs along the dedicated viewing aisle next to the factory floor, then we sampled some excellent chocolates and had an unexpectedly good cup of espresso. Afterwards, we were ready for some botanic garden exploration.

We visited during an afternoon in early May with temperatures hovering around 100°F – not the best light for photos and I had left my usual camera at home, not anticipating a photo opportunity. Armed with my trusty cell phone and a couple of bottles of water, we ventured out into the garden, not quite knowing what to expect.

Impressive beauty and peace

A yellow flower with green leaves in the background.

Bee in Prickly Pear Flower – Ethel M Botanic Garden

Over 300 species of cactus, desert-adapted ornamentals and succulents are spread over 10 acres. Artfully arranged in intriguing and enticing groupings, the pull from flowers to cactus to trees made us feel something like the numerous bees and hummingbirds we saw.

A close up of the leaves on a cactus

Prickly Pear Detail – Ethel M Botanic Garden

The peace and quiet after the noise and crush of crowds was a very welcome respite. Plantings are slightly elevated, inviting an easy look into the details of the life growing there.

These early prickly pear cactus buds are mathematically gorgeous in their symmetry, blushing with an indication of their rich colors to come.

A close up of some flowers on a tree

Flower Closeup – Ethel M Botanic Garden

Abundantly blooming flowers were generously spread across the entire garden, with some reaching out with colors and others beckoning with aromas from 20 or 30 feet away.

We weren’t paying attention to the nameplates or descriptions of the flowers or plants but focused instead on the experiences of colors, textures, and aromas drawing us in.

A close up of the flowers on a tree

Blooms – Ethel M Botanic Garden

Some plants and their flowers seemed as though they would be right at home as an attraction on the Strip, such as this one!

Given how close the I-515 freeway is the quiet and peace were impressive. The garden had a number of people in it but it never felt crowded.

A close up of yellow flowers on the ground

Flower Blooms – Ethel M Botanic Garden

This flower group had a sweet, perfumed aroma drawing us in from two plantings over. The trumpet-shaped flowers had dozens of small flying insects and bees attending them.

A close up of the flowers on a plant

Flower Blooms – Ethel M Botanic Garden

Colors ranged from white to purple with a lot of orange and reds represented. It was high season for blooms as very few plants lacked flowers.

A red flower is growing in the middle of some bushes.

Ethel M Botanic Garden

The surrounding city disappeared from certain viewpoints, giving the illusion of a private estate garden or an undiscovered, undeveloped patch of exotic forest somehow forgotten.

We came away relaxed and refreshed, completely surprised by how wonderfully juxtaposed the experience was from the busy city just down the street. The rest of the day was just as enjoyable, and we realized that this was the best trip to Las Vegas we remembered, simply because of a visit to a garden.

We’ve learned to search a bit deeper for those unexpected garden treats like this!

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Arugula – the Wild, Ancient, Hip and Versatile Green

A close up of some green leaves on a plate


About Arugula

Arugula might just be the perfect aromatic cool-season salad green for the home gardener – beginner or advanced. Usually seen in the specialty greens section of the supermarket in small cellophane bundles with prices to match the “specialty” label. Sometimes sold as baby arugula, its always found in the salad greens mix called mesclun.

If you are looking to spice up your salad or add a tangy, peppery zest to dishes from soup to pizza and sandwiches, you might just be searching for arugula and don’t know it. Young leaves are tender, sweet-and-tangy with just a hint of the spice they will have once mature. Chefs have depended on its adaptability and flavor punch for the past two decades, but it is even more popular again with the rise of fresh greens.

A close up of some green leaves on the ground

Wasabi Arugula

Shop for your arugula here!

History

Arugula has ancient roots even though it’s modern and popular today. Romans called it Eruca – the root of its scientific name – and Greek medical texts from the first century mention its restorative properties. The Romans used both seeds and leaves. The leaves in a green salad with romaine, chicory, mallow, and lavender, while the seed was used to make flavorful oils. 

Costly to buy in the store with a bland, washed-out flavor, arugula is easy and fast to grow from inexpensive seed. Sowing seed to the first harvest takes about 3 – 4 weeks, which is about as close to instant greens as possible, making it a perfect choice for fall and winter gardening as well as early spring. 

A close up of green leaves on the ground

Wild Italian Arugula

Growing

Growing arugula is incredibly easy and is one of the most complex and delicious greens known. An unknown but huge bonus is the flowers are stunningly beautiful while being one of the tastiest edible flowers available. The younger leaves are more tender and sweet-tangy, so start picking them at about 2 inches long. As the plant matures and flavors sharpen, you can use it as a cut-and-come-again, or simply pull the entire plant out and re-sow seed once it becomes too spicy. 

A yellow flower is growing in the grass.

Wild Italian Arugula Flower

Using

Arugula is very versatile in the kitchen as an herb, salad green, and a leafy green vegetable. Use it both raw and cooked; the lightly cooked leaves have a milder flavor afterward. Showcase grilled seafood on a leafy bed of arugula, or chop and sprinkle on top of pizza and pasta just before serving, or mix into a salad to liven it up. Adding a couple of whole leaves to grilled cheese sandwiches or a BLT will give it a completely new dimension of flavor.

The sharp, spicy flavor contrasts well with the rich flavors of roasted beets, pears, olives, tomatoes and robust cheeses such as goat, blue and Parmigiano-Reggiano. 

The flowers are the best-kept secret – they aren’t as spicy while being a little sweet. Flowers appear after the plant has matured and the leaves are too bitter to eat. Harvest by clipping them off the stem, then scatter on top of a salad, a plate of appetizers or an open-faced sandwich for an unexpectedly beautiful, delicious treat.

Now you know more about this versatile ancient yet hip herb-vegetable, plant some and invigorate your fall, winter, and early spring dinner table!

Shop for your arugula here!

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