Our soap collection - now we are six!

Two new varieties of organic soap have joined our line up this spring. Warm and woody Juniper Berry and refreshing and uplifting Lemon & Bergamot.

Developing new soaps has surely to be one of the most rewarding activities for any soap maker as test batches are made and the soapery fills with an array of new scent combinations.

For a long time we felt there was room in the family for a citrus based scent. Off all the aromatic essential oils, citruses tend to fade much quicker in a bar soap. This makes them well suited to the small batch soap maker, as the time between making and using is much shorter than a factory process.

For this soap, as always, our inspiration came close to home. The working title “Earl Grey” should give you a clue. This is our favourite drink down at the workshop. We like to take it black with a slice of lemon.  And that in a nutshell became the inspiration behind our new uplifting Lemon & Bergamot soap. The bergamot adds a sophisticated twist to the more familiar sharp lemon scent. Astringent in nature this combination helps to balance out oilier skin types.

We changed the name to reflect the botanical nature, but we kept one nod to the Earl Grey, namely the colour of the wrap. We think the monochrome really brings out the details of Susie’s exquisite illustration.

The second of our new soaps has a completely different character altogether. Juniper Berry, has a long established history here in the UK. Though now in sharp decline, it still grows wild on the National Trust commons surrounding our workshop. Most people recognise as the Juniper Berry as the distinctive flavouring in gin.

We describe the scent as warm and woody. It’s an incredibly useful oil as it has natural anti-bacterial properties, similar to the more familiar tea tree oil. This makes it useful for a variety of skin conditions including eczema and psoriasis. We’ve added kaolin clay, the most gentlest of all the clays to add extra oil absorbing qualities.

We have loved creating these soaps and now we are enjoying using them. We hope you love them as much as we do.