My hands are in water a lot. When I'm soaping, they tend to take the brunt of it all. Yes, I wear rubber gloves, but I take them off whenever they're not needed for protection. I watch the ads for soap on television, but as mild and gentle as they claim their products to be... they're only mild and gentle compared to other detergent bars. A commercial detergent bar just cannot compete with real handmade soap.
With my hands constantly in water, my wrists seem to feel it the most. The skin where the hands meet the lower arms dries out much faster than the rest of me when I'm soaping. I suppose the rubber gloves don't help either. Making my own soap affords me to pick and choose my ingredients according to what I want them to do. When I first started to make soap, I quickly discovered my hands needed a little more protection than just a pair of rubber gloves.
So, a purpose made bar was the order of the day. Of all the ingredients on my shelf to choose from, there were two that I wanted to build a working-hands bar around. Honey, and almonds. I often used both together as a paste... it's great on the face, and on the hands. Actually, it's great as a gentle exfoliating scrub for the whole body too. I'd warm the sweet almond oil with the honey, and add a heaping of almond meal. It's probably one of the best home made beauty recipes around. It's basic, it's simple, and it offers one of the richest moisturizing treats you can give your skin.
Honey is a humectant. It grabs hold of the moisture from the air, and keeps hold of it. It forms a barrier on the skin, and protects it. It's also anti microbial, so it does the duty with the nasties too.
As for almonds? Oh... boy. When ground fine the almond fruit doesn't half yield some wonderful skin softening properties. Sweet almond oil is very similar to our own skin's natural oil. It's gentle, and helps with the relief of dry itchy or sore skin. It boasts naturally occurring vitamins, including the valuable anti-oxidant Vitamin E. It's considered to be anti-inflammatory, and is very emollient. It's a light oil, readily absorbed without greasy after-feel, and it is often the oil of choice for use with skin troubles such as eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis.
Almond meal is what remains after the pressing of the almonds used to yield the sweet almond oil. As with sweet almond oil, the meal is very gentle and anti irritating to the skin. Dry, dead and flaking skin cells form a hard barrier on the skin, which prevents it from absorbing much needed moisture. Almond meal is moist with the oil from the pressing and gently exfoliates these cells.
And so "
Honey Me Smooth" was born. It's my soapmaking bar. A bar for hard working hands. It protects my hands, and smooths any dry that might be flaking around. It's one of the few bars that doesn't have any essential oils in it. They weren't needed. The simplicity of the ingredients alone were enough for what I wanted. I wanted to be able to wash my hands often, and not have my skin take a pounding.
"Honey Me Smooth" is great for summer skin... and it's an absolute champion for sore and chafe. There's not many jobs out there that beat soapmaking for repetitive wear and tear on the skin. And there's not many soap bars that take on the duty like "Honey Me Smooth" does. It was made for sore hands. Those hands were mine. And for me, this bar is just what they need.
Remember the black squirrel I told you about a while back? Yes, well... Jason snapped him as he was paying our birdbath a visit. He's a fast cutie, but wasn't quite fast enough the other day.
Over at the wonderful Nuts 4 Stuff, they're having a giveaway of Manor Hall products!
This isn't Family Friday, but it is a memorable Monday. With a mound of work ahead of me today, I get this in my personal email box. It's from Gayle, my eldest daughter, and it's a smack bang up to date pic of my grand children, Honey and Sonny.
Dreamy, creamy caribbean coconut with a backdrop of tantalizing fresh persian lime. Bella Coconut. So tropically trelicious!
Not too late for family Friday. This one is Shez and Gary - again. It's such a feel good pic though, and right now as I set to work into the small hours of the morning, I just needed a boost of feel-good. What gives you a boost of feel-good when you need it most? Family always does it for me.
Being a soap maker means I don't get to have a wardrobe of posh frocks to parade around the workshop in... but that doesn't mean I can't have great clothes to choose from when starting my day. I'm a Reebok girl, and have been for a number of decades. My working week sees me sporting either pink and black, or grey and aqua. Colors can do an awful lot to the mood of the mind, and I wear my working day colors according to how I think I'm gonna need to be feeling for the day ahead.
The mood-fueling color doesn't stop at my work clothes though. I have a color that begins in my morning shower. Way back in the early days of Manor Hall I created an essential oil blend specifically designed to bring instant oomph on those days when the only letters my body could assemble spelled out a weak "phhtt". I'm as human as you are, and although I love my work and my business I do get days where I just feel blah.
So, a purpose made bar was the order of the day. Of all the ingredients on my shelf to choose from, there were two that I wanted to build a working-hands bar around. Honey, and almonds. I often used both together as a paste... it's great on the face, and on the hands. Actually, it's great as a gentle exfoliating scrub for the whole body too. I'd warm the sweet almond oil with the honey, and add a heaping of almond meal. It's probably one of the best home made beauty recipes around. It's basic, it's simple, and it offers one of the richest moisturizing treats you can give your skin.
Here's bright light Shezzie, on vacation with us last September. Husband Gary now serves as a fireman in the UK, having served his country on different tours of duty in the middle east. The two of them never fail to bring a smile to my face.
Summer is in full swing and a new kind of mania is reigning at the Manor. Huge savings on all your favorites right throughout the store. Major discounts, Bulk Buys, Buy 2 Get 1 and Freebies. So many of your faves are on sale, and there is a raft of One-Timers up for grabs. Will you be the one to snap up the awesome one-timers? Get them before someone else does!
Another soap making tutorial is waiting in the wings. 
More order boxes going out today. For now, it's a nice early start for me as I climb into my soaping clothes. Yes... beats a pretty dress any day of the week!
