Have you tried this yet? We are constantly hearing back from folks who have tried and love this shower essential! Here's what some customers have been saying about our Body Wash and Natural Shampoo. One customer raves, "As a shampoo it really keeps my hair under control and I like using it as a body wash because it is non drying on my skin." Another reports, "Love the body wash and shampoo! Such a fresh fragrance. My hair is more manageable." Five Reasons to Love Our Body Wash and ShampooThis body wash and natural shampoo has been gaining popularity over the last year. We're glad word is getting out about how wonderful this product is. Here's five reasons we love this!
We'll let you in on a little secret. The reason this soap works so well as a dual purpose body wash and a shampoo is partly due to the castor oil used to make this soap. Castor oil has fallen out of popularity lately, so it may be surprising that it's such an amazing skin care oil. By itself it's a bit sticky and thick (albeit incredibly beneficial), but in soap it is fabulous! It is truly a soap-makers dream. It comes from the seeds of the ricinus communis plant, indigenous to tropical areas of Africa and Asia. Castor oil, when used in soap, creates a rich, creamy lather that is conditioning and moisturizing. This combination is ideal for a shampoo as well as a general soap. It's also a humectant, which means it attracts water to your skin. The reason castor oil has these fabulous properties in soap is due to its unique fatty acid content -- mostly Ricinoleac Acid, but also Oleic and Linoleic Acids. Castor oil is a one-of-a-kind gem for soap making and skin care!
Since we are featuring our Body Wash and Shampoo this month, we thought we'd offer a coupon code for it! Use the code BODYWASH20 to get 20% off this product for the month of September. See our variety of body washes available here.
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We love fall so much that it's hard to wait to start making all those festive fall goodies! We have some classic scents that we are excited about making (we're looking at you Autumn Fig Harvest and Pumpkin Spice!) plus some new ones to add to our fall line-up! Here's what you can look forward to. Sandalwood Vanilla Rich and alluring, this scent is the perfect mix of warm sandalwood and creamy vanilla. Hickory and Suede This warm and cozy scent has notes of bergamot, leather, lavender, geranium, cypress, and sandalwood. It finishes with notes of suede, spiced musk, and tobacco. Apple Sage A refreshing blend of sweet, juicy apple and herbaceous sage. Top notes of pineapple mingle with a touch of coconut water and a rich, earthy base. This fragrance is sweet, fresh and mouthwatering! Backwoods Hike This scent is the perfect mix of fresh and spicy. It starts with notes of elemi, coriander, ginger, black pepper, lavender, and oakmoss. Base notes of cedarwood, patchouli, amber, and clove add earthiness and complexity. Verdant Woods This earthy, fresh scent is a blend of lemon, grass, bergamot, lilac, cedarwood, resin, frankincense, and musk. We will still be making those tried-and-true fall scents that you've come to enjoy over the years -- our Classic Fall Collection. If you see us at the market, try some of these scents and let us know which ones are your favorites! We'd love to know! Wishing you all the best for the month of August. Don't forget our coupon code BODYOIL20 to get 20% off our body oil blend!
Often the simplest things are the best, and that's definitely the case with our body oil blend! Sometimes when we are at a market, a customer will ask me (Polly) what my favorite product is. Without hesitation, I always point to our body oil blend. Maybe it is easily overlooked because the assumption may be that an oil would be... well... oily! We are happy to let you know that it absorbs so well that it won't leave your skin feeling greasy or oily. Here's why we love this body oil blend so much!
How Does This Compare to Baby Oil?When it comes to moisturizing your skin with an oil, perhaps there's nothing more commonly known than commercially-produced baby oil. It's made by a number of manufacturers and marketed as a clean, pure, and gentle product. And seriously, who doesn't want skin as soft as a baby's skin, right?! Here's the difference. Baby oil is perfumed mineral oil. Mineral oil is a by-product of processing and refining crude oil. This means that mineral oil is a petroleum-based product. "Fragrance-free" petroleum-based products almost always have some type of fragrance in them to counter the bad scent from the production of the product itself. Mineral oil is a general term used to describe a variety of weights and grades of the crude-oil by-product. Some of it is more refined and food-safe, such as the mineral oil used to treat wooden cutting boards. It is used as a lubricant and even as a treatment for constipation!
Another notable consideration is that mineral oil is not biodegradable. We love using plant-based oils and natural emollients (such as lanolin as opposed to petroleum jelly) and we're happy with the non-petrolatum products that we make! Our body oil blend is such a hard-working, luxurious, and versatile product. We'd love to offer you a 20% off coupon code if you'd like to give this a try. Use the code BODYOIL20 to receive 20% off our body oil blends for the month of August on our website here. We put together a graphic to help you understand the differences between our body oil blend and traditional baby oil. How has your summer been going? Attending four farmer's markets a week and making all our products really keeps us busy! We have already started making a few fall-scented products -- more about that later! Here's what else we've been up to this summer. If you enjoy a country drive with great views, try heading up to Utica and visiting Branstool Orchards! We are happy to partner with Branstool this season. They are best known for their peach orchards, but they also have delicious apples and pears. And if you'd rather pick your produce yourself, they also offer U-pick hours. You can find a variety of produce and gift items in their market. We've stocked their shelves with our most popular summer scents, including Southern Peach! You can get more info from their facebook page here.
All this talk about ingredients got us thinking about how some will try to mislead consumers by either ignoring or downplaying the dangers or harmful effects of an ingredient or product. Of this, you are probably well aware. However, another way that we see consumers misled is by manipulating them into a strong reaction when that reaction isn't warranted. Here's an example. Let's say we are explaining sodium chloride (NaCl) to a consumer. If we want to alarm the reader, we would state that sodium chloride is derived from sodium, which is a harmful metal, and chlorine, which is a poisonous gas. Yikes! Sounds pretty dangerous! Factually, our statement is true. But it implies that the sodium chloride is terribly harmful, maybe even poisonous. It is not. Remember, we are talking about table salt here, and we eat it all the time in small doses. In fact, our bodies need some salt. The properties the elements have before the chemical reaction aren't necessarily the properties the compound has after the reaction. This is why it is a chemical reaction. If we really wanted to alarm you, we could tell you that sodium chloride could be found in antifreeze. It is true that salt lowers the freezing point of a liquid. So it is an antifreeze. Again, we associate antifreeze with poison, so referring to antifreeze triggers a negative response. We often saw a reference to antifreeze when we were researching propylene glycol, a common ingredient we discussed in hand sanitizer (and apparently in anti-freeze and e-cigarettes as well). Again, that doesn't inherently make it bad. It might just lower the freezing point or absorb vapor! However, we shouldn't summarily dismiss any concerns either. For us, information like that causes us to look a little deeper into a product or ingredient to try and get a better understanding.
It's never our intention to scare our audience into purchasing our products. We like to educate in a balanced and reasonable way. We love how natural and nourishing our products are, and we are glad we are finding an audience who values that too. We are constantly learning, and we hope you are too. Warmly, Ben and Polly Gorringe We've made it to summertime! Our Cool Summer Vibes collection will transport you to the best feelings of summer -- fresh breezes, carefree days, juicy peaches, and cool nights. Here's the summer line-up, starting with a brand-new fragrance! Night VioletWe love this new, light and fresh scent! This clean floral starts with notes of bergamot, lemon, cucumber water, violet, and jasmine. Then you pick up deeper notes of cashmere and a touch of musk. It encapsulates the feeling of carefree summer nights! Emerald AgaveWe can't get enough of this one! Clean and fresh with subtly sweet herbaceous notes, it's a sweet mix of sea moss, melon, agave, passionflower, acai, aloe, coconut bark, teakwood, grass, and amber. Lush SucculentIt's a fresh and green mix of cucumber, vetiver, grass, honey, bamboo, geranium, sage, patchouli, oakmoss, and sandalwood. A clean, fresh and unique scent! Southern PeachThis isn’t your traditional peach; it’s softer, more rounded with some white floral notes and supporting softer tropical notes (think guava, mango and ripe papaya) thrown in to make a complex, sweet peachy dessert scent. One whiff of this scent, and you'll be transported to some of your most delicious summer memories! Whether you try the body oil, lotion, sugar scrub, fragrance mist, or soap we hope you can take some time this summer for these simple pleasures! Use the coupon code VIBES20 to receive 20% off all items in our Cool Summer Vibes collection for the month of July when you order at marthasbathandbody.com.
Many of you have asked us if we will have a hand sanitizer soon. We've been working on formulating a hand sanitizer for a while now, even before COVID-19. Then when the demand increased we couldn't get the raw materials to further experiment with our formula. The good news is now we have the perfect supply of the raw materials needed to make a really awesome hand sanitizer! But here's the bad news -- we can't do it. Although it is physically possible for us to make hand sanitizer, we can't manufacture or sell hand sanitizer. Here's why. Upon further research, we learned that hand sanitizer is considered an over-the-counter drug. It's not a cosmetic like lotion. It's not soap. It's in another class altogether. This means there's another whole set of rules. Both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are involved in regulating hand sanitizer. The bureaucratic and legal processes we'd have to go through to be able to sell hand sanitizer are staggering, and it just doesn't make sense for our small business. Even with the FDA's temporary policies for hand sanitizer in response to COVID-19, it's still not do-able for us. The FDA's temporary policies allow for facilities such as distilleries to switch to making hand sanitizer to meet the current demand. The FDA also regulates the exact formula distilleries should use for their sanitizer. More about that in a bit! What's In Your Hand Sanitizer?This is where our frustration comes in -- we know we can make a cleaner, purer hand sanitizer than what's commonly out there. Each formula for each manufacturer has to be approved by the FDA as part of the process. Here's a snippet from the label of a typical hand sanitizer. This particular hand sanitizer boasts of having Vitamin E and Aloe added, which makes the consumer feel like they are getting a superior product. Let's take a look at the ingredients. Obviously the active ingredient of ethyl alcohol is the key thing here. This is what is doing the sanitizing. So what are all the inactive ingredients for? They are there to thicken the sanitizer into a gel form, to make it smell a bit better, and to stabilize the formula. Here's a look at a few of the inactive ingredients that you may not recognize.
When Distilleries Make Hand SanitizerIn conjuction with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the FDA allowed for increased of production of hand sanitizer by loosening their restrictions. This is allowing production facilities such as distilleries and breweries to make hand sanitizer. This is a temporary policy during the COVID-19 public health emergency. The FDA dictated the formula (which is WHO approved) for these hand sanitizers. Here's what's in them.
If you are looking for this type of hand sanitizer, a Columbus-based company, Middle West Spirits, is currently making hand sanitizer. You can check out their website here. We aren't associated with this company (and I'm sure they have no idea who we are), but we thought you might be interested in knowing about them. Let us know if you have any other hand sanitizer sources we should know about.
With the nicer weather, we've made an effort to be outside more. There's something calming to us about the sunshine, the breeze, and the sounds of nature. It helps to ground and reset us, plus it gives us time to reflect. If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you might have seen this picture. One of our quarantine projects was to remove a dead ash tree. As it decayed from the inside, it posed a danger since the limbs had started to fall. It had to go. Here, a month later, is the remaining stump. We marvel at the new life springing from the rot and decay of the old tree. It's a reminder to us that even through the toughest times, such as a heartbreaking loss or the death of a dream, in time there can come hope, newness, even redemption -- perhaps unexpectedly.
Peace to all! Ben and Polly Gorringe As soap-makers, we take notice when we see advertisements for soap and soap-related products. We've seen soap advertised with added "Covid-fighting" ingredients such as essential oils or anti-bacterial agents. This supposedly makes the soap "better" against the Corona virus, thus keeping you safer. Knowing what we know about soap, this seems like a gimmick to us. What one person calls a gimmick, another might call marketing (Maybe we are just really bad at marketing!), but we don't want to use fear to take advantage of a consumer. It's just not how we do things. What we do like to do is to educate consumers about our products and how to use them. Here's what you should know -- all soap kills the Corona virus. Fancy soap, inexpensive soap, soap with special additives, soap without any additives, soap that smells like flowers, soap that smells like toilet cleaner... all soap kills the corona virus! Do we want you to buy our soap? Of course we do. We make a superb natural soap that is gentle on skin, comes in fabulous fragrances, and is biodegradable. What all soaps have in common is the essence of soap itself -- the soap molecule. The structure of the soap molecule is what makes it work against the Corona virus. We discussed this in detail the March newsletter. Below is a recap of how soap works. You can find our article here on our blog about how soap annihilates the corona virus.
Our farmers market game is strong this season! We have been participating in the Granville and Newark markets. In June we will be adding the Gahanna and New Albany markets in our line-up! Here's the scoop on these markets.
We will continue to refill your empty foaming soap bottles if you bring those along to any of these farmers markets. The cost of an 8-ounce refill is $4. We also are selling 64-ounce foaming soap refills for $18.99. If you message us ahead of time, we can make sure to bring the large refill of the fragrance you request. Thank you!!!
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November 2022
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