Product Info
Fragrances
Here in Martinsville, we understand how difficult it can be to purchase fragranced items online. Because of this, we try to offer small sizes of nearly everything we make.
We are VERY particular about our fragrances! We often go through 10 or 20 different fragrances before we find one that we like – and then it has to go through our testing processes before we offer it for sale.
All of our bath and body products are specifically designed and FDA approved for skincare products. In addition, our lip balm flavors are also FDA approved to be used in lip products.
Our signature soap formula has taken us years to perfect. A blend of six different oils – coconut, palm, castor, canola, olive, and safflower – creates a long-lasting bar of soap with a great lather that won’t leave your skin dry and itchy. Many of our customers also use it as a shampoo bar!
We have used many different methods of soapmaking over the years. These bars were created using the traditional “cold process” method, where the soap is not cooked but allowed to heat up by itself.
We superfat all of our soaps at about 5-6%. Superfatting is the addition of extra oils that do not become soap; instead, they stay in their original form and retain more of their original properties. Too small of a superfatting percentage and the soap can feel too dry when it’s used; too high and the softer bar of soap will melt faster, as well as shortening the shelf life.
And like all handmade soapmakers, we do not remove the glycerin from our soaps.
All of our bars are hand-cut and allowed to cure for at least 3-4 weeks before being offered for sale.
Lye and Soapmaking
Lye, or to be specific sodium hydroxide (NaOH), is combined with fats to create soap. This process is known as saponification, and once it is complete, the lye is used up and there is none left.
All soaps are made in this manner, not just handmade soaps. You can’t make soap without lye! In fact, if it’s not, the FDA says it can’t be called “soap”.
Most commercial soaps are a combination of traditional soap and detergents. There are no synthetic detergents or foaming agents in our soaps.
Commercial soaps are also not superfatted! This is why they can be so harsh on your skin. Superfatted soaps will gently clean your skin without drying it out.
Our candles are 100% soy wax, grown and processed in the USA. We don’t use any fillers, binders, fragrance boosters, paraffin, or beeswax.
We use only the highest quality fragrance oils in our candles. Often we will go through 20 fragrance oil samples in order to find one that is up to our incredibly high standards. We then test each of these premium fragrance oils to be sure that it will perform well in soy wax, both in burn quality and scent throw. Our Lilac candles smell like lilacs, our Buttered Popcorn smells like buttered popcorn, and so on. Our customers return time and time again because they know they are assured of a high quality candle.
Our candles are considered to be “triple scented”, although that is really more of a marketing ploy than a statement of quality. For many years, the standard amount of fragrance oils in candles was 3%. Then some chandlers started to push the envelope and use more fragrance oil, up to the amount that the wax would hold before it starts to weep oil. For our wax, that percentage is 9%, hence the phrase “triple scented”.
Our wicks are a cotton and paper braid that contains no metals. Even “lead free” zinc wicks contain a minuscule amount of lead.
