Honey Safflower Soap

I've heard from several customers who have used Lora's Beauty Honey&Safflower Soap that it has significantly diminished their skin rashes.  I always love to hear these testimonials, however, in this case I'm not real surprised.  

This handmade soap is all natural and made with the very best oils and butters.  In addition, safflower threads and honey are added to the soap.  Safflower threads contain linoleic acid (aka Vitamin F), an essential fatty acid that offers many benefits for skin.  

Linoleic acid provides anti-inflammatory, moisturizing and healing support.  It's also used to fight acne.  "A study published in Clinical Experimental Dermatology showed that when linoleic acid was applied to the skin for one month it caused a reduction in the size of blackheads and whiteheads," [source:Leong].

Safflower threads give this bar a beautiful yellow color and at $5 a bar it's a great skincare investment!

Lora's Beauty All-Natural Men's Line!

Finally, after product testing for months, sniffing multiple fragrances, and endless hours of work on the website, LB Equipment is finally open for business! LB Equipment will feature a men's line of all-natural skin and hair care items with the star of the show being the new Beard Oil!

Put simply, beard oils are a critical part of maintaining healthy whiskers. This is especially the case in cold and dry climates where mistreated beards soon become brittle, broken, rough and out of shape. The fundamental truth of this has been lost in decades of shoddy chic and creeping causal styles.

LB currently offers two formulations of premium beard oil, both using nothing but the finest ingredients, and no nonsense:
Formulation Number 3, The Tony

Number 3 is LB 's classic original recipe. This beard treatment is made with a special blend of oils including fine Sweet Almond Oil. The Tony is a great place to start if you are looking for something effective and simple to use.

Formulation Number 7, The Everett

Number 7 is LB's superior recipe made with Jojoba Oil, for course hair and the heavier of beards. It offers more rapid absorption for superior conditioning.

Also available at LB Equipment is a new and improved Soothing Shave Soap.  I've amped

up the foaming lather oils and added a touch of oxide charcoal to pack this bar with skin soothing properties that make for a great shave. Using a shave soap and a brush may be retro, but it's the best way yet to obtain a close, fine, and nick-free shave!

Last but by no means least, LB Equipment has the most aesthetically pleasing mug of beer...soap yet! The Manly Mug of Beer Soap/Shampoo is the perfect bar for cleaning your beard, hair, and body! This generous 7 oz bar shampoo is specifically formulated, when used daily, to yield a superior beard and better conditioned hair. Best part of all, it smells as good as it looks! The spicy, musky smell is sure to be a crowd pleaser!

LB Equipment, like Lora's Beauty, will have free shipping on all orders $20 or more in the US.  Orders from both stores can be combined and shipped together.

New Manly-Mug of Beer Soap and more photos!

I have been busy making soap and practicing my photography!  

First up is a new beer soap!  I love using beer soap as shampoo. The sucrose and maltose

sugars found in beer, tightens and strengthens hair cuticles for enhanced shine.  I purposely tried to make this beer soap as appealing to your eyes as it is for your hair and skin.  I used a dark stout beer for the base of the soap then added a whipped white soap to mimic the head of a mug of beer.  This soap's scent is a spicy-sensuous sandlewood, reminiscent of a walk in the forest after a rain.  I call this soap Manly Mug of Beer Soap and it's part of my new men's line that will be available soon.

Also part of this new line is my new Soothing Shave Bar.  I've amped up the foaming lather oils and added a touch of oxide charcoal to pack this bar with skin soothing properties that make for a great shave.

Retro, yes. But this is one of those cases where the old methods are actually better. A lot better, in fact. Specially formulated shaving bars offer a better shave than modern creams and gels that have been popular since the 1960s. A fine shaving soap produces a lighter and slicker lather, facilitating a smooth and nick-free glide.  This bar also has the spicy-sensuous sandlewood scent.

Finally, better photography shows off my handmade soap dishes.  These dishes are always made from reclaimed wood and are specially designed to keep your skin care investment dry between uses.  This dish prolongs your soap's life and makes each shower or shave as luxurious as the first!

Soap vs Soap

I have a pet peeve.  Ok, I have many pet peeves but the one I'm referring to has to do with soap.  I can't tell you how many articles I've read where "skin-care experts" advise not to use soap.

Don't use bar soap while shaving.
Don't use bar soap to wash your face.

Almost all the articles mention that bar soap is drying.  In fact, many recommend using body wash instead!

Are they right? Yes and No.
I can only assume because none of the articles I've read differentiate between store bought soap and handmade soap, that they are referring to store bought soap.

So when is soap not soap?
Real soap is made with oils and lye through a process called saponification.  Saponification uses a triglyceride (a fat) with sodium hydroxide (lye) to yield soap and glycerin.  Now, re-read that last sentence..the process of saponification yields soap and glycerin.  No lye remains in the soap.  Glycerin, however is present.  Glycerin attracts moisture to your body.  It's whats referred to as a humectant.   Humectants are good for your skin because they are moisturizing--not drying!  In fact, many body washes have added glycerin for this very reason.  Real soap has been made this way for centuries. 

Store bought soap is very different.  Beginning in World War I, there was a shortage in fats and oils and a substitute for soap was needed.  Synthetic detergents were then invented.  Although these detergents are good to clean clothes, they are made of harsh chemicals, including petroleum products, that can and do irritate skin.  With few choices at the neighborhood store, detergents gained in popularity.  By the year 1953, the sale of detergents in the US had surpassed those of soap.  What you buy at the store is most likely not soap but detergent.  The word soap is highly regulated.   In fact, companies are not allowed to use the word unless their product is real soap, made through the process of saponification. That's why you'll see store bought soap being referred to as beauty-bars, moisturizing bars, cleansers and even body washes!

Don't be fooled!  Use of these beauty-bars, moisturizing bars, cleansers, and body washes are not only harsh on your skin but also on the environment, leeching chemicals into our waterways.  Make a better decision! 

More on Soap Stamping

Last night I stamped quite a bit of soap and wanted to pass on some techniques I discovered while doing it.  

• When stamping soap press straight down.  Use little but uniform force as you do so.
• My stamp is clear acrylic. This is helpful in that I can see the stamped image through the stamp as I'm doing it.  I can see where a little more pressure needs exerted to make the image uniform.  I then press the stamp a little more in the areas that need it.
• To remove the stamp from the soap I find it's easier if you *gently* rock the stamp slightly back and forth to release the soap.  I have found that pulling straight up sometimes pulls some of the soap off with the stamp.
• As always, wait at least 5 days after unmolding your soap before you try stamping it.  

Please excuse the photo.  It's just a cell phone photo and not that great but I wanted to pass on some more information regarding soap stamping.

I purchased my soap stamp from this etsy store and have really liked it.  You can read some other tips to stamping soap I wrote in a previous post.

Pinterest

I've been lazy.  I've been very slow to effectively use social media.  The way I typically use social media is I'll create an account on say Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest and I'll poke around on it for a few days.  If I find a benefit to it I'll stick with it for a while, if I don't, I'll never log on again.  My Facebook and Twitter accounts are proof to this.  Google+ is a little different.  I'm immersed in the google environment.  Gmail, Google Apps, Drive, Sites, Adsense, Analytics, Adwords, Blogger etc.  Goggle+ is just an extension to all the other Google tools I use everyday.

I've stuck with Pinterest a little longer because, well, who doesn't like pictures!?  Pinterest is like looking at a never ending magazine about gardening, decorating, fashion, hair, beauty, etc.  I'm sure I don't use it correctly, only one person is following me--wait, I take that back 5 people are following me!!

Yesterday I read this article regarding how to use Pinterest to promote your business.  It contains many good ideas, most of which are common sense--which I haven't been following.  Well I got on Pinterest today and started poking around.  Yes, I lost an hour or so looking at all the pretty pictures but then I thought of something.  I found a way to make Pinterest work for me!

Recently I threw away my entire recipe collection.  It seemed that I rarely used it anyway.  Whenever I cooked something I usually found the recipe on the Internet.  I did take photos of a few recipes I liked before I threw them away and uploaded them to Google Drive under a Recipe folder.  As I found more recipes on the Internet I would copy and paste them to a document in Google Drive.  This works ok until I had my Pinterest revelation!

When I find a recipe on the internet I like now I click Pin it! I then select my Pinterest board conveniently named "Recipes" and there it lands complete with the link to the original page!  Ok, I'm sure this isn't a revelation to many people however I was still stuck thinking that Pinterest was only for pictures.  It works great for just saving links to websites and organizing them!  Of course, there are a million other ways to save links to websites and most of them have been around since the first websites, such as bookmarks.  I find using Pinterest to be not only quick, easy, and organized but it has the added benefit of keeping me engaged in another social media platform--which is good for business, and I can look at all those pretty pictures too!

I think I'll even start a Pinterest Board for Soap and Body Care Recipes.  I now know that this board doesn't have to just contain pictures of soap and body care items but can and will contain links to actual recipes as well!

Another good idea...thinking of going on a vacation?  Start a Pinterest Board of your vacation locale.  Add to that board any and all links for places to stay, where to eat, things to do, etc!  Sure, include a few pictures but more importantly Pin links!

Soap Dishes

It's been a busy month so far for Lora's Beauty.  A well placed ad on a popular blog resulted in all of the handmade soap dishes being sold out.  Luckily they are now replenished!

Since these soap dishes are handmade with reclaimed wood, no two batches are the same.  This particular batch was made with an old  fence post. Two groves are cut into each dish to allow your soap to dry between uses.

Handmade soap made only from fats, water (or goat milk), and lye contains about 10% naturally retained glycerin.  Along with the fats, this glycerin makes for a very moisturizing bar.  Because of this, it is important that your handmade soap does not sit in water as it will quickly dissolve into a soupy mess.

These soap dishes have been specially designed to be beautiful as well as functional.  They are stained with wood stain so they work well in any room--bathroom, kitchen, or laundry room.  Priced at only $4 they go fast!  Grab a couple as well as some handmade goat milk soap and remember, Lora's Beauty ships free for all orders $20 and over in the US!