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Hibiscus and the Egyptian Revolution

Passionflower Soap was a winter epiphany.

Vegan Soap and Shaving Mug

As you know if you've left your house in the past 3 months, it is winter.  Winter is normally a planning time for our team since our gardens are dormant and resting.  We have been happily making soaps from our summer and fall harvests.  Planning time also means studying herbs, sharing ideas, reaching out to our fair-trade sources to see what they have, taking inventory and making schedules for making fresh soap, wrapping and shipping those soaps for you and for all of our Bed & Breakfasts and shops. 

Brewing an Idea

One of our fair-trade sources alerted us to a huge excess of hibiscus flowers from a very rich harvest.  We were all well aware of the benefits of hibiscus internally since some of us adore it in tea.  We knew that the natural purple dye that the crushed petals create was vivid.  We were also grateful for its obvious beauty in our gardens.  It was our research that revealled the ancient history of hibiscus dating back to 2500 B.C.   There is documented use of all its parts for skin and hair care.  Naturally, we lept at the chance to have it for our Apothecarie friends. 

So, hibiscus it is!  We called for it at the beginning of January for a mid-February delivery.  Fair-trade and international shipping processes take longer than you can imagine.  There are customs issues and well, let's just say that the rest of the world is not on the American "needed it yesterday schedule."  We're pretty relaxed here since we don't race to medivac helicopters with red coolers full of life-saving organs - thank you to those of you who do.  What we do is very important but on a smaller less urgent scale. 

So, as soon as we ordered and received the confirmation, we looked through our studio pantry to see what would be a nice companion fragrance for our newly acquired vitamin rich hibiscus.  Our democratic system went right out of the window when we remembered we were saving our passionflower oil for a special occasion.  No need to vote; It was immediately decided.  It is the perfect combination and the entire team confidently went back to our winter planning and waited for the hibiscus.



Hibiscus Shmibiscus - Hooray for the Rising Oppressed.

Did we mention that the hibiscus was coming from Egypt?  The ancient and sacred flower was harvested from its original ancient and sacred land and was scheduled to be delivered about a week before the Egyptian Revolution became truly active.  We turned on the news, the radio, opened the paper, logged on to CNN and everywhere was news of the Revolution in Egypt. 

We were all so happy for her people that we couldn't have cared less whether the hibiscus came in March, in April or not at all.  We didn't even care if we had to resource it later.  We are committed to fair-trade and sometimes there are only pockets of just-labor practices and fair treatment for workers. Their harvest still has to get through the rest of the country's system to get out.  Our commitment to those farms doesn't end when it becomes difficult.  Besides that, if anyone in the world had a reason not to ship, it was Egypt.

The protests started January 25th but didn't make our news for a few days later as it escalated.  We watched as her beautiful and peaceful people railed against poverty, the rampant unemployment, government corruption and the 30 year rule of President Mubarak.  We all felt anxious and happy for the rise.  As we watched the conflilct evolve and quickly end within a month, credit was given by worldwide press to the peaceful demonstrations, the effort of the citizens, and in fact, even Twitter and Facebook. 

We are keeping a hopeful and watchful eye as things evolve in Egypt.  We look forward to their newly earned independence bringing them all the peace and happiness that they seek and so richly deserve.  Being from a young country ourselves, we know that there will be growing pains.  Still, we believe that it is the growing that is key to change and opportunity. 

Wait, wait don't tell me.
No sooner did the Revolution subside and our positive thoughts of peace and kindness take cosmic flight to the people of Egypt, that a box of beautiful, richly fragranced dried hibiscus flowers appeared in the mail.  Suddenly these flowers grown in ancient soil and harvested by moswen people with the timeless spirit for everyone to know freedom, became the most important ingredient we had ever chosen.

Passionflower Soap with Hibiscus

If only you could have seen the way that we handled these flowers.  The awareness of the journey of world market herbs and spices is always with us but the way that these flowers were handled was like nothing else.  Usually our studio has herbs flying from one end of the counter to the next depending on who's chopping or grinding.  At the end of the evening we clean up all of the herbs and place them in a bowl of mixed/spent herbs.  Not one single hibiscus petal hit the counter.  A snail's pace is the best description.  Every once in a while we would giggle that it was the fragrance that was so calming but we all knew what was on each other's minds. 

We are so pleased to share them with you.  We are overjoyed that they came.  We are more than moved that they brought with them a special symbol of new world peace.  Adding the passionflower oil was the very thing. It is our every hope that these attributes resonate in your mind when you use the Passionflower soap and lotion.  Keep this in mind too, when its gone, it's gone until we can resource the hibiscus.

We are citizens of the world, grateful supporters of the fair-trade market and fortunate soap makers for you and your family.  Thanks for your loyalty and for reading.

Botanical Soap vs. Gross Animal Fat Soap vs. Scary Soap Imposters

The soap discussion that was promised...

(We like charts. They make us happy because they usually get to the good stuff quickly and have pretty pictures to help with understanding.  So, here's a chart for the good stuff and some pretty pictures.  The names have been changed/altered/blotted out to make the commercial products completely unrecognizable except for one. You know who we are. )

Botanical Soap vs. Gross Animal Fat Soap vs. Scary Not-Soap

If the bar that you use for bathing does not claim to be a soap, it's probably a synthetic detergent product. For example, beware of these marketing tags and read the ingredients.

Beauty Bar      -       Bath Bar      -        Moisturizing Bar

Truth is, we're sure that you already know that you should always read the whole label.   What you put on your body is no less important than what you put in your body.  Since you are already taking the time to read what's in your kid's cereal, it's also good to take the time to read what's floating around in their bath water with them. 

Below is a link to what the FDA says about the difference between soap and detergent.  It's pretty intense. http://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/productandingredientsafety/ProductInformation/ucm115449.htm

The shorter version is that there is a huge difference.  In simplest terms, soap is the common name of fat that has reacted to an alkali.  Fancy name of the process is soaponification.  Scary name for the alkali is lye.  When soap is finished and the pH is safe for use, all of the lye is gone.  There should be no residual trace in the bar or it will burn skin in high doses and irritate it in small doses.  You probably remember part of that from 6th grade Physical Science and the rest was crammed in again in freshman Chemistry.  All that should be left is the product made from fat as well as any additives such as essential oils, vitamins, whole herbs, and such. 

The most popular and easiest to find is soap that is made with sodium tallowate.  That is animal fat.  Fat from animals that reacts with lye to make soap.  All that remains in the finished soap is reacted animal fat and any of the aforementioned additives.  Animal fat or any animal by-product for that matter is an unecessary ingredients to make fine soap.  Cheap soap? Yes.  Quick soap? Yes.  Easy soap? Yes.  Fine soap?  Not a chance.  There is not one single benefit to animal fat over the kinder botanical alternatives.  Fat is fat in the process of soaponification and botanical fat is so much better for your skin.  It is a cruel use of a destucted animal, in our opinion.  Plus, even if you aren't vegan/vegetarian/pescetarian, consider for a second how gross is to rub animal fat all over your body?   We said animal fat 5 times so that you will remember when you read the word sodium "tallow"ate you'll say "Nasty, that's animal fat!"  Ooops 6 times.  That oughta do.

The kinder and more beneficial soap for your skin is made with botanical fats and butters.  Those derived from plants including sunflower, coconut, cottonseed, hemp and others are excellent carriers of nutrients.  They blend nicely with other botanicals such as essential oils from lavender, pomegranate, lemon verbena and other nutrional fragrant herbs, fruits, vegetables and spices. 

The obvious difference between animal fat soap and botanical soap?  If you are a meat eater, honestly consider how long does it take a person to process a steak and feel good again versus a person who has a salad for example?  As we mentioned before, it is as important to consider what you put on your body as what you put in your body.  It is not a judgment about your choices.  It is an observation on the benefit of the choices available to you.

We make kind soap.

Apothecarie Brand Co. uses only botanical products to make soap.  It's not a choice for us.  It is our privelege to make soap for you and for your family and we know the right choices to make.  We have been making soap for over 15 years.  Our team of horticulturists, homemakers, and local farmers make every effort to grow our own herbs, vegetables and fruits that we add to your soap.  We also procure ingredients from other local cooperative farms who practice natural and orgranic gardening whenever possible.  Finally, if we've exhausted those options and we feel we must have an ingredient that we simply cannot grow such as Vanilla Orchid beans, Ylang Ylang or Sandalwood, we then purchase it from a fair trade world market or U.S. vendors who are certified to offer fair trade products. 

We never use animal or animal by-products in our soap because we believe that it is a cruel, wasteful, unhealthy and unecessary ingredient in soap. We respect that you have a choice to make and we would like to thank you for reading and perhaps choosing us to make your family's soap.  We take that privilege very seriously and are grateful for the opportunity.