Chained to the Kitchen

I've been having so much fun this past month! While keeping up with steady Wash Day sales and working my day job, I've been crafting handmade soaps every Saturday! I got started with a sea kelp soap scented with sweet almond oil and sprinkled with yellow cornmeal. But, my next two babies are my pride and joy!

We all know how good chocolate is for our hair, but it also does wonders for the skin, too! So, here's the creamiest soap you'll ever use. Made with shea butter and cocoa butter, this luxe lathering soap also contains 100 percent organic cocoa powder and is scented a warm, deep dark chocolate! So far, this is my favorite soap as it made my skin so soft and silky!

I haven't met a natural yet who doesn't love coconut oil, so this one is sure to be a winner as it's 100 percent coconut oil and nothing else...well, it's got a little something. This lightly fruit-scented soap contains little grains of toasted coconut and swirls of rice flour throughout! And the bubbles, oh my, the bubbles this little beauty creates!

Not sure what's on the horizon yet for this coming Saturday's soapmaking session, but I'm thinking of the ocean. Stay tuned!

P.S. Did I mention that I'm going to learn the old-fashioned art of canning next month?!

Handmade soap, anyone?

What a busy month it's been! Wash Day orders have been flying out the door and I've added a completely new product to the Wash Day line...handmade soap!

Protective gear from head to toe is a MUST! Not cute, but necessary.

I started with an almond-scented soap with sea kelp and yellow cornmeal. It might not be pretty, but it smells amazing and the kelp and cornmeal have nourishing and exfoliating properties! My second batch of soap is incredible. Dark chocolate-scented, this soap is a shea butter and coconut oil blend that contains raw cacao. It made my hands softer than any lotion or hand cream I've ever used.

Here I am mixing my oils, butters and lye!

This coming weekend, I'll be making a 100 percent coconut oil soap with bits of raw coconut mixed throughout. Later this month, I'll add a goat milk soap or two. Sadly, after the soaps are made, they take at least a month to cure so these beauties won't be on my sites for a while yet.

Preview of the chocolate soap. It's much darker now.

But while the soaps are curing, don't forget to stock up on Bounce Butter! Twist-out season, if it's not already here, is rapidly approaching, but your twist-out won't be the best it can be without Bounce Butter! And while you're at it, don't forget to grab a tub of Brownie Butter to help wake up your hair as it comes out of winter hibernation!

Itchy Scalp Problems

It's no secret that the very front patch of my scalp has always plagued me. No amount of ol' school scratchin' with a fine-tooth comb, dabbing at my head with a cotton ball soaked in tea tree and other essential oils, greasing my scalp or just plain washing my hair helped. In fact, this irritating problem didn't subside until I laid off the heat two years ago. But, it's back!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time, however, my whole scalp was crawling with invisible ants and I attribute it to last week's 911 regimen. And if I'm going to be totally honest, my heart skipped a beat last week when I saw a few flakes in the front of my scalp as soon as I'd finished washing my hair. As the week progressed, the itching got so bad, I was patting my head like the wig-weave girls!

Last week, I put my hair in mini-twists with the intent of leaving them in for two weeks. I was planning to wash my hair on Sunday with the twists intact, but I was itching too bad to wait just two more days to wash my hair so I washed it tonight! You should have seen the look on my partner's face when I told him what I was going to do at 10:30 p.m., LOL!

Instead of using shampoo, I decided to co-wash with that amazing As I Am Naturally CoWash Conditoner. Almost immediately, my scalp felt soothed...I attribute that to the heavy coconut oil in the conditioning treatment as coconut oil happens to be a natural antibacterial. I then followed up with Herbal Essences' Honey, I'm Strong Strengthening Conditoner.

I'm ashamed of how many HE products I really like, so just add this to my growing list!

I've been drooling over the commercials for this, so I finally got some to try out and I like it! With honey and apricot extract, it allegedly gets hair 10x stronger in just one wash. More importantly, it's supposed to guard against "future" damage, reduce breakage up to "99 percent," yada yada yada...

Ignoring all the hype, the combination of As I Am's Coconut CoWash and HE's Honey, I'm Strong made my hair as soft and fine as a feather. And, no more itchy scalp! My hair had sheen, was muy pliable and had a very pleasant, but light after-scent. 

Would I buy this again? I don't know and I don't know because I still prefer HE's Hello Hydration over this particular conditioner. But, I definitely give this at least one coil up.