All About Shade Tree Cottage Handcrafted Organic and All Natural Soaps
We have a saying around the cottage.
Anything you put on your body should be as pure as what you put in it.
Your skin is a vital part of your body; it is your largest organ. It helps regulate temperature, release toxins, and it is the first thing people notice when they see you. Commercial soaps are not soaps at all. They are detergents; harsh, abrasive, and very unhealthy. They strip the skin of its essential nutrients and moisture; leaving your skin feeling rough, dry, and damaged.
Handmade soaps retain the natural occurring plant glycerin that is one of the most beneficial by-products of the soap making process. Glycerin acts as a humectant and is hygroscopic; attracting moisture from the air and holding it to the body. Studies are being conducted now to see if the glycerin itself has helpful benefits when it comes in direct contact with the skin. What we do know is that glycerin makes your skin more moist, soft, and supple. Commercial soap manufacturers remove glycerin from their products in order to produce a harder bar that can be manufactured through a machine. It allows the company to mass produce their soap products and gives better formation of the company’s stamp or logo in the bar. Many times, the soap manufacturers will use the glycerin they extract during the soap making process and put it into their expensive lotions, which they turn around and sell to you.
Your skin absorbs 68 to 95 percent of what you put on it. Most handmade soaps are made with natural ingredients; whole vegetable and/or animal fats and oils, herbs, and essential oils. Commercial soaps use only isolated fatty acids, harmful and toxic chemicals, synthetic fragrances, and known carcinogens. You would never think of purposefully ingesting these harmful and toxic chemicals. Why would you put them on your skin?
Our soaps are healing, nourishing, and moisturizing. Made with only the finest organic and all natural ingredients. Shade Tree Cottage Soaps are always free from harsh detergents, petroleum products, irritating surfactants, and dangerous and toxic chemicals. What they do contain is pure botanical goodness; healing properties, oils, and compounds present in herbs, plants, and flowers, and nutrients and moisture from the finest oils and butters for an extra luxurious and healing experience for your skin. Our handcrafted organic and all natural soaps will leave your skin healthy, soft and pampered!
About Our Ingredients:
Here at Shade Tree Cottage, we only use herbs and botanicals that are either 100% certified organic, ethically wildharvested, or when certification is not present, cultivated without the use of pesticides and chemicals. Our herbs go through more than twenty steps to ensure they are indeed worthy to use on your body. These steps include field quality, microbiological and organoleptic testing, moisture count, pesticide and chemical testing, microscopy analysis, heavy metal testing, and freshness dating. By only purchasing three months worth of herbs to add to our herbal healing soaps, we keep our herbs at their peak freshness, and insure that you get the best quality and therapeutic effects from each bar of Shade Tree Cottage Soap you use.
We only use the finest 100% certified organic oils and butters, starting with our base of nourishing and beneficial 100% certified organic Extra Virgin Olive oil, Virgin Coconut oil, which is only produced once a year to retain it's aroma and health benefits, and is considered to be the healthiest oil on Earth, , and 100% certified organic Hemp Seed oil, and we add loads of moisturizing and nutritive oils (superfat) our soaps with lush and ministering 100% certified organic Golden Jojoba oil, Hawaiian organic Kukui Nut oil, Palm Oil , Palma Christi oil for a luxurious lather, Monoi de Tahiti oil, organic unrefined African Shea Butter, organic unrefined Cocoa Butter, organic Avocado and Olive Butters, and over twenty-five other organic moisturizing and therapeutic oils. Shade Tree Cottage Soaps are always tallow (animal fat) free.
Whenever possible, we solar infuse our organic herbal and botanical blends, to allow the herbs to gently release their healing properties and to avoid unfavorable molecular changes in the oils. We double infuse many of our special healing blends and calendula oils to impart more of the herb's therapeutic healing attributes to each bar of soap.
Shade Tree Cottage only uses organic pigments obtained from the plant kingdom to color our soaps. These include herbs, flowers, plants, barks, beans, roots, woods, leaves, kelps, grasses, resins, fruits, and spices. A few of our products are colored using clays that are inorganic, yet completely natural. These include French Green Clay, Rhassoul Clay, Moroccan Red Clay, and Bentonite Clay. We never use oxides, dyes, zinc, hematite, natural micas (because of their impurities) or other synthetic agents that many other soapmakers use. It takes much time and labor to produce organic pigments, but we consider it a labor of love. And we are sure your skin will too!
Our luxurious line of Shade Tree Cottage Milk Soaps are made with 100% fresh Goat's Milk and raw Cow's milk. The milk we use comes from a farm that feeds their goats good feed and Ayrshire and Jersey cows that allow them to roam freely in pastures of pesticide-free grains and grasses. People have used milk for centuries to look younger, revitalize dehydrated skin, and to enhance their beauty. Cleopatra was said to have bathed regularly in pure milk because of the effects it had on her skin. One try of our Shade Tree Cottage Milk Soaps will convince you of the milk's lush moisturizing properties.
Shade Tree Cottage uses Honey in some of its soaps. Honey is a natural antiseptic due to its ability to absorb life sustaining moisture out of bacterial cell walls and attracts much dirt and debris from skin pores. Honey helps remove dead skin cells from the surface of the skin. This makes it a wonderful agent to add to dry skin, acne blends, and to some of our unscented soaps. Our Honey comes from the coast of New Zealand and is so pristine and healing, it is classified as a Therapeutic Good in Australia. Healing Honey is the only certified organic Active 10+ Manuka honey. It is hand-harvested from bees that live out their natural life cycle nourished on sweet Manuka nectar. Free from chemicals, synthetics, or antibiotics. After harvesting, to ensure its organic purity, Healing Honey is meticulously tested to verify that it is free of over 160 chemical residues.
When preservatives are absolutely necessary, we only use skin healing Vitamin E (naturally sourced), Rosemary Oil Extract (ROE), and/or Grapefruit Seed Extract. These are completely natural and free from the harsh chemicals linked to cancer that many soap makers use in their products. Many of our products are made to order, and should be used within 6-9 months. We don't eat food that needs loads of preservatives to keep it on the shelves for years~ why would you want soaps that contains harmful chemicals to keep it around for years?
All of our soaps are mixed, poured, and cut by hand. There are always subtle differences in the color and size of the bars.
We always make small batches of our soaps. No huge lots of soaps around here; deteriorating in quality, aroma, and curative properties. Only the finest healing herbal soaps for our customers!
We hope that you enjoy using Shade Tree Handcrafted All-Natural Soaps as much as we enjoyed making them!
Handcrafted Soaps
