The online web store is a venue for desired purchases of items made or hosted by Earth Circle Creations. Below, items created by Earth Circle Creations and other practitioners are displayed with a description about the items and maybe a little history.
Cold Pressed soaps, just like Granny used to make. Yes, this is a picture of my mother’s mother’s mother for her 93rd birthday in 1983. My great-grand mother. We called her Granny.
My mother used to say that she could not stand the process of making soap that Granny used to use, she said that the smell of lye and oils were enough to ruin her for life and left her with the desire not to make soaps when she grew up. She could remember the smell and that Granny used to taste the soap as it was being blended with the oils.
Now, skipping several generations, I am picking up that torch and making soaps the way Granny used to make them… well, almost! I still make the soaps with lye and water. I use organic palm, coconut and olive oils as the base whereas Granny would use rendered beef tallow or something similar. The process I use is much easier than filtering wood ash through straw and pouring rain water into this to produce lye-water on the other side.
Then I take this mix and blend it to the consistency of a thin pudding and add a fragrance oil and some times herbs to the blend and continue blending.
If you would like me to make you your own batch of cold pressed soap, please visit this link. In 6-8 weeks, you will have 40 bars of your own, completely cured, cold pressed soap with the scent of your choosing! Perfect for personal use or for gifts.
As I am not using animal byproducts or animal testing, ALL of my soaps and tinctures are vegan friendly. Each batch of artisan soap is handmade using the traditional cold process method. My products are sodium laurel sulfate, dye and paraben free. Because every batch is hand stirred, hand cut, and hand wrapped, each bar is characteristically unique and will vary slightly in shape, size and weight. The charm of my soaps is that they are left natural; no trimming, no polishing.
Herbal Infused Salves. I will take an herb, allow it to “soak” in olive oil for a few weeks. This allows the oil to be infused by the herbs. Then I will drain off the oil and press the herbs to get every last drop of oil from the herbs. I will then take the infused oil, add some jojoba oil to the blend (to act as a preservative) and either put it in a dark bottle to store in a cool dry place or I will take the oil, heat it lightly over a double-boiler and slowly add beeswax. The temperature I use is just enough to melt the beeswax.
Once the beeswax is blended, I pour the salve into one or two ounce tins and allow them to cool. The recipe I use gives me a sufficient quantity of salves and a wonderful consistency to the salve. While I like my salve on the tough side, I would prefer it to be malleable so it can be spread over an area. I do not like me salve to be mushy and melt when the slightest heat is applied to the salve.
I also do not use mineral oil, paraffin or other petroleum products in my salves, nor “adorn” them with fragrances.
This page is also home to my Bloodroot Black Drawing Salve.
Herbal Tinctures. An herbal tincture, or herbal extract, the process is similar to making herbal infused oils for salves. With one exception: I will take the herb and allow it to “soak” in a blend of alcohol and water (menstruum).
The herb then infuses the liquid with the medicinal attributes of the herb, allowing it to be easier to take, have a virtually infinite shelf life making it easier to store and have literally no preparation time as compared to making a tea. A tincture, when taken internally, is absorbed immediately into the body through the lining of the mouth, esophagus and stomach, bypassing the digestive system almost completely.
Read my article, “How much Alcohol is in a Tincture” for advice of how to take a tincture or herbal extract, including my favorite way of taking a tincture.
As I am not using animal byproducts or animal testing, ALL of my soaps and tinctures are vegan friendly.
See all of the products in the Earth Circle Creations shop here.
