As a non-beekeeper, there's always seemed something very romantic to me about bees and beehives. So many references in folklore to the magic and wisdom of bees. And then there's Yeats and his "bee-loud glade"...
"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings."
And none of these dreamy associations goes along with the punny name I chose, but there you are!
Anyway, these are lovely soaps. Scented with Honey Almond, which is delicious and warm, they lather beautifully, and the cocoa butter rich embed (the beehive) makes them particularly skin soothing!
These indulgent cold processed bars are made with saponified olive, organic coconut, sustainable palm, rice bran, almond, and castor oils; shea butter; cocoa butter; kaolin clay; tussah silk; and honey, these bars are formulated to offer a rich, creamy lather with plentiful bubbles. Each bar weighs a minimum of 6.38 ounces.
The other ingredients, not related to lather, bubble type, and skin feel, are skin safe micas, phthalate free fragrance oils, and sodium lactate (the salt component of lactic acid, used for hardening soap). Sodium hydroxide (lye) is added to oils early in the soap making process. Lye and oils combine in the saponification process, chemically transforming into soap and glycerin, leaving no remaining lye. Our soaps, along with many (most?) cold processed soaps, are "superfatted," which means that we add slightly more oils than are necessary to saponify the lye. This ensures that no lye will remain when saponification is complete, and the remaining oils contribute to producing an emollient bar of soap.
