Tag: The Freckled Farm Soap Company

  • Best Soaps for Children

    At nearly every farmer’s market and craft show that we have ever attended we have had someone ask us “What’s the best soap for …”. They want to know what soap is best for their unique situation. So, we have decided to create a series to help you pick the best soaps for your specific needs. What soaps is best for feet, or acne, or what about dry skin. Find the answers to all of these and many, many more over the course of the next year.

    We are going to start this series with the “soap need” people are most concerned about… Children. In general children have sensitive skin. Our daughter Bryce’s baby skin was incredibly sensitive. If for some reason her clothes were washed in a detergent that was not “free and clear” her whole body would break out in hives. For the longest time we would only use our Castile soap on her. When she started bathing with her brother she would show interest in using whichever soap variety he was using, so we began to test our other soaps on small areas of her skin. She never had a reaction to any of our soaps and has been able to use our entire soap line without any problems.

    Important things to remember: While the majority of our soap line is fine for sensitive skin, all soaps should be tested on a small area of skin before regular use. If your child should react to this soap (or any soap for that matter) you want the reaction to be contained to a small area and not all over the body. Also, our soaps are not tear-fee, no real soap can be tear-free. If you look at those tear-free baby soaps they are made up almost entirely of chemicals, making them soap free, and therefore tear-free. For me personally, I would rather deal with the soap in order to have a more natural option. Be sure to keep our soap out of your and your children’s eyes to avoid irritation.

    Castile Goat Milk Soap

    Our Castile is our most sensitive soap. It’s two main ingredients are olive oil and goat milk. It’s very gentle and can be used on even the most sensitive skin. Infants need very little soap, but if you are using one of our soaps on your baby this would be the soap to use.

    You can find our Castile Goat Milk Soap HERE

    Oatmeal Honey Goat Milk Soap

    Our Oatmeal Honey is another sensitive soap. The oatmeal and honey ingredients are said to calm irritated skin and are gentle on sensitive skin. This soap has ground oatmeal throughout, which acts as a light exfoliant. While this exfoliant is not as strong as others that are specifically designed to be “heavy exfoliants” it still should be used with caution on your youngest children. Any amount of exfoliant could potentially be irritating to very sensitive skin. While, we have never experienced an irritation with our sensitive skin child, it is still good to be on the cautious side.

    You can find our Oatmeal Honey Goat Milk Soap HERE

    Soaps to Avoid with Children

    Coffee: Our coffee is a heavy exfoliant which can be very irritating to children’s sensitive skin

    Rosewood Salt: Like with our coffee this soap is a heavy exfoliant and can cause irritation to sensitive skin.

  • Where you can find us this Winter…

    Now that most of our regular farmer’s markets are closed for the season and it’s a slow time for craft shows you might be wondering where you can pick up our goat milk soaps over the winter. While we may not be “everywhere” like we are from May through December, we are still very accessible through the Winter.

    You can still find us every Saturday at South of the James. It’s now the Winter Market and the hours have changed to 9am-12pm. There is a great group of vendors there throughout the winter, so it is well worth the trip!

    The West End Farm Markets, our other regular Saturday market through the Spring and Summer, has a pop up winter market on the second Saturday of each month. The market runs from 10am-12pm. We will be at each of the pop-up markets, provided it’s not raining. Tents are prohibited at the pop-up markets making it impossible for us to attend in inclement weather.

    Several stores throughout Virginia carry our soaps. Check out the “Where to Buy” section of our website to find all of the locations were our soap can be found!

  • Using our Goat Milk Soap as Shampoo – Revisited

    Two years ago I wrote a blog post about my experience using our goat milk soap as shampoo (You can find it here). The post gets incredible traffic, last year pulling in thousands of views. After spending several years using the soap I felt it was time to revisit this post and share some tips that I have learned from years of continued use.

    Using Goat Milk Soap as Shampoo from The Freckled Farm Soap Company

    In 2014, I set out to eliminate all commercial body care products from our household in order to reduce the chemicals that my family was being exposed to. That year we started to make our own deodorant, and used our handmade goat milk soap for everything possible, including washing our hands and bodies (of course), shaving, and shampoo. If you read the post from two years ago you will learn that I was quite skeptical about changing out my shampoo, but knew it was something that I needed to at least try.

    In all of this the important thing to remember is, like with most natural alternatives, it’s not going to act like and give you the same result as their commercial counterparts. There are pros and cons on both sides.

    The commercial soaps are often chemical based. They include chemicals that are specially designed to give your hair specific qualities, and in many cases they do as they are designed to do (pro). While these chemicals may be able to make your hair do what you want it to do, they could also be harmful to your health and to the environment (big con). For me, commercial soaps made my hair frizzy and my scalp dry and itchy, no matter what brand or specially product I used (con).

    Natural soaps, like our goat milk soap, are made with natural materials making them better for you and the environment (big pro), however they are not specifically designed to be used on hair (con). Because the soap does not strip your hair nearly as bad as the commercial brands do (at least in my experience), it makes your hair feel heavier (con), but hair tends to be a lot less greasy between washings (pro). For me, our goat milk soap made my hair feel stronger and less frizzy (pro). My waves continue to be more uniformed and less wild (pro) but my hair does not feel the same as it did with the commercial shampoos (con).

    With both the commercial shampoos and our goat milk soap I have to strip my hair at least once a month. While the build up on my hair and scalp with our soaps has been far less than it was with the commercial shampoos I still need to strip my hair with this vinegar and water mixture about once a month.

    When I started my experiment I was using our Castile soap because it was our most moisturizing bar and I was dealing with a very dry scalp and frizzy hair. I later found that this soap was too heavy to be used as a shampoo. Some of our customers, who have serious scalp issues, still swear by it, but for me it weighed my hair down too much. I have since started using our coffee goat milk soap or canine shampoo. The coffee goat milk soap’s PH is perfect for hair and the canine shampoo contains tea tree which is great for for dealing with dry itchy scalp.

    All in all I have had a good experience using our goat milk soap as shampoo. After years of use my hair feels stronger and more healthy.

  • What’s in Our Soap Dish – January

    Your skin’s needs change throughout the year and it may benefit you to use different soap varieties at different points of the year. We are here as soap makers to give you insight into what WE use each month and why! While we often take what we can get and our soap dish is usually filled with flawed soaps (dented, or underweight) that we can’t sell, if we get a choice the following are the soaps we love to use in January:

    Winter Goat Milk Soap

    I look forward to us having our Winter Goat Milk Soap in stock all year long. In 2014 we sold out in two weeks and I really didn’t have the opportunity to use it very much. In 2015 we made three times more of it than we had the year before. We released it on December 5th and sold more that day than we had in our whole 2014 stock! Now, a week into the new year, we only have a small supply left. This soap has a warm scent (ginger, cinnamon, clove, and dark molasses) and a beautiful (naturally occurring) red color. The ginger essential oil also gives the soap a slight warming effect during use!

    If you are interested in adding our Winter Goat Milk Soap to your January soap dish, you should order it soon! We are very close to selling out and won’t have it back in stock until the first week in December 2016.

    Find our Winter Goat Milk Soap Here

    Castile Goat Milk Soap

    Our Castile Goat Milk Soap serves different uses at different times of year. Castile serves as an excellent shave soap, which is less of a concern this time of year, however the Castile also has a very moisturizing lather. During the Winter, when our wood stove (or in most of our reader’s cases, central heat) is running full blast, our skin dries out. We use our Castile soap to keep our skin soft and hydrated during the dry Winter months.

    Find our Castile Goat Milk Soap Here

    Check back next month to see what’s in our soap dish in February! 

  • New Stamps

    We’ve been wanting to get a custom stamp of our logo made for a while! Once the craziness of the holiday season slowed down and I started to think about what items I wanted to get to improve our business in 2016 I decided it was finally time to scratch this off my to do list. I contacted Creatiate, a Virginia rubber stamp maker, that we met at Richmond Craft Mafia’s Handmade Holiday about undertaking this task. I wrote to her a week ago (yes! just one week) asking her to create us a custom stamp, and I was also interested in two other stamps that she offered. I was SO excited when they came in the mail yesterday! I am so pleased with the results.

    Logo Stamp - The Freckled Farm Soap Company's Goat Milk Soap

    Made In Virginia Stamp

    Thank you Stamp

    Check out Creatiate’s Etsy shop

  • Are you following us?

    If you aren’t following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter yet, you really should… and here is why:

    The Freckled Farm Soap Company - Goat Milk Soap

    Instagram:

    On Instagram we post daily (or close to it!) pictures from the farm. See pictures  of all of our animals, progress of the pregnancies (goat and pig), the births, the babies (goat, pig, and chick), farm chores, and progress in the garden and with homesteading projects. This year we will also be posting more farm, garden, and homesteading tips! Following us on Instagram also allows you to see peeks into our soap room and keep up with our current soap company projects.

    Facebook:

    We have two new Goat Milk Soaps currently in the works, as well as several new products! It’s going to be a big year. Be the first to know when we release a new soap or product. See updates of where we will be, and any new stores who are carrying our soaps. Follow us on Facebook to keep up with everything going on with The Freckled Farm Soap Company!

    Twitter:

    Do you just want quick updates about the soap company and farm? Follow us on twitter!

    The Blog:

    Finally, if you are not already subscribed to the blog now is the time to do so! We have a huge list of awesome blog posts planned for this year. Learn more  about our goat milk soap. Learn how we make it and see behind the scenes. Learn about the ingredients we use and why we choose them. Learn about what we are doing to make our products better for the environment. Learn about new products. Have you ever wondered which soap is best for your feet, or face, or maybe even your hair? What about which soap is best for exfoliating or sensitive skin? Find out this year!

  • Happy New Year!! A peek into the new year.

    Happy New Year Everyone! We are looking forward to another year on The Freckled Farm! We have so much planned for the soap company this year and we can’t wait to share it with everyone.

    2015 was so busy that we didn’t have the time to focus on developing new products. We were focused on keeping up with the soap demands and we were in constant soap production. This year we are using the off season to develop new products and to build a massive stock pile of soap that is twice what our stock pile was last year.

    We don’t want to give too many details, because we are still in the experimental/research and development phase of everything, but in 2016 you can expect… New Goat Milk Soaps! New Products! A Soap of the Month Club! And much, much more!

  • Last Minute Holiday Shopping!

    Christmas is only  a few days away! Are you still looking for last minute gifts? No need to worry! There are several opportunities to pick up holiday gifts before the big day is here. Below you will find the locations where you can pick up our goat milk soap this week!

    The three pop-up shops that we are a part of this year are open right up until Christmas. These stores are stocked full of amazing local handmade gifts!

    • Open until Dec. 23rd – Handmade and Homegrown at Regency Square – Pop up Holiday Store – 1420 N. Parham Road RVA, 23229
    • Open until Dec. 24th – Bizarre Market Holiday 2015  – Mon-Thurs 10-7, Fri-Sat 10-8, Sun 12-7 –  Chop Suey – 2913 W. Cary St. RVA
    • Open until Dec 24th – Gift Forest Pop Up Holiday Shop – 301 E Main Street on the Downtown Mall, Charlottesville VA

    Like with Thanksgiving, South of the James is having a holiday market for Christmas. Come pick up the items you need for Christmas dinner, last minute gifts, and stocking stuffers!

    • December 23rd – South of the James – Christmas Market – 2pm-5pm – New Kent Ave and 42nd Street, Richmond, VA

     

  • Today is the Holiday Shipping Cut Off!

    If you would like to have your goat milk soap before Christmas you must order by the end of the day today! After today we can not guarantee that you will receive your order on time.

    Holiday Shipping - Goat Milk Soap - The Freckled Farm Soap Company

  • Holiday Shipping

    Christmas is right around the corner and we are quickly approaching the shipping cut off! If you would like to receive your goat milk soaps before the holiday you must order before December 18th. After this date we cannot guarantee that your soaps will arrive before Christmas day.

    Holiday Shipping - Goat Milk Soap - The Freckled Farm Soap Company