About Slow Botanicals

Wonder what goes into making Slow Botanicals, and how it's markedly differently than other natural skin care? Making skin care products the way I do takes a lot of time and a great deal of experience and knowledge. First, I go into the wild and spend hour upon hour harvesting botanicals. Each botanical, including mushrooms, has different processing needs. Chopped, torn, clipped, left alone, dried, or used fresh. Once I've meticulously prepared the botanicals, I infuse the oil. Later on, I'll strain out the oil and make a strong, concentrated tea. This botanical preparation takes days, weeks or months! Each step is uniquely tailored for every individual skin care product. Now I'm ready to begin! It's essential to get all that done before I even start. Consulting my royal blue notebook of the recipes I've created and perfected over the years, I weigh out ingredients. Carefully I mix and blend and pour, creating one small batch of soap or skin cream at at time. I draw images in the surfaces or carefully place dried flowers, some of them pressed months ago, onto the surface of every bar. This makes them beautiful. I do it all by hand. When soap bars are finished hardening, around 24 hours after pouring, I unmold the bars and with a sharp knife I cut away the edges of each bar. This makes for a nicer surface. Then I transfer the soap to metal racks where it cures. How long does the soap cure and why? Slow Botanicals soap bars need to cure for six weeks. This allows the soap to reach a pH that makes it perfectly gentle for your skin. Did you know that the longer you wait, the gentler and lighter in color the soap bar becomes? If you see a stack of handmade soap, always grab the bar that looks the oldest! Skin cream works differently. Blending beeswax and botanically infused oil, I fill jars one at a time. This can be messy work! Once the cream has cooled to room temperature, it is ready to be used. No curing necessary. Like soap, this cream has a very long shelf life. The ingredients that make it superb for your skin barrier, also keep the skin cream stable and free of contaminants. I put on the lids and then get ready to write the labels by hand. You’ve told me how much you love and appreciate this personal touch. It does make sense! After all the individual care that goes into every single step of making Slow Botanicals, it only makes sense to do this last one by hand, too. Do I ever run out ouf your favorite products? It's true that since the ingredients I use come from nature, sometimes a product sells out and stays out of stock there for the rest of the year until the next season of harvest. I don't order herbs from large warehouses full of plants being shipped in from around the world. Gathering my ingredients is NOT as easy as going online and then walking to my mailbox. It's much more intensive than that :) Harvesting in the wild, on a warm summer day, is one of my absolute favourite ways to spend my time. Still, I am one person, and I'm never able to harvest as long as I'd like. I’m sorry if I run out of your favorite Slow Botanicals product! The good news is I can usually recommend another product in my line that will be just as amazing for your skin and its unique traits. I don’t want you to lose the beautiful skin you have cared for - so I will always have another option for you! Thanks for reading all the way to the end of my process. It's a joy to share with you!