I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! I spent the weekend in Winchester, Va., where I happened upon the Lavender Moon Soap Company. I've been looking for some good, natural, wonderfully smelling soap and I was happy to find what Lavender Moon had to offer.
Lavender Moon was started about thirteen years ago in New Hampshire by LynneAnn Trask. LynneAnne's twins were born prematurely with very dry, sensitive skin. Because their skin was so sensitive, LynneAnne set about developing a product that she could trust for use on her own babies. After a lot of testing, she came up with the products that she sells today, including hand-poured, moisturizing vegetable glycerin soaps. They are all created on the store's property using "only what is necessary." Plus, over 90% of the packaging is made in America and can be recycled. Lavender Moon does no animal testing and uses no animal by-products.
I decided to make a purchase after I read the ingredient list (and after I smelled the soaps!).
Ingredients: cocoate, sodium palmate, ricinus communis (castor) seed oil, carthamus tinctorius (safflower) seed oil, glycerin, water, sorbitol, sorbitan oleate, glycine soja (soybean) protein, fragrance oil, color, titanium dioxide
After I got home, I put the ingredients into Skin Deep and it gave the soaps a rating of 2 due to the "fragrance oil" and unspecified "color." I spoke to LynneAnne about the fragrance, and she said that essential oils are too harsh for babies' skin and that she uses fragrance/aromatic oils. When I asked her about phthalates, she seemed to be unsure what I was asking, and assured me that nothing was in the soap that didn't need to be. After putting the ingredients in Skin Deep, I also did a search for aromatic oils. These came up with a score of 0, while unspecified oils came up with a score of 4. Overall, I feel pretty good about these soaps. Plus, they smell great!
There are over twenty different scents. While the scent is definitely present, it's not overpowering or headache-inducing. My initial favorite is luna. I also purchased: baby, indigo, fabulous, ti amo, chrome, girlie girl, mint mint mint, bella notte, and milk & honey. I meant only to get a few, but after smelling them all I ended up with about half of the scents that were available. Luckily the packaging is pretty, so I'll enjoy looking at them before I use them up. :) LynneAnne mentioned that each bar should last about 3-4 weeks, so it looks like I'm set in the soap department for a while!
I'm really pleased. I got my desired soap, and I can feel good about supporting a small business with laudable business practices.
Even if you don't live near Winchester, you can check out Lavender Moon Soap Company here.
UPDATE: these soaps do not last 3 to 4 weeks. When used in the shower, each bar was used up within a week. Instead, I put these out on soap dishes. When used to just wash hands, they last over a month.
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