The Karoo a magical place. It’s an endless region (one third of South Africa) of arid semi desert. Fields of sharp rocks as far as the eye can see with scarce, low, dry vegetation. An enormous bright blue sky in … Continued
A while ago fellow soapmaker Karol Dulmanis posted a picture of a coffee soap in one of the Facebook groups I belong to. The beautiful soap had an interesting dappled look with light translucent soap contrasting with areas of dark … Continued
Cape Town is suffering from a catastrophic lack of water. The winter rains are coming to an end and the relentlessly dry, hot, beautiful summer season is upon us. For several years the winter rainfall has been below average and … Continued
After last year’s holiday trip to Italy and the trip to the US and UK the year before, we decided to go back to our native Finland this year. It was a good decision because the ancient wood-framed and puttied … Continued
A while ago I made some big bars of all-coconut laundry soap. I took some pretty pictures and posted them in a couple of soapmaking groups on Facebook. To my surprise several soapmakers asked the same question: how do you … Continued
To Finns nothing spells out ’C L E A N’ more clearly than the natural pine wood smell of mäntysuopa, Finnish pine soap. It’s the smell of long, lazy childhood summers, saunas, lakes, boats – and rag rugs. It’s a … Continued
Here, close to the southernmost tip of Africa, our summers are warm and dry. The rain falls in winter when low-pressure fronts sweep in from the south. This is the heartland of South African wine country and the local vineyards … Continued
A couple of weeks ago I was experimenting with finely marbled agateware soap. In the process, I accidentally let one of my low-water soap batches get hard enough to lose its plasticity. Not wanting to waste the batch I ended … Continued