What does "Handmade" mean to you?
by CURAT HANDCRAFTED SOAPS Est. 2010 on Monday, August 30, 2010 at 5:51pm
I am a soapcrafter. I make my soaps from start to finish. Oils that I saponify myself,the ingredients I add by hand(essential oils, fresh and dried plants & fruits, and dried spices)Some I grind by hand with the aid of the mortar & pestle...some with a blender or food processor. I hand pic the ingredients I use. I buy local, I sell to all. I take pride in what I do. As I meet and talk with many soapers, both cold and hot process soapcrafters...I get a since of pride and the desire to educate the public about the craft of making soap. I really felt bad when I had to establish the recent price increase. I was so happy being able to provide a product people really liked at an affordable price. Many of you still say that even with the price increase..it's still a great value. Thank you, I appreciate it!Recently..I was online admiring the handmade soap companies who have broken the mold in the cosmetics industry. LUSH HANDMADE COSMETICS is one of them. I love their products and quite a few of you are LUSH clients. I decided to ask them a question in regards to their products..since they invite the chance to provide information to consumers. My question was simple and straight forward:
"Do you use the cold or hot process method to make your soaps?"
Easy right? Well I did get an answer. Very timely, very honest, but...way more info than I asked for.Today I found out that LUSH soaps are 'melt and pour' soaps! I was shocked to say the least. But here, you can see for yourselves. Here is a copy of the email transmission.Now I have to say...is the retail price for their soaps fair? That's up to you as a consumer.
5 comments:
I'm not surprised..Lush products are all all about eye candy. My skin has never understood what all the fuss over Lush is about. Mediocre quality products, to say the least. Thank you for sharing this info with us. Be proud of your craft, your cp soaps are most certainly miles better than Lush!
.thanks so much!! i was really shocked that they revealed the LUSH-way...for a company that really markets the term "handmade"...they should be more truthful, especially in their magazine..........
It's probably largely a safety issue. I think on a large global scale it would be the safest bet for them not to have their staff working with lye. I would probably call that rebatch rather than melt and pour as they are able to add way more variety of ingredients to the soaps than I could do with melt and pour.
Thank you for the enlightenment. I always read Lush's ingredients, and the way they market their soaps is very misleading-at least to me now that I am a soap maker and know how soap is really made. With all that being said, I agree with Sailor in that their process sounds like re-batching more so than melt and pour. They have such great marketing that it's all about presentation and visual appeal.
Lush has a brilliant marketing campaign. They are fun, consistent, marketed well. Photographed well...
Every time I go near a Lush display, I get a massive headache. The scents in there make me physically sick. I'm sure some of them are lovely scents individually, but I can't get near enough to enjoy them.
It's all too much, and the hype is overly magnified.
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