Making his debut - the story of a new soap

More about me later but for now read on...

Once upon a time I made a soap called Venus
She looks like this this

Venus

She quickly became one of the most popular of Old Pit soaps being made with sweet almond and extra virgin olive oil, organic oatmeal, fragranced with nutmeg and Orange with a touch of Ylang Ylang.



Shortly after she made her debut she was joined by her sister Vegan Venus

Venus and Vegan Venus

  
A soap made with coconut oil, green tea infusion, green clay and ground almonds scented with patchouli and Ylang Ylang and as the name suggests suitable for vegans. She quickly became as popular as her sister and started appearing in many bathrooms.
Then I got a message from a friend, Could I possibly make Vegan Venus in a more, shall we say - bar shaped -bar? Her friend who is a vegan man really liked the soap could I oblige?


No sooner said than done and I set to work making the recipe into oval bars and put them away to cure. Four weeks hence there's a new bar in town and here he is next to his sister

Vegan Venus and her brother

Making his debut

Gentlemen I give you

Venus As A Boy

For your bathing pleasure

How it all began and the question that everyone asks

Welcome to my Blog.

My name is Lorraine and I'm the creator of Old Pit Potions. A range of handmade, all natural bath & beauty products. I started out making soaps & bath goodies at the beginning of this century. makes me sound stately and venerable doesn't it?

A friend had bought me a book on soap making as a present and I was too busy working in a job that was not good for me to do anything other than look through the pages but I dreamed of making some of the beautiful bars pictured there.

Two years down the line I was happily working in a wholefood store filled with the sort of wonderful goodies that looked to me like they'd be just the thing to turn into soap. So I loaded a a basket with things like raw honey, organic oatmeal, goats milk & Lavender essential oil. I bought Coconut, Almond & Extra Virgin Olive Oils and turned my kitchen into a soap factory for the day.

Some weeks later I had what looked, smelled and lathered like very good soap indeed. Guess what everyone got for Christmas that year?

It didn't stop there. I just wanted to make more and more so that's what I did and that's where things got interesting, but that's a story for another time.

Right now I'm a few years down the line and I'm surrounded by bath fizzers & salts, massage melts & oil blends. Body and face creams, perfume spritzers and bars and bars of soap. Not to mention the wonderful materials I need to create these goodies.

Oh and the question that everyone always asks is "Why Old Pit Potions?"

The name raises a few quizzical eyebrows and a few chuckles, especially from some American friends who think that it's all about the underarms.

The truth is that the labels started as a really nice joke. I did a swap with my lovely neighbours, who wanted to give my soap as gifts alongside their delicious Sloe Gin. They came up with the label Old Pit because we live close to the site of an old coalmine. As a Miners daughter I loved the name and the picture and so the label stuck.