Think about loving Felt this Valentines, along with yourself, family, friend, partner. The love of felt is unconditional. It gives back. Environmentally friendly, resilient, strong, clean and good for us. Wool is one of the most beautiful natural fibres. It is healing, antibacterial, antimicrobial, stain resistant, easy care, durable.
Remnants of felt date back at least over 6500 years BC. Stories tell of traveller’s packing their sandals with wool fibers to help prevent painful blisters. By the journey’s end, they were wearing felted socks! It is said that Noah's Ark was lined with fleece and the combination of urine and the trampling animals left behind a felted wool carpet. But no worries. Water works well as the moisture.
Moisture and friction on the wool fibers results in this felting ‘phenomenon’. Felting is used as a medium for expression in textile art and design, where it has significance as an ecological textile. Felted soaps are an example of a functional art.
Treat a loved one or yourself to a felted wool soap. It caresses, cleans, exfoliates, nourishes and loves you back.
We select our natural, undyed, pure merino and alpaca from a farm in Ontario. We felt our soaps by hand, gently wrapping the fibres, spritzing, patting, dunking, matting. I work two soaps at a time, matting each against each other, initially wrapping each in nylon stockings to hold the fibres in. Heat and moisture (the water is warm to hot), and pressure are the key elements to the felting. The stockings are then removed and further caressing, rubbing, wetting the bars finalizes the felting. I love to massage each soap solo to finish. Voila. If you are a felter reading this, I am sure you have your own superb method. We learned by trial and error and combining various U-tube lessons.
We offer only the natural coloured wools as we do not wish to use synthetic dyes. The hues are sheep and alpaca: browns, beiges, greys, black.
We do not synthetically 'perfume’ any of our soaps.
Our Merino Castile Coral has a slight essential oil of lime.
The Alpaca Moringa has no scent at all.
Both soaps are gentle, effective and appeal to all ages. A great travel companion, especially to sandy beach destinations. A felted soap is the perfect exfoliator.
Select a natural soapstone dish to accompany the soap. A perfect match: Soap and Stone.
Alternatives to natural Earth to Body felted soaps? Check online. There are many fun smelling and colourful dyed wool felted soaps for sale. Quite creative. Maybe not all natural, but fun.
Or if time allows, felt your own!
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