Each of the three products I have available in the Oh Goodness skincare range has a little genesis story. They were all originally designed for myself or my family, until I decided they were good enough to share :)
First up, the salve. I'd been wanting to make some sort of balm or salve ever since having kids - especially when they're little there are lots of scrapes and cuts and all the traditional healing creams either smelled really antiseptic or were too expensive. I'd seen a lot of kawakawa based balms around, but when experimenting with this recipe I really found that calendula worked the best for us. I'd had a little marigold garden when I was a kid, so I liked the idea of putting those lovely golden petals to work. Though I don't grow my own any more, they are easily available. I also wanted to avoid using beeswax, as I find it can be sticky, and I really like the smooth, glossy finish of Candelilla wax. This salve took a bit of perfecting to get right, think jars and jars of half filled pots littering my house, but I eventually got the texture how i wanted. I included super moisturising shea butter because i just love its effect on skin, hemp for its amazing skin regenerative properties and lavender for antiseptic abilities without smelling like a hospital. In our house, this stuff is known as "magic cream", and is used weekly by us all.
Next up - the intense moisturiser. I've never really had much of a strict beauty routine, and I've been blessed with good skin, but I have always moisturised my face. As I aged I felt like my skin needed a little something more. Originally this product was me playing with an idea for the salve that didn't have a wax in it, I had a few trials that seemed really rich and lush though not quite the right texture for a salve...so i whacked them on my face to use them up. And how fabulous! The creamy cocoa butter paired with the lavender and smooth shea...wow, it was the most amazing experience! And then I lost the recipe! I wrote it down....somewhere.. but I hadn't yet developed a very good system for capturing my experiments, and after weeks of tearing my hair out and trying to capture the magic again, I finally came up with what you see today. So it's little different to that first prototype, but after the addition of a lot more fabulous oils, including beautiful camellia (used by geishas) and sesame oils (though not roasted so you don't smell like a stir fry! ) and, in the end, a tiny amount of candellila wax (just for body), the intense moisturiser was born. I personally use this every night, and my skin has never been so good. It does take a little getting used to an oil based product, as it's richer than water based, but this recipe does absorb well.
Finally, the hand & body cream. I have always had dry hands, and had been using an Aveeno fragrance free oat cream which I loved. So this product was me trying to recreate that cream, but made from simple, natural ingredients and not plastic wrapped. I found a recipe online which seemed to work fairly well. It was previously unchartered territory for me to make a hydrous (water based) product that would need preservation, but I did a bunch of research and found a preservation system that was ecocert approved, and after a few improvements (mainly adding my favourite shea butter and avocado oil), I decided I loved this cream and it was better than the one I'd been using. My husband needs a good, no nonsense, unscented hand cream and he loves it too. I decided to offer a scented and unscented version as I often just like a plain version myself; it's nice when dealing with larger areas to go unscented too I find. I love the Jasmine, lavender & lemon combo and I would really like to bring this cream out in more scents, and I hope to be able to do that later this year. During lockdown, when hand washing was a focus, this cream was an absolute skin saver. With glycerine, a humectant (basically pulling water into the skin layer), and colloidal oats which soothe skin, I haven't suffered any of the dry and irritated patches I used to suffer on my hands from cleaning and hand washing. I use this product several times a day, every day!
