Goat’s Milk Face Bar
Goat’s Milk Soap Bar
When we moved here, costs began to mount. More for gas to go do pretty much anything. It was time to get more self sufficient to save some money. I was buying great skin care products that I absolutely loved. (Bless you Origins Skin Care, your products are wonderful, but costly.) Which is kinda fair. In that products that work well shouldn’t be free. They provide a product that serves a purpose. But they aren’t the only game in town. I got two hands, and a certification in herbalism through Cornell. What can I cook up for my own needs? I even have goats and goat’s milk contains lactic acid, like the stuff commonly used in facials. Using it every day should gradually do the job a facial would do.
Goat’s Milk soap bar
Then I began thinking about aging, what can I do about that in this bar to help keep skin ageless? At forty, this is something just beginning to matter. But it should have mattered too at twenty five.So a little moringa to replace collagen found it’s way into the formula. To improve skin there is some frankincense. For moisture so it won’t dry skin out, rose, some tea tree and lavender to fight bacteria and acne…. And some chamomile that offers an astringent property within the soap bar….. Calendula, and a little Yarrow even found their way in, to soothe and improve skin.
Herbally Medicated Goat’s Milk Face Bar
initially the idea, was for the kind of soap I was used to. The kind that comes in a plastic tube. But as I thought about what I was doing, I looked out my window at my beautiful forest. And I started to ask myself the same question I have always asked myself when I look to the woods…. When the wildness is all one giant land fill full of plastic tubes…. Who will comfort me? It was time to rework the plan. A bar packaged in package became my new goal and it was so easy a switch to make. Packaged in cardboard box that will gradually break down… This is a solution I can live with.
My herbally medicated face bar was made. I fell in absolute love with it from the first use. It did amazing and beautiful things to my skin. And it was natural. For the first time I went outside and I felt the wind on my face, rather than feeling it interacting with the chemicals on my face. This is another one we offer in our self care package for the B&B. A decision was made after my early tests, this would be my new product for my face. Now all I needed to do was design some sort of witch hazel based herbally medicated toner and a moisturizer. So, I did. But those are stories for another day.
When I added up my costs and how many I could make for a relatively l0w budget, I came up with a price that may still not be free, but is far better for a product I find to work better even than my old product that I paid three plus times as much for.
I am really happy with this stuff, so I am adding my extra to the shop. So that perhaps it can also help me support the farm a little bit. I hope people will consider giving this stuff a try, because it truly is a real work of homestead ingenuity.
Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm
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Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.
My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.
Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.
Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.
Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.
We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.
We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.
This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.
We welcome you on this journey with us.
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