Who is Behind A Touch of Eden?
A Touch of Eden had its beginnings in the mid 1990's making cold process soaps with herbs and goat milk to combat the reactions to commercial soap that my youngest son was facing. At that time I was busy with six children, homeschooling, gardening and livestock. We raised beef, hogs, dairy goats, rabbits and poultry for our freezer as well as for the kids 4-H projects. And we had an abundance of goat milk to use up!
Those early soaps were created using natural ingredients such as vegetable oils, herbs or flowers, and essential oils. The herbs came directly from my own gardens and were dried for infusing into my soaps. The Alpine and Oberhasli goats contributed the goat milk. As time went on I began to experiment and expand on those original recipes. Friends began to ask me for specific scents that did not come from essential oils and I realized I had in a way, become an essential oil snob. I broke my own rules, made a couple batches with fragrance oils and was pleasantly surprised.
This convinced me to expand and stretch my limited views about soap. There are so many awesome oils and butters available to soapmakers and each one adds its own unique quality to the blend. Using color for swirls and patterns adds to the visual appeal of the soap with the additon of fruits, vegetables, herbal infusions, pigments, oxides and the vast array of micas. All of our colorants are approved for use in body products, many are the same colorants approved for use in eye shadows or blush. Scents can be enriched by blending essential oils. Fragrances come is such a wide variety.
A Touch of Eden has grown from a hobby to use up extra goat milk to a growing small business. You can find me at some summer markets and in the fall at local community holiday craft fairs as well as online. Love hosting home parties? We can do that too and bring the product to the home show for purchasing! Just send us a note via our contact page to inquire.
In addition to soaping I have been actively involved in volunteer work while my children were growing up. This included many years as a community leader in 4-H as well as instructing young people and teens in church. For the past ten years I have been actively involved with Michigan Search and Rescue, a 24 hour response team for missing persons, as a canine handler with my dobermans. Joe Pete is a certified Human Remains Detection dog and Rizzy is my youngster in training. You can check out the team's Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michigan-Search-and-Rescue/128305365879
If you go to our blog page you will find many of these wonderful dogs featured with a soap named in their honor.
Cris
Those early soaps were created using natural ingredients such as vegetable oils, herbs or flowers, and essential oils. The herbs came directly from my own gardens and were dried for infusing into my soaps. The Alpine and Oberhasli goats contributed the goat milk. As time went on I began to experiment and expand on those original recipes. Friends began to ask me for specific scents that did not come from essential oils and I realized I had in a way, become an essential oil snob. I broke my own rules, made a couple batches with fragrance oils and was pleasantly surprised.
This convinced me to expand and stretch my limited views about soap. There are so many awesome oils and butters available to soapmakers and each one adds its own unique quality to the blend. Using color for swirls and patterns adds to the visual appeal of the soap with the additon of fruits, vegetables, herbal infusions, pigments, oxides and the vast array of micas. All of our colorants are approved for use in body products, many are the same colorants approved for use in eye shadows or blush. Scents can be enriched by blending essential oils. Fragrances come is such a wide variety.
A Touch of Eden has grown from a hobby to use up extra goat milk to a growing small business. You can find me at some summer markets and in the fall at local community holiday craft fairs as well as online. Love hosting home parties? We can do that too and bring the product to the home show for purchasing! Just send us a note via our contact page to inquire.
In addition to soaping I have been actively involved in volunteer work while my children were growing up. This included many years as a community leader in 4-H as well as instructing young people and teens in church. For the past ten years I have been actively involved with Michigan Search and Rescue, a 24 hour response team for missing persons, as a canine handler with my dobermans. Joe Pete is a certified Human Remains Detection dog and Rizzy is my youngster in training. You can check out the team's Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michigan-Search-and-Rescue/128305365879
If you go to our blog page you will find many of these wonderful dogs featured with a soap named in their honor.
Cris
