Bookworm Holiday Gift Wrap Guide

You’ve bought all of your gifts, and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care…all that’s left is to wrap those presents for your bookworm friends and family!

But why do a boring traditional wrapping job when you can infuse your gifts with bookish flair? Read on for wrapping inspiration, decoration, and where to get the paper.

The Wrapping Ideas

Printable book gift box by Vanessa Brady

Simply print and assemble, and you’ve got the perfect box!

Classy book page runner by Lori Miller Vintage.

Monogram tag with newspaper wrap by Debbie Westbrooks.

Easy and classy!

10 stylish wrapping ideas using newspaper from Cindy Hattersly Design.

(#9 is my favorite.)

And of course, 14 innovative ways to gift wrap books from Book Bub.

Cause let’s be real, you probably got them books, right?

The Decoration

How to Make Paper Roses

5 Pointed Origami Star

Paper Gift Bow

Yeah, ok, but where do I get all this cool book wrapping paper?

Free Handwritten Journal Page Paper

Make Your Own Book Wrapping Paper

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Who's Your Ideal Bookish BFF?

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What's Your Perfect Bathtime Combo?

Is there anything better than a bath, a book, and a cup of tea? (That question is not rhetorical and the answer is “no, there isn’t”.) You’re toasty warm, indulging in some awesome bath products, drinking something delicious, and escaping into your own little world. Seriously, this is the peak human experience. 

But which kind of bath experience is right for you? Are you gearing up to tackle a huge project, or desperately trying to relax for 5 freakin minutes omg. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. (None of these tea companies are affiliates - I just really like them and think that you will too.)

When You Need Energy and Motivation

First things first - this tea is not screwing around. The Tea Dude’s Fireball black tea would wake up the dead. The super smoky lapsang souchong combined with the kick of chili flakes and cinnamon will wake up your taste buds along with delivery a hefty dose of caffeine. Combined with the deep spice and vanilla fragrance of The One Ring Soap, consider your senses stimulated. Brain still feeling sluggish? Combine with The Westing Game by by Ellen Raskin. This exquisitely plotted puzzle mystery will kick start your brain, leaving you ready to leap out of the bath and tackle the world. (Well...maybe just one more chapter.)

When You Wanna Feel Fancy

Wanna feel like royalty? The Fortnum and Mason Royal Blend is a delicious black tea first created for King Edward in 1902. Have a cup in your fanciest mug while relaxing in rose scented waters with the Anne of Green Gables Rose Bath Bomb. As for the book, check out Red, White, and Royal Blue Casey McQuiston - a hilarious yet heartwarming story of romance and politics between the first Son of the USA and the Prince of England. (My favorite quote:” Exploring your sexuality: Healthy, but does it have to be with the Prince of England?”)

When You’re Trying to Relax

After a long day when you are just DONE, soothing lavender is where it’s at. The Pride and Prejudice Lavender Gift Set will bring on the relaxation, and a mug of Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea will finish the job. Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island is both hilarious and cozy feeling. His anecdotes of his years in England are sure to leave a smile on your face as you drift off to dreamland.

When You’re Full of RAGE

When you’re FED UP and will possibly need bail money if you don’t find an outlet for your cosmic rage, this is the bath combo for you. Relax in the bath with our Lady Macbeth gift set while you fantasize about steeping in the blood of your enemies. Pick up The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (it’s a classic for a reason) , a gripping story of one man’s quest for revenge against all those who have wronged him. And while having caffeine right now might send you over the edge, you don’t want some watered down tasting decaf masquerading as black tea. Adagio’s ceylon decaf is the only one I’ve found that actually tastes like proper tea - you won’t even know the difference. 

When You’re Prepping for a Big Night Out

Getting clean and pretty before a night on the town? (Or, ok, right now probably just a big night in your living room, but sometimes we have to pretend.) Sip some Mandarin Mimosa from Teavana. (Caffeine free - gotta stay hydrated for the night ahead.) Some champagne scented suds from Night of Revels Soap will set the mood, and Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan will fill your brain with glitz and glamor. It’s gonna be the best night ever. 

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A Rose by Any Other Name...

You pick up your rose scented lotion and check out the ingredients, and rose oil is nowhere to be found. Instead, it contains geranium oil, and “fragrance.” You next check out your rose face mask, and it has rose flower water — like what you can get at the grocery store — and “fragrance.” You pick up your rose soap, and what the heck, there’s that “fragrance” again.

“Um”, I hear you say, “why doesn’t a rose scented product just have rose in it? Can’t you just, like, chuck some rose essential oil in there and call it a day?” 

Well my friends, the short answer is that it’s super expensive. But that overlooks the longer answer about extraction methods —  or, how we get these wonderful smells in the first place — as well as how we mimic them when those methods fall short

Many extraction techniques have been in use for hundreds of years, and are still in use today:

Citrus fruits about to get the ever living daylight smushed out of them.

Expression: The easiest way to get a scent out of a plant is to squeeze it out -- like for citrus. This is good for citrus because applying any heat destroys the scent. The plant gets squeezed in a spray of cold water, then filtered to extract the oil. Watch this video to see it in action.

A copper still used for lavender oil production.

Distillation: You know how alcohol can be made from a still? Essential oils can be extracted from plants the same way. If you haven’t made your own moonshine (or watched a lot of M*A*S*H), a still works by boiling water under the plant you’re distilling, so steam rises through it, collecting the scent, and is then cooled back into a liquid in a compressor above it.

Incidentally, the first still was created by a woman named Maria the Prophetess in Alexandria in the first century BCE. She is a badass, look her up. (For further research, you may need to search for “Maria the Jewess” because ugh racism.)

Enfleurage with rose petals - not common for large scale rose oil production, due to the length of the process

Enfleurage: Plants are placed on a thin layer of fat such as lard or tallow, which absorb the scent — literally from just sitting there. It tends to be used on very delicate plants, because applying any heat or processing can ruin them. The fat is then washed in alcohol and filtered, with the filtered alcohol now carrying the scent. 

Coffee flowers being macerated in jojoba oil

Maceration: This process is like enfleurage, but the fat is heated instead of just sitting at room temperature. This is the oldest technique for scent extraction that we know of, and the scented fats themselves were often then used on the body — omitting the alcohol wash and filtering.

A solvent extraction facility.

Solvent extraction: This one is lengthy, expensive, and the only recently-invented process on the list. It starts kind of like distillation, but using a hydrocarbon gas called petroleum ether instead of steam. Since this petroleum ether has a lower boiling point than water, it’s another low-temperature option for when plants are too delicate. Plants are placed into a tank into which the petroleum ether is pumped. The ether binds with the hydrophobic compounds in the plants, i.e. the oils, and leaves them behind in a separate petroleum wax when the ether is removed from the tank via vacuum. The wax is then washed in alcohol to pick up the scent again, and then the wax filtered out of the alcohol. The alcohol is then left to evaporate, leaving behind the concentrated scent.

A giant pile of rose petals awaiting oil extraction.

So what’s the deal with rose oil? Rose scent can be made either by  distilling into essential oil called rose otto,  or by solvent extraction, creating rose absolute. The thing is, it takes about 10,000 pounds of rose petals to make 1 pound of rose otto. Just so that we’re clear, that’s 5 tons of rose petals to make 1 pound of oil. To make 1 pound of rose absolute, you only need a mere 3,200 pounds of rose petals, which sounds easier until you remember that’s the process that also requires petroleum. For context, a pound of lavender essential oil takes a mere 250 pounds of lavender via distillation. 

Parfumerie Bruno Court, Grasse: Triage de Roses

This all makes rose oil crazypants expensive. 10ml (that’s milliliters y’all — ten of em are about two teaspoons) costs about $50. Every bar of MacBath soap has about 6ml of fragrance, so you can see how the cost can easily skyrocket. That’s why in every personal care product on the market, unless you’re buying something reeeeally expensive (for example, this 3 ounce face mask for $62), you’re going to find human-created rose fragrance or a blend.

So how does that work? What does it mean to have a “fragrance blend” that still smells like roses?

Fragrances are built by first categorizing scents according to notes. A note refers to the order in which your nose smells each individual scent when the perfume or fragrance blend is applied to your body — either top, middle, or bottom, with top coming first.

“But wait,” I hear you say. “How can I smell things in an order, when it’s all one big mix of fragrances? Whether it’s coming from a bottle or a bar, or applied to my skin, it has to travel the same distance to my nose, right? No! Different individual scents come from molecules with different weights.  Scents like sandalwood, patchouli, and vanilla (bottom notes) tend to come from heavier molecules, that stay on your skin longer and take longer to reach your nose. Whereas things like citrus, spearmint, and cinnamon (top notes) come from lighter molecules, so they evaporate quickly and reach your nose immediately. Keen chemistry students (and those who have ever made pasta) will remember that heat can also make things evaporate. So while you might smell a “top note” right after opening the bottle, the “middle note” or “heart note” is only released once the fragrance is warmed by being applied to your body. Lavender, rose, pine, or geranium tend to make good middle notes. Last, the “bottom” or  “base note” is the scent that lingers on your skin the longest, due to it’s heavier molecular weight. Perfumes with stronger base notes linger the longest, but you want a fragrance to have great top and middle notes as well.  Those create your first impression of the fragrance — and thus a first impression of you when you wear it. 

A list (by no means exhaustive) of fragrance notes.

In The MacBath’s Anne of Green Gables soaps, lotions, and bath bombs, we use a composed fragrance called Sweet Rose. It has top notes of citrus and mint, middle notes of rose, lily of the valley, and geranium, and base notes of blue spruce and musk. But what does this actually mean? How do you take that long list and figure out what this fragrance will actually smell like?

Well, the first thing that hits you upon first sniff are the scents of the citrus and mint, which quickly dissipate, overlapped by the florals of the middle notes (creating sort of a “bright floral” fragrance). The deeper floral smells of the middle notes come from trace amounts of real rose oil, and a lot more geranium. Geranium, thankfully, contains the substance gerinal, which is the main component in rose oil that produces the scent,  and combined together they do a decent job of mimicking the smell of roses. Only after 20 minutes to an hour do the strong floral middle notes give way to the base notes, morphing into a pleasant, sweet and light-smelling forest type fragrance. When these scents are mixed together, it genuinely smells like rose. When my customers smell a bar of my rose soap, I usually get two responses: “Yup, that’s a rose alright.” or “Oh, I actually...like that? I don’t usually like rose fragrances because they’re so cloying.”

So never fear when you see a rose fragrance on cosmetic and bath products. It’s not that we don’t like the essential oil, or we’re trying to load it up with fake stuff. We just want to make something you can enjoy… and afford. 

This is the first part of a multi-part series about fragrance and the history thereof. Be on the lookout for answers to questions like “What are fragrance blend groups and why should I care?”, “What kind of smells did historical humans like and how did they get them?” (spoiler alert: they liked the same smells that we like!), and “What the hell is musk?”.

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All Those Dead Disney Parents

It’s no secret that parents do not fare well in Disney films. Growing up, my Dad would often lament that Disney Dads were usually dead or absent. (He had a special hatred for Bambi’s Dad, who just...watches from afar? Is not involved in his son’s life at all after the tragic and traumatizing death of Bambi’s Mom?)

While watching the excellent new Pixar film Onward! recently (spoiler ahead), my Dad was once again disappointed by yet another Dead Dad. It got me thinking - does Disney really have more dead Dads than dead Moms? Clearly, the only way to solve this is DATA and CHARTS. (My favorites.)

Some notes on my method: I included 51 films in my research. I only included Disney animated films (hand drawn or digital), no live action. I also did not include films where the characters do not seem to have any kind of parents at all. (Sorry Cars.) Additionally, I did not include any sequels in the parental death count. If the parents are gonna be dead, it’s gonna happen in the first film.

So how did our Disney parents fare? DRUMROLL PLEASE. 

Clearly, the condition in which both parents are dead is our leading contender here. (Seriously, so many plucky orphans.) But let’s get to the truth - which parental figure has the highest death count?

It’s the Moms! Sorry Dad, but we’ve got 6 more dead or missing Moms than Dads. But I think that we can all come together on this issue and agree: Wtf Disney? Who hurt you?

Those who want to see how I arrived at these numbers can find the data here: Disney Parental Death Count

For actual insight into the prevalence of Dead Disney Moms, this article about fairy tale origins is a fascinating read.

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Social Distancing Tips from Famous Authors

Emily Dickinson

Just stop leaving your house. Stop it. Begin wearing only white. Begin an epic correspondence with your sister-in-law, the love of your life. Also, be sure to write some of the best poetry ever penned. No pressure.

Charles Dickens

Obtain a wedding dress. Never remove it, allowing it to grow more tattered and disgusting. Allow your home to decay around you. Be sure to start rumors about yourself so that your town is too frightened to come and check up on you. Live in isolation the rest of your adult life. (Taking in orphans to ruin their lives is entirely optional, but remember, handwashing is not!)

Jane Austen

If at all possible, contrive to be in reduced circumstances so that you are beneath the notice of the best society.. Stay at home and fashion a new bonnet. Stay at home and embroider cushions very ill. Stay at home and play the pianoforte. When restless, take a turn about the room. And of course your study of singing, dancing, drawing, and the modern languages. But don’t forget that after all of this, to be truly accomplished you must improve your mind by extensive reading.

William Shakespeare

Cultivate any power hungry relatives that you may have. With any luck, they will usurp you and shipwreck you with your daughter and your books. (Pro: you’re now relieved of your job responsibilities and finally have time to get through your TBR list. Con: You’re a single parent isolated with your 3 year old daughter.) Live on a tropical island for the next decade or so, enslaving the two locals and generally enjoying yourself. Surely there will be no repercussions.

Harper Lee

Befriend three children from afar by leaving them presents in a hollow tree, but never let them see you or have any direct interaction. You may only leave your home in the event of those children being attacked with a knife. Be such a local legend that the sheriff decides not to press murder charges because he “doesn’t want to disturb your privacy.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Have you considered contriving to be buried alive? No? We’re taking this way too far? *sigh* FINE. We’re just saying, a REAL social distancer would have no problem being bricked up behind a wall for all eternity

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Accio Box Reviews!

Surprise! The MacBath’s lotions were included in popular subscription box Accio Box’s September mailing - House Pride. Lucky Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Slytherins. and Hufflepuffs received a box full of goodies specifically made for their house, which included The MacBath’s popular House Lotions. Watch these unboxing videos below to see how excited Potterheads are to try out our lotions - and how much they love the scents!

The Gryffindor Lotion is reviewed at 7:22.

The Slytherin lotion is reviewed at 2:40.

The Joys of Reading in the Bath

The MacBath was featured in an article on BookRiot! (One of my favorite websites for all things book-ish.) The article has some great tips for relaxing and enjoying a good read in the bath - literary teas, waterproof kindles, and of course The MacBath's awesome literary soaps and bath bombs. Check it out!

Be sure to check out our Ravenclaw Gift Set, which was featured in the article. 

Back to Basics: What Is Soap and How Does It Work?

Soap - it’s something that we all use everyday. We accept that it makes us cleaner than just plain water - but how? What IS soap anyway?

The FDA defines soap as “the alkalai salts of fatty acids”, which may or may not clear things up for you depending on how long ago your last chemistry class was.

“Soap” is what you get when you combine a fat or oil (fatty acids) and lye (an extremely strong “alkalai” or “base”). That’s all you need to make soap - fatty acid, lye, and a liquid (often water - though in The MacBath’s case, goat’s milk, which has more fatty acids of its own!)

“Uh huh”. I hear you say. “I don’t see any salt whatsoever on that ingredient list. How can soap be a salt? I sprinkled it on my baked potato and it was awful!” First of all, stop tasting your soap. (I promise that no matter how good it smells it tastes terrible.) Second, ordinary table salt (sodium chloride or NaCL) is just one example of a “salt”. You might recall that, in chemistry, any combination of an acid and a base makes a salt. Soap is a combination of a weak acid (fatty acids) and a strong base (lye), which results in what is known as “alkalai salt,” or a salt that is basic on the pH scale. (See scale below) Sure enough, if you use a pH strip (also known as a litmus test) in soapy water, it often scores an 8 or 9.

“Whoa whoa whoa” I hear you cry. “I’ve been putting a base on my delicate skin all of these years? That sounds dangerous!” I promise you, you’re fine. “Acid” and “base” might sound like scary words, but you regularly consume weak acids and bases in your food every day. Soap is actually around the same pH as baking soda!

Ok, so I guess I’ve been washing all my life with "alkalai salts". How the heck does that get me clean?

Soap has two main mechanisms of action, both of which come from it being a surfactant, which comes from the words "surface active agent." The defining property of surfactants is the unusual ability to bind to both oil and water, which is the first and most important mechanism of action. Have you ever heard the phrase “they get along about as well as oil and water”? You know how you always have to shake up salad dressing before you pour it because it always separates into two layers? It’s because oil molecules and water molecules don’t like to mix! If you wash with plain water, it’s not getting all the oily goop off your body. That’s where soap comes in.

One end of the soap molecule is hydrophilic (water-loving) and binds to water (the black dots of the drawing below). The other end is hydrophobic (water-hating) hydrocarbon chain that binds to oil molecules (the purple tails in the drawing). This forms a cluster called a “micelle” — a ring of soap molecules surround the drop of oil, creating a bridge between oil and water. Thus, when you rinse off soapy water, it takes the oil with it. And ta-da! You’re clean.

A soap micelle.

The other mechanism of action is that it reduces the surface tension of water. Water molecules like to stick together — it’s why water beads up on your cold glass instead of spreading across it uniformly. Some people like to say that soap “makes water wetter” — what they actually mean is that by introducing soap molecules to water, the micelles force the water molecules spread out.  If you’ve ever seen a water bug walking along the surface of a pond, this is because the water's surface tension can support the weight of the tiny bug. If you mixed soap into the pondwater (but, um, don’t), the water bug would slip right through the surface. The decrease in surface tension allows soapy water to get into more nooks and crannies than water alone.

If soap is just fats, lye, and liquid, then what is this “sodium lauryl sulfate” stuff I see on my soap packaging?

Ah, well, if you have sodium lauryl sulfate (abbreviated as SLS) in the ingredients list of your soap, bodywash, or shampoo, then The MacBath regrets to inform you that you do not actually have any soap—at least according to the FDA. What you’ve got is a synthetic detergent, which is also a surfactant — it has a hydrophobic and hydrophilic end — but it can react differently.  If you’re not sure if what you have is a soap or a detergent, give it a test with a pH strip - detergents are neutral or acidic, whereas soap is always basic.

There are actually very few true soaps on the commercial market in the USA — nearly all the products available are synthetic detergents (yes, even your bar soap!). There are a two main reasons for this. One is that detergents are much cheaper to manufacture. Second, detergents perform differently than soap in extremely hard water — water heavy in minerals. If you have hard water that contains magnesium and/or calcium ions, the hydrophilic end of the soap molecule (Na⁺COO^-) reacts with these ions to form soap scum. A detergent, whose molecule has a different salt at the hydrophilic end (Na⁺SO₃^-), won’t react with them the same way and won't produce soap scum. This must seem like a no brainer to commercial manufacturers — cheaper to produce AND works the same in any kind of water? Sign me up!

But — and you must have know there was a “but” coming — there are also downsides. Detergents are much more drying on the skin, and strip more of the body's natural oils. They’re also not as eco-friendly as soap — detergents take longer to break down and are harder on the environment when they get into the water table. Liquid detergents, such as shower gel and body wash, also require significantly more packaging than solid bar soaps, creating more waste in landfills So if your skin is dry or sensitive, or you’re trying to reduce your carbon footprint, you may want to give soap a try. Your skin and your planet will thank you.

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Review and Giveaway on Keystroke Blog

Em of Keystroke Blog wrote a fantastic review of MacBath soaps and lotion - check it out here! 

Plus, she is hosting a giveaway for her readers. Follow the link and enter to win!

Re-creating a 17th Century Stain Remover

What did people use to remove stains before the invention of the tide pen? We re-created a 1671 recipe from Hannah Woolley's "The Queen-like Closet" to find out. 

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The MacBath was featured on Bustle.com!

We made their list of "9 Jane Austen inspired beauty products much safer than 19th century cosmetics". Check it out!

Fantastic Review on Scarlet's Letter!

Amber of the blog Scarlet's Letter just wrote a fantastic review of three of The MacBath's Harry Potter soaps. She writes:

"I used to buy soap from that one super popular soap store that a lot of people love, you know the one I’m talking about, but honestly, I love this brand so much better. The scents are great, the quality is awesome, and I love the more natural ingredients. The MacBath is one of my favorite handmade soap brands I’ve tried."

Read the full review here!

 

The Soapmaster General

Ahh, 4th of July Weekend. Time for cookouts, relaxing at the fireworks, and pressing your family and dog into service to shoot a commercial for your soap studio.

Luckily, both my family and my dog are extremely patient and game for anything! (Although one of them did require extensive bribery with chicken treats - I'll leave it to you to decide which.)

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Marketing to Men - a Conundrum of Conflicting Values

With Father's Day on the horizon, I was planning to feature The MacBath's shave soaps on social media - many Dads are men! Many men shave! It seemed like a no-brainer.

But then I hit a snag. What, exactly, should I say about this soap in an attempt to appeal to a population buying almost exclusively for men? I have been following the #masculinitysofragile movement with great glee (buzzfeed does an excellent roundup here and here - go and enjoy a good laugh at what marketing departments think the average cis male needs to make a purchase.). I didn't want to fall into any of these lazy gendered marketing pitfalls by trying to position the soap as "ultra manly" or using violence and danger as shorthand for "men". (See the grenade shaped bath bomb in the buzzfeed article above.)   

So on the one hand, I'd like to get some shave soap in the hands of some Dads on Father's Day. On the other hand, I don't want to stoop to weird gendered marketing tactics that reduce all men everywhere to a caveman stereotype. So what's the solution?

I hope that you like what I came up with. I present to you: The MacBath's first ever commercial.

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What Can You Do With Leftover Soap?

Soap scraps have been piling up here at MacBath headquarters . I've got stacks of loaf ends, leftover soap batter that didn't quite fit in the mold, and bars that didn't stamp cleanly or acquired a small scratch - all perfectly good soap that smells great and will get you clean, but not up to the high aesthetic standards that I set for sale.  

So what's a soapmaster general to do? Aside from using them in my own shower, tossing small scraps in with my laundry, or placing multiple bits in a bag for travel or camping, there is another option to take leftover soap and make it into something completely new - hand milling.

Step 1: Grate, grate, grate. Are you tired? Too bad, keep grating.

So what the heck is hand-milling?

To make hand-milled soap, your base soap is reduced to small grated shavings that are melted down into a thick paste. Once the soap is melted, the soapmaker can add any scents, colors, oils, or other additives that they desire and re-mold the soap batter. There are some excellent benefits to putting your soap through the hand-milling process: it reduces the amount of moisture, resulting in a harder and longer lasting bar, and the second heating often results in a milder soap. Additionally, people who don't want to work with lye can still have the experience of soapmaking. And while cold process soap has a 6 week cure time, hand-milled soap can be used immediately (as long as the base soap was fully cured prior to grating.)

I took an early experimental batch of my Holmes soap (it had come out a little too hard to stamp cleanly) and began to grate. 

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

Many hours of grating later (and many grated knuckles), I had three gallon-sized ziploc bags full of deliciously scented goat's milk soap. After admiring my handiwork, I double bagged the soap for safety and inserted the bags into my crockpot and canner. I filled them with water and started boiling!

I boiled the soap bags for about an hour and a half until they were nice and mushy. Wearing heat proof gloves, I removed the bags and kneaded them until the soap inside was a smooth paste. (Alas, I have no photos of this step as my hands were full of hot soap).

Once thoroughly mushed, I opened each bag and added 4 teaspoons of almond meal to act as a natural exfoliant. After thoroughly kneading the soap a second time to evenly distribute the almond meal throughout the batter, I cut the corner off of the bags and piped the hot soap into my cylindrical molds. 

Several hours later, I unmolded the soap to reveal super scrubby goat's milk and almond meal soap scented with vanilla and rosewood. It's going to be perfect for getting the dirt off of my hands after a long day in the garden.

It's quite a transformation from a disappointing, unstampable batch of Sherlock Holmes soap to a completely new, scrubby and exfoliating soap! It's harder, which means that it'll last longer, and milder as well. Plus I really enjoy the more rustic look. If you've wanted to get into soapmaking but have been wary of the lye, I highly recommend giving hand milling a try. 

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The MacBath is Open For Business!

There's nothing that I love more than handmade soap. Except for maybe books. And computer design. And finally, I can combine all three into one product! 

Each batch of my goat's milk soap starts with a favorite literary quote, image, or idea — I brainstormed my first soap, "Scourgify!", as I stared in despair at my sink full of dirty dishes and wished for a wand.

First view of the Scourgify stamp in TinkerCAD - still to be printed and tested..

I next design a soap stamp in a CAD drawing program and manufacture it using a 3D printer — each stamp design is 100% unique to the MacBath!

The first stamp test on a batch of plain goat's milk soap - stamp is lookin' good!

Finally, I combine color and scent in a soap design that brings the source text to life. How do I want this soap to make people feel? What smells might they associate with their favorite book or character?  In the case of "Scourgify!", I wanted a a cheerful yellow look with a nice homey scent - warm and cozy, just like Molly Weasley's kitchen at the Burrow. 

The final soap design - yellow from exfoliating dried lemon peel, stamped with merlot colored mica, and scented with citrus-y japanese yuzu.

And voila! Creamy, lather-rich goat's milk soap that gets you clean and smelling great while showcasing your love of literature. Check out the shop for more soapy homages to my favorite books, plays, and poems.

"Beneficial to All Ingenious Persons of the Female Sex"

As a soapmaker and librarian, when the time came to develop a logo for the MacBath I naturally turned to historic books for inspiration. The Folger Shakespeare Library has an amazing collection of digitized texts that were ripe for the plundering. (What? You've never browsed their digital collection? Stop reading immediately and GO FORTH. I'll wait.)

I was delighted to discover multiple bookplates, texts, and recipes written by women for women during the Elizabethan and Restoration eras, just waiting to be rediscovered. One of my favorites was the frontpiece for "The Queene-Like Closet or Rich Cabinet" written by Hannah Woolley in 1675. Just look at those gorgeous illustrations!

Full title: "The queen-like closet, or Rich cabinet: stored with all manner of rare receipts for preserving, candying and cookery. Very pleasant and beneficial to all ingenious persons of the female sex." - Hannah Woolley, 1675

I took an excerpt from this page as The MacBath's logo, to honor the generations of women making soap and passing on their knowledge to the rest of us. We may have access to ingredients that they never would have dreamed of, but the basic process remains the same. When we study the 17th century, the lives and accomplishments of craftspeople are not usually in the curriculum - but that doesn't mean that we don't have records of their lives and accomplishments! As an "ingenious person of the female sex", I'm thrilled to read Hannah Woolley's words almost 350 years later and to make her work the face of my company.