Rosemary & Clary Sage Hand Soap

The Garden Essentials Collection provides the building blocks to healthier skin, hair, and mind while caring for both our natural biome and the Earth. They’re your essentials — think of them as the base for your daily rituals.

Our Garden Essentials are a sensorial journey. Like a walk through the verdant gardens of the Estate, the aroma is camphorous and awakening – featuring the rich, natural essential oils of Clary Sage, Australian Eucalyptus, Mediterranean Rosemary, and California Lavender.

Our goal is to get as close to nature as possible and avoid synthetic ingredients (including fragrances) whenever possible. Many essential oils in our Garden Essentials are steam distilled — a process where steam is introduced to plant material to separate aromatic volatile constituents from the plant material. These aromatic constituents produce topical and mental benefits that are difficult to reproduce synthetically.

We hand-selected plants that grow in abundance at the Estate such as Clary Sage, Rosemary, Eucalyptus, and Lavender to mirror the scents of the garden at dusk – when the sun has warmed the leaves of these aromatic plants. Our former Hand Soap included Clary Sage, Ylang Ylang, and Tulsi.

Castile soap avoids synthetic ingredients. And, we love the versatility of it. Due to its molecular structure, Castile soap is able to cleanse skin of both water soluble elements like dirt and minerals, as well as emulsify excess oils for fresh, healthy skin – without stripping it. Soil health is a critical aspect of regenerative farming and the practices we support. Our goal is to create products that will not negatively impact our watersheds and the health of our soil. 

Synthetic detergents (found in hand soaps, body wash, etc.) utilize surfactants like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Coco Glucoside, Decyl Glucoside, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, and more. Many of these ingredients are not biodegradable and accumulate in our environment, negatively impacting our soil and watershed health. And when they’re created, toxic byproducts occur. Additionally, the majority of these ingredients are derived from Petroleum or Palm Oil – both unsustainable ingredients that we do not want to support or use. By choosing to create a Castile soap formula, we’ve created a soap made out of saponified oils that’s thickened by sea salt, avoiding synthetic ingredients.

“Clean” and “natural” can be very misleading. Palm Oil, though naturally-derived, is the actual worst, and it’s in almost everything. All the common cosmetic ingredients typically start with Palm, so even if it’s not directly in the ingredient list, it is usually derived from it. To grow palm, swaths of rainforest are burned, destroying habitats and the fragile rainforest ecosystem. Its production is the largest cause of deforestation worldwide, responsible for up to 20% of global warming. Problem is: it’s got a really good lather. It makes soaps hard and bubbly, and leaves skin smooth. But at what cost?

So we set out to find something just as good, but less harmful — something just as sudsy, but less toxic. After boundless research, we found the perfect alternative: Babassu Oil. Babassu is derived from an agroforestry crop grown on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, an area that is incredibly vulnerable and diverse — urgently in need of protection. Responsibly-sourced Babassu helps protect these areas and all those living in them — it’s harvested in the most conscious way possible by local indigenous communities. Using it as the base of our garden soaps, Babassu adds an excellent source of Vitamin E, fatty acids, and moisture to our products.

It is believed that Castile soap originated in the Castile region of Spain and was originally made with pure Olive Oil. Now, the term Castile soap refers to a plant-based soap made without synthetic detergents. It’s natural, non-toxic, and biodegradable – and it can be made in either bar or liquid form. It’s deeply cleansing, removing dirt, impurities, and oil. Additionally, its formula doesn’t require Palm Oil or Petroleum (and their derivatives).

Our Castile soaps are made with Olive Oil and Babassu Seed Oil, and the oils are saponified with Potassium Hydroxide. The process of saponification uses triglycerides (from plant oils) and creates a reaction with Potassium Hydroxide to separate the glycerol from the fatty acids to form 3 molecules of soap. Saponification also creates natural glycerin in the Castile soap, which helps keep water in skin, promotes skin barrier recovery, and natural cell turnover. Resulting in fresh, clean, hydrated skin. Our soaps are naturally thickened with Sea Salt instead of using other gums or thickening agents, which results in a beautiful honey-like consistency that’s luxurious and rich.

Castile soap uses the traditional soap making process to saponify oils using a base (Sodium Hydroxide). Whereas surfactants as we know them (natural or synthetic detergents), are typically Petroleum or Palm based materials that have chemically reacted with different solutions to produce various forms of surfactants. Both work through the interface between water, oils, and dirt. Castile soap creates bubbles from saponins in natural oils instead of synthetic ingredients. That’s why these natural ingredients break down more easily in our soil and water ways.

Castile soaps are able to rinse easily from the skin. The minerality of water and whether the water is hard or soft will determine if the Castile soap will leave a film on bathroom surfaces. In Los Angeles, our water is hard which can lead to Castile soap leaving a residue on surfaces. Rinse with a natural cleansing solution of one part white vinegar to two parts water to remove any build up.

No! The bubbles in soap come from one fatty acid (Lauric Acid - found in abundance in Babassu, Palm, Coconut). Soap molecules are composed of many fatty acids. The soap molecule doesn’t need to include Lauric Acid to wash away dirt, oils, and impurities. With the invention of modern and synthetic detergents, we’ve been conditioned to believe that bubbles equal clean, but there are other fatty acids that clean without creating bubbles and lather.

We wouldn’t recommend it because it can cause hair to get frizzy.

We recommend using Garden Essentials Hand Soap with a washcloth in the shower.

The main difference between Garden Essentials Hand Soap and Garden Essentials Body Wash is Rosehip Seed Oil. We included Rosehip Seed Oil in Garden Essentials Hand Soap to help counteract dryness that can happen with frequent hand washing.

We put time into understanding the full life cycle of every single thing we make, which led us to switch all of our packaging from glass to infinitely recyclable aluminum. 80% of all aluminum products ever made are still in use today, and aluminum recycling happens in as little as 60 days. This magical element remains the most versatile packaging material in the world. Aside from being lightweight and malleable, it’s safe and keeps all botanical benefits intact longer.

Yes! If you’re using our pump, separate it from your aluminum bottle, rinse your bottle, and put them both in recycling. The aluminum caps can also be put in recycling. Unlike glass or plastic, aluminum can be recycled infinitely without losing quality or volume. 80% of all aluminum products ever made are still in use today, and aluminum recycling happens in as little as 60 days. Aluminum can be disposed of, recycled, and put back on store shelves in as few as 45 days. And, our pump is meticulously crafted without any metal springs or pins, so the whole thing is reusable and recyclable.