Why make olive oil soap?
- The best soap starts with pure natural ingredients.
Is there any product we use more intimately than soap? On our face, in our hair. We wipe it all over our bodies. It gets in our eyes. We use it to wash our babies and young children. We don't think about it much - it's a product we've always trusted. But does it deserve that trust? Is the soap we use harsh - even toxic?
Twenty six years ago, when I left modeling for journalism I joined the Channel 7 news room in Sydney. One of my first jobs? Too investigate chemicals in the home, industry and agriculture. To find out what we were putting into the air, the earth, the water and our food. Little did I know that what I found out would change my life.
Over the course of 6 weeks, I learnt that many agricultural chemicals used by Australian farmers were banned in the US and Europe. That industry was as drug dependant as any addict. That many dermatologists hated the stuff women were putting on their faces - regarding it as useless, unnecessary and expensive. Or worse - harmful.
I learned that all humans all have different levels of tolerance, that what some can deal with is poisonous to others. That some of us, being genetically stronger, can survive the chemical onslaught of modern times where others sicken and succumb. I learned that more and more people were becoming vulnerable to a variety of things we were breathing, eating and drinking. To the chemicals we used to washing our clothes and clean our homes. And the way we were cleaning ourselves was becoming a major problem.
My research contributed to a report by Kerry O’Brien. Called the Circle of Poison it won the most prestigious award in journalism that year. The Gold Walkley.
My instinct in life has been to be open, honest and straightforward - and to keep things natural, simple, untainted.
So I began to read labels, buy food and products that appeared as harmless as possible I liked the words ‘no preservatives’.
For three years I studied with the distinguished naturopath Dorothy Hall. For thousands of years nature had been providing us with simple solutions for basic household and personal needs. It was time to rediscover some of them and I started to practise naturopathy.
I was 30 when I moved to our farm and wanted to leave a lot of city life behind me. So I was determined to have a small bathroom cabinet and not to cram it with loads of different beauty products. I already had boxes full of make up removers, eye creams and pimple creams I’d used in modeling and TV. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out and they remained unpacked for years. What I needed now was block-out for the farm's harsh sun, lanoline for my lips and a sorbolene for days when the wind beat at my face. Oh, and an aloe vera eye gel.
I still bought soaps at the supermarket – usually in large discount packs - for my body.
But like most aging women, I began to notice something. That my skin was getting dryer. And when I washed with soap – especially in winter – it was so dry that I often needed to moisturize.
When it comes to my face, everything I’ve been told, either by dermatologists, TV make-up artists, beauticians and friends had been contradictory. It was hard to know the right thing to do. Furthermore, our skin changes. Some times it is oily, other times dry. There are tiny scars, pigmentation and wrinkles. I even got pimples again. The simple fact? I’m getting older and my skin is showing it. But that doesn’t mean I want my skin to ‘feel’ worse. I still want it to feel as clean and look as fresh as it can be. I don’t want to start treating it like an old scrubbing board in the hope that it will look as good as it once did. It won't.
One day, having showered with commercial soap, my legs felt dry and itchy. So I reached for the moisturizer and went to the computer to do some research. Just what was in this soap I was rubbing all over my body?
The list of chemicals in soap is as long as the credits in a movie. I said to myself 'why am I am making such a fuss about eating organic and biodynamic food, spending time growing our own vegetables if I wipe this all over my skin each day? I must be mad!
And Virgo Extra Virgin Olive Oil Soap was born.
