Review/Giveaway: Rustic Silk Soaps

First of all, it’s not often that I use bar soap. I’ve mentioned before that I have rather uncooperative skin that’s both sensitive and oily, and your everyday bar soap puts my skin on the NOPEWAGON with a one-way ticket to NOPEVILLE.

I've always associated all bar soap with that feeling of being shrink-wrapped in itchy dryness, followed by next-day peelyness and bonus facial blowout.

After trying a couple of the bars of Rustic Silk Soaps, I have since seen the light. All bars are not created equal, and it turns out that I’d been using the saponified version of that cheap toilet paper college students steal from gas station bathrooms (I mean, you’re not gonna turn it down in an emergency, but it’s not like you’re going to purchase the stuff on purpose).

Lesson: If you don't want a chapped butt, you're gonna have to spring for the grown-up toilet paper. And the same rule applies to bar soap!

Hunter Love of Rustic Silk Soaps makes all of her products by hand with the highest quality ingredients, such as shea butter, jojoba oil, herbal teas, pure essential oils—even coffee. No sulfates (yay!) or other nonsense.

Many of her products are made to order, such as her bath bombs, scrubs, and body butters, to ensure freshness. Her honey and beeswax is locally sourced from a farmer who uses no antibiotics or pesticides with his bees. Vegan items are available, and she even does custom orders.

The first thing I noticed was that customer service was great and shipping was fast. Hunter asked me what sort of scents I liked (herbal) and was very generous with her goodie box, and I soon received Lavender & Sage and Cucumber Wasabi soaps, Lavender Mint, Lavender Oatmeal, and Balancing Calm bath bombs, Grapefruit Rosemary Sugar Scrub, and Flowering Dogwood Whipped Body Butter.

The Soaps

I’d have to say that the Cucumber Wasabi soap was my favorite, possibly of all the products. I was a little unsure about it at first because wasabi soap? Isn’t that, like, going to burn or something?

It didn’t, of course, and was surprisingly moisturizing. It sounds like an odd choice, but the scent of cucumbers and wasabi is actually really nice and light.

The Lavender & Sage had a lovely herbal scent, but wasn’t as soothing as the Cucumber Wasabi. Both lathered up nicely without the aid of sulfates; I would recommend using them with a bath puff.

Bars of soap range from $5.75 - $6.25 each, and there are also sets of multiple bars, including travel sized samplers and a 'soap of the month' club.

The Bath Bombs

The bath bombs were very freshly scented, and the Lavender Mint and Lavender Oatmeal even contained actual lavender flower buds. I only wish they were a bit bigger!

One thing I discovered, however, was that the remnants of the pretty pale purple-colored Lavender Mint bomb rather adeptly highlighted a heretofore-unseen/unacknowledged filth ring in my bathtub. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to clean the tub.

Bath bombs come in a variety of blends and are $3.50 each.

The Sugar Scrub

I’d never used a sugar scrub before, and the Grapefruit Rosemary smells delicious. It’s far more moisturizing than I expected. Well, it is made from sugar, avocado oil, sunflower oil, and vitamin E. Just wet your skin a bit and rub some on whatever needs exfoliating, then rinse it off. I used it on my face after washing and it left my skin nice and soft with no fallout.

A 4 oz. jar of the sugar scrub (in the blend of your choice) is $10.25, with 8 oz jars available for $18.50.  Rustic Silk Soaps also carries salt scrubs and exfoliant scrubs worth checking out!

The Body Butter

Flowering Dogwood body butter sounded interesting. I’d never smelled a flowering dogwood. If this is really what a flowering dogwood smells like, it’s a soft floral perfume smell. It smells nice in the jar, but it turns out this one is just too sweet for my taste.

It feels nice, though. It’s thick, melts at body temperature, and sucks right into the skin. Winter in the mountains caused my skin to slurp it up quick--with no grease marks on my phone (or, no more than any normal human’s greasy mitts, sans lotion). A little goes a long way, so use less than you think you need at first.

The whipped Body Butter - again, in a variety of blends - costs $10.50 for a 4 oz jar or $19.00 for an 8 oz jar.

So, like most things, I learned you get what you pay for.

Considering the quality of the ingredients used and the care that goes into preparing each product, Rustic Silk Soaps is pretty reasonable. The prices are comparable to bath and body specialty shops, but these are handmade, natural, and much nicer.

It’s definitely worth the extra few bucks if it keeps my skin from screaming like a banshee and bursting into flames.

 Rustic Silk Soaps Website
Rustic Silk Soaps on Etsy
Rustic Silk Soaps on Facebook

 

Hunter Love from Rustic Silk Soaps has generously offered a $30 gift voucher for your choice of any combination of products. (I recommend the Cucumber Wasabi soap!)

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment in this entry as instructed by the Rafflecopter, then leave the name you commented under and your email in the box in the Rafflecopter entry. (This allows us to contact you if you win!)  This will open up additional optional entries to increase your odds of winning.

This giveaway is open to US RESIDENTS ONLY
and will end just before midnight ET on 3-9-15. 

The winner will be notified by email within 24 hours after the end of the giveaway.  In order to claim the giveaway prize, the winner will need to respond within 24 hours of notification, or an alternate winner will be selected.

Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway