I was sewing in the afternoon, as I normally do these days, with the quarantine blues, and listening to the audiobook, The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman as I stitched along. It’s a book that was written after Practical Magic, however is a prequel to the book. If you’re into magic and love stories and are not familiar with either of these stories, stop what you are doing, watch the movie or read the books, or perhaps do both, and then come back here.
Ok, so now that you’ve done the required reading, we can move on.
In both of these stories (as you now know) the Owen’s women make a special clarifying black soap — made to heal the complexion. The book mentions that the soap was made twice a year, and it would make their skin milky and glowing.
I absolutely loved the idea of this, and did some research on how I could possibly create this soap myself. I also thought it would make a great birthday gift for my lovely mother. Needless to say, it was a very nice break from the continuous sewing I’ve been doing making hundreds of masks for my Etsy shop during my unemployment furlough.
Of course I have to put my own spin on things, so I found a few recipe’s and concocted my own remedy that includes pure rose oil as well as tea tree as the main essence. The main ingredient is activated charcoal, which is what gives it the beautiful dark black magic color.
I also made an organic lavender goat’s milk soap (with fresh lemon and chamomile) so I guess you could call it lavender-chamomile-lemon soap, but I think I’ll call it, “Lavender Dreams,” or something like that.
I’ve only made a small batch, but some are available in my shop here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/purplerampart?section_id=29089403
“There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic
