If you or your family members have ever been irritated by itchy dry skin or overwhelmed by intense scents and fragrances from products such as laundry liquids and conditioners, perfumes, and hand soaps. Then like me, you may welcome using products that are free from such strong and arguably toxic ingredients.

Nourish Your Skin Naturally, With Simple, Unfragranced, Uncoloured Soap

I would like to introduce my artisan unfragranced soap and skincare collection. Simple, beautiful, and effective, my products offer a gentle and authentic approach to skincare. Made with high-quality ethical ingredients, love, and dedication here in my Smallgarden workshop.

It is important to me that every product I create is gentle and suitable for sensitive skin and for extra care, I also make an unfragranced alternative. Not just to avoid any potential irritation, but also because the pure, nutritious ingredients that I use are beautiful in their own right.

Making artisan skincare unfragranced is as simple as not including any added scent, whether it be fragrance oil, which you can often spot on ingredients as ‘parfum’, or an essential oil.

Unfragranced doesn’t mean completely free of scent, as the ingredients that go into the product often have a scent of their own. But, it means, that it is free of any added ‘fragrance.’ Sometimes manufacturers chemically mask these odours and may add small amounts of fragrances to them to make them smell more acceptable.

I want to avoid exposing myself and my family to a cocktail of chemically produced fragrances. Simple fragrance-free skincare is an easy way to cut down on the many toxins we absorb and ingest on a daily basis. That’s why I create products that are as natural as possible. I take extra pleasure in having produced a whole range of unfragranced and uncoloured soap and skincare products.

The only ingredients in this simple unfragranced soap bar are olive oil, cocoa butter, and castor oil. It smells sweet, fresh and clean and has a bubbly creamy lather. I named it Thistledown to reflect the scentless spent flower. All my soaps are named with lines from the poetry of John Clare ‘the Northamptonshire peasant poet’. Thistledown comes from the poem ‘Autumn’ in John Clare’s ‘Shepherd’s Calendar.’

‘The Thistledown’s flying though the winds are all still…’

Alongside Thistledown unfragranced soap, is its companion unfragranced whipped body butter. All the pure goodness of shea butter, argan oil, and vitamin E with no added scent. Lovely after a shower to lock in the moisture and keep your skin silky smooth. The soap and the body butter work well together for a simple cleansing and moisturising routine.

John Clare wrote about the Goldfinch’s nest and his use of Thistledown..

‘It makes a nest of mosses grey,

And lines it round with thistledown..

Unfragranced Solid Shampoo

Unfragranced Conditioner Bar

To finish off your freshly washed hair just apply your unfragranced conditioner, sliding it along your hair to the ends. Your hair will relax instantly, rinse and you’re done. The shampoo bar and conditioner bar are not just tiny powerhouses but also have the benefit of a huge reduction in packaging.

Unfragranced Salt Spa Bar

If you have ever been to a spa, or swum in the sea, you will recognise the benefits of salt for skin, and muscles. The seasalt has beneficial minerals which have anti-inflammatory  and exfoliating properties, I’m really pleased to have soap salt bars in my collection and  especially unfragranced  ‘Star to Steer’. Use it like any other soap bar, you will be suprised at how silky smooth it feels and how profuse its bubbles!

Unfragranced Goat’s Milk, Oats & Honey 

My ‘Goat’s Milk, oats and Honey soap, ‘The Milk Maid’s Song is such a special soap. She is the Queen of the Unfragranced collection. Not just unfragranced but with so many lovely skin-loving ingredients that she’s my personal favourite. If you suffer from any form of skin reaction, irritation, or dryness ‘Milk Maid’s Song’ is the one to choose.

Goat’s milk contains fatty acids that help repair the skin barrier and encourage the growth of normal skin flora. I use colloidal oats which are finely ground and naturally relieve dry and itchy skin. Honey is an amazing creation from the bees! Nature’s great healer. I had a bad burn years back and the NHS doctors used honey to effectively heal my wound, powerful and gentle. just like John Clare’s milkmaid..

‘The milkmaid sung a ditty,

Singing sweet of summer joys,

and village-merry-make,

And rural loves, and milkpail shining bright.”

Immerse yourself in a clear fragrance-free soap or body butter and while you take care of your skin, take equal care of yourself and listen to the great Toby Jone’s reading John Clare’s ‘Summer Moods’.

Toby Jone’s reading “Summer moods” by John Clare

As part of my overall collection, I use a selection of steam-distilled essential oils that people with various reactive conditions may still be unable to use. Some essential oils contain naturally occurring allergens that are within the legal limits in my recipes, all of which have been submitted and certified by UK Chemists in line with UK and EU regulations of safe amounts. There will be no problems with these small amounts for the vast majority of people. If you have known allergies and skin sensitivities, then the Unfragranced Soap & Skincare Collection will be a welcome alternative.