The Soap Sachet

              

Our Soap Sachets contain shavings and small pieces of our All Natural Olive Oil Soap, you can use them to pleasantly scent and refresh rooms, closets and drawers.  

These Sachets are the closest we have come to "bagging" the scent of our store. 

It is good to know that moths hate the fresh scent of soap, so you may also use our Sachets as a moth repellent.

Should you run out of your Rosner Soap supply, you may use these shavings until your next order arrives!

Our Sachets make great gifts! Try one!

The Soap Loaves

For the longest time we have been selling Loaves in our Sugar Loaf store, now you can buy them online!
 The advantage of a loaf is:

1) You get 15% off because we don't do the cutting, trimming or wrapping, so you get about 2 bars free; more soap for your dollar.

2) You cut your own bars to the size you want; bigger for yourself, smaller for your guests? Perfect for multiple bathrooms, travel sizes, gift baskets and sharing!

It helps of course to have a favorite, but once you have determined that, then a simple spackling knife or kitchen knife will cut cleanly through the soap, which should be stored in a cool dry place, a drawer, or closet. We recommend that you cut a few bars in advance so that the ones in the center of the loaf will have time to dry and harden, they will be all the creamier for it!

                                 Looking for an original Holiday gift? Try the Soap Loaves !

Less is More

So we were chosen by Marie Claire for their Pro-Picks in their March issue!

This is a page where their Make-Up Artist recognizes really good value for under $10. Even though our soap was chosen along with other products that are not handmade or all natural, we feel proud that someone from that world (maybe the make-up artist himself?) came all the way up here and recognized really good quality despite the modest packaging. As I often intone: " Less can be much more, keep things simple, keep things clean!"

Go ahead, try our sweet woodsy all natural olive oil Kalahari soap, you'll see, smell and feel the difference!

Favorites

People often ask me what my favorite soap is. I have learned over time to name 3, but in the early days of our shop, I'd get confused, name one then another and a 3d and a 4th only to finally admit I loved them all. I just didn't want anyone to miss out on all the wonderful and diverse scents. I would of course confuse my customer, who was by then just as clueless as they were to begin with. Time has taught me to say: "My favorite is the Red Desert but most people's favorite is the Lemongrass with Oatmeal and the Sweet Almond is another great favorite".

The dilemma with the "favorite" is that favorites can change according to mood or season or both. For instance while the Red Desert may be my constant favorite, in the summer I love the smell of the Vanilla & Pomegranate. I find the combination so refreshing and compelling; is it the warmth, the longer days? Who knows? But the sweeter scents suit me more in summer than winter. Then there are the combinations of different bars; I love combining the Peppermint & Tea Tree with the Cinnamon & Orange. I stick the two bars together in the shower and something about the astringent peppermint with the warmer cinnamon and slightly sweet orange loosens my shoulder and neck muscles and gives me such a sense of contentment!

Having said that, scents are so personal that what appeals to some doesn't appeal at all to others, or like Patchouli you either love or hate it with no less than a burning passion! Ah yes the passions that smells evoke! And the memories! But I digress. Certain bars are loved accross the board like Lemongrass with Oatmeal or Sweet Almond, I call those the "unanimous favorites". Then there are the bars like the Basil & Cornmeal that are amazing, cosmetically excellent and relaxing to those who think too much, but those bars get so much interference from all the scents in the store that many customers pass them by until they take one home and discover it there, where the bar becomes a favorite, I call those the "unexpected favorites".

So favorites, yes, short and definitive or long and convoluted which one's yours and why?

The Small Things

Thirty years ago I found myself working in the cafeteria of a college in Phoenix, Az. A young woman worked there with me, her name was Rotunda, and ironically she was definitely rotund. I was already very health conscious back then and one morning upon seeing her eat some kind of Fruit Loop or Lucky Charm cereal, I asked her how she could eat that "stuff", to which she very candidly replied: "Because it makes me happy!" (with rising intonation). I was so taken aback by her sincerity there was nothing I could say.

I have often thought of Rotunda's reply to my judgment filled question and asked myself: "What makes me happy?", inflection on the "me". Well aside from a beautiful day and the scent of lemons, there is nothing like a shower with a silky smooth bar of my soap scented as if by miracle. Something I enjoy even more when I travel and take my soap with me.

It is in those small things, like a bowl of cereal, the smell of fresh cut grass, the sight of blossoming magnolias, or a really good bar of herbal olive oil soap that we find the comfort to move on; those small things keep us going until the big things straighten out, if they ever do.

What makes you happy?

Ingredients: Bare Bones Philosophy.

What is fascinating about soap is that it can take different shapes, sizes, smells and colors and the final product gives satisfaction to so many. Soap is something we use daily and though it can be luxurious, it is very basic.

When we started to make soaps and body care products, we decided we would create a bar from the finest ingredients and as pure as possible. We wanted people to come back and say: "This is the best soap I ever used, it makes me feel so good!", and we hear it regularly.

What is the secret of the quality of our soaps and products? It is very simple: our ingredients. Living in France taught us the importance of knowing our ingredients, and that quality of ingredient makes the difference between what is good and what is excellent.

Being spiritually connected to the mediterranean, we knew we wanted to use olive oil as a base. Olive oil is a wonderous oil in that it will both moisturize and balance your skin, which very few oils can do. Olive oil is also readily absorbed by the skin and has a natural SPF of 9. The only disadvantage of olive oil is its very small lather, more like a cream and it remains soft. In order to get around that we added coconut oil for lather and palm oil to make a harder bar. All the oils we use are food grade and can be eaten as well as applied to the skin.

Wanting our soaps to do more than just cleanse, we knew we had to use essential oils for their medicinal benefits. Essential oils are extracted from plants and flowers and have been known through history for their many therapeutic qualities. In future posts I will introduce some of the basic essential oils and their known benefits.

We use few ingredients but they are excellent quality and basic, so no additives are necessary in order to make up for cheap ingredients. The combination of our ingredients makes a soap which is free of synthetic chemicals, lathering agents, parabens, petro-chemicals or other harmful ingredients. We believe that as the largest organ of the body, the skin needs to be treated with care and awareness.

Logo: The Story of Our Cactus

For years we lived with a large cactus outside our blue door. It stood with its arms raised high, forever welcoming us back to our home . Before moving to Sugar Loaf NY, we kept sadly looking at it, knowing full well we could not take it with us.

As we approached our departure date, after years of never giving flowers, our cactus gave us five flowers, one for each of us. We saw in that flowering a generous blessing of our new endeavor.

By then we knew we'd take the cactus with us by making it our logo.

Welcome to Rosner Soap, Our Story.

Twelve years ago we opened a soap store in the artisans community of Sugar Loaf NY, since then every week a customer asks us: "How did you start making soap?", here is the story:

One day walking in a lively city street we happened upon a beautiful store that looked like a bakery but was actually a soap store, Yaron and I simultaneously looked at each other and said: "We can do this!". We asked the lady working there : "How do you make soap?", a question we now need to answer everyday, and from there on the soap making started for us.

In 1998 after living many years abroad, mostly in France, we decided to return to the USA. We began looking for a community where we could maintain the quality of our family life and make a living. We sought something that would combine and express our strengths and desire, to create beautiful and healthy products. Yaron has a background in photography and design and mine is health and natural medicine. Upon deciding to return to the USA, a friend told us about Sugar Loaf, a small hamlet not far from New York City, where artisans and artists live and work all year round.

Sugar Loaf was so small that at first we couldn't see it on the map, when we finally found it, we fell in love with the authenticity, the rustic look of the houses and the eclectic mix of people. Sugar Loaf seemed to offer the quality of family life we were looking for.