Last post from Portugal for a while! - sorry Im late - My Week!

What a week, both Shelley and I are knackered, walking and thinking, inventing, making, designing, inspiring all soap, soap, soap in our sleep!!   its crazy, the two of us working together has been a revelation - its fab, we just cant stop bouncing ideas and thought off each other!  We gave ourselves a day off on Sunday and spent it thinking about soap!

We have made such lovely things since our disaster (see previous post and F'ugly) -4 huge Christmas batches and 8 new fun soaps as well as our market leader and best Olive oil soap ever - Puro.

Our new, beautiful Christmas soap with berries,  nuts and figs

White Chocolate and Strawberry Gateaux

So, part of this trip was to discover new sources for our soap making, we want to create soaps that are made using the most local ingredients possible and one of our essential ingredients is fresh goats milk, it makes the best ever soap - see previous blog about why I use fantastic fresh goats milk

Shelley had found some great local contacts but it seems, they could not supply us on a regular basis, then the barman  and general village oracle Artur told Shelley about another goat farm not too far from our village, gave us directions and we went.  Found a really lovely Portuguese goat farm, all goats, they looked lovely, really well looked after with free access to a nice pasture, day and night (very rare) and very pretty.

Really nice night time forage and protection

the very cool and matsterfull Billy

Soo lovely

We found the farm, turned up amid lovely little kittens, dogs not chained up but lovely and friendly, cant tell you how unusual this is in Portugal, We were met by a nice lady who took us to the house, where the previously ordered 10 litres of lovely creamy milk were waiting for us in the fridge.  It was such a fab visit, Shelley and I were so pleased to be buying from such a wonderful place where they really loved and looked after their goats, it was so obvious.

Everyday goats bells for when they forage far from home

Such a fantastic selection, the really big goats bells right down to the little babies

The really special ceremonial bells used during village parades - these are huge!

The milk was fantastic, really clean and fresh and so very creamy, lets hope Puro can maintain this supply.

We have also been working on our new display, driven a little by Naturally Made Soaps we decided to go for fabulous, handmade wooden trug style display boxes, coloured in a fantastic aray of tints that would show off our soaps to their best, as well as a smaller, more subtle set to display our exclusive Puro soaps.

Bare naked pile of our fab Puro trugs

Beginnings of colour, just wait until you see them all done!

Painting hard, - Mrs Barnes

Me busy making soap

Oh, woops, just forgot to show you my office window, please dont feel too sorry for us both!

Our new range PURO is not yet available, we have been working on our exhibition display only, however, if you are interested, and they are fabulous, keep watching our new facebook site, we are soon to launch our website too, you will not be disappointed. We will soon be launching our wholesale prices.