Review- Nellie's Patch

I don't like soap. Particularly bar soap. Up until now I've only been able to associate it with the horrible plain white soaps that you get in public places. It's either totally solid or nastily slimy and it leaves your hands dry and tight with a not particularly pleasant smell.... I've always avoided using solid soap at home in favour of the excitingly coloured, prettily scented, relatively moisturising pump soaps.

However, the beautifully scented Rose Geranium soap from Nellie's Patch is well on it's way to changing my mind. It's smooth and creamy and it leaves my hands feeling soft and supple instead of the dry and rough mess they've normally started turning into at this time of year.

Nellie's Patch makes hand made soaps here in Shropshire (a.k.a. The home of grass, cows and the Muller dairy!), they're free from nasties including Parabens, SLS (sodium lauryl sulphate), artificial colour and palm oil (which destroys the home of Orangutans). They're vegan and not tested on animals plus the flowers and herbs are grown on site without the use of artificial fertilisers or sprays! 

Unlike many products that don't contain SLS the soap lathers up really well, a soft creamy lather that reminds me of a smoothie(!) and feels really luxurious and it rinses off without feeling tight afterwards. 

The soaps are reasonably priced, especially for something handmade- £3.75-£4.00 for a 100g block- they last forever, I've had mine for what must be at least 6 weeks now (to be honest, it's probably much longer than that by my memory is not good!) and the stamp on top of the soap (a cat!) is still easily visible and the bottom is just rounded off, not really lost much of the soap at all, so they do last well. They also make lovely presents and do a really great job of making clothes smell nice if you keep them in a drawer (random testing there...!)

The only minor problem I've had with it is that if it's left in water it goes smooshy (technical term) because hand made soaps are more prone to going soft in water, so you do need to make sure that your soap dish drains, or that the soap's not left in any water. Once I'd (accidentally!) left the soap upside down for a day it dried out to it's non-smooshy state fast and I've not had any problems since. It's so worth it though for soap that's nice and is friendly to skin and orangutans alike! 

You can find out more about the ingredients used, the lack of palm oil, and purchase the soaps here!

Overall, loving the change from liquid soaps, my hands are definitely doing much better in how dry they are and I'm enjoying using soap that's free from nasty ingredients!

Nellie's Patch rose geranium soap is available on the website for £4. It's also available in guest size soaps and in a "Send a Soap" giftbox on their website.

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