Why lotion bars and not just lotion?
For all knitters and crocheters, skincare is important. Whether your Knitflixing the cold winter months away, or your hands are dry and chapped from crocheting on the beach, handling yarn for hours on end takes its toll. Especially for yarn crafters, lotion alone doesn’t do the job. Lotion bars aren’t in liquid form. They’re wax discs you can rub between your hands to moisturize and protect your skin, and they usually smell pretty amazing.
Love & Leche Lotion Bars in particular
Love & Leche’s lotion bars are made with a combination of beeswax, coconut oil, almond oil infused with Certified Organic calendula flowers, and they’re scented with essential oils. As you rub the lotion bar between your hands, the heat from your body softens the bar and the beeswax and oil are transferred to your skin without tons of mess.
Love & Leche lotion bars are palm oil free (which is good news for your skin, the environment, and orangutans – seriously, palm oil is not great), perfume and artificial fragrance free, and they’re safe for use on yourself, or even on a pet’s cracked paws. You can read more about Love & Leche’s ingredients here.
They use ingredients sourced locally to their Santa Fe, New Mexico headquarters. The beekeeper who provides their beeswax is pictured on their site. They know the farmers who grow the calendula flowers they use. Even the molds their lotion bars are poured into (which, hello, between the cute sheep and adorable bees, are beautiful!) were designed by a local sculptor. I could… wax poetic (sorry not sorry) about how much I like these, but this cute video is more fun than reading my ramblings:
My two cents
With regular marathon knit & crochet sessions, for me personally, I am lucky enough to have a set of cuticles that only rarely crack, even in winter. My burden to bear hand-wise is definitely cracked fingertips. Try as I might over and over to stop, I still catch myself chewing the odd fingernail when I’m deep in thought or stressed out about a design deadline. Between that bad habit and constantly handling crochet hooks, knitting needles and just about any fiber I can get my hands on, the tips of my fingers take a beating. Especially the tips of my right thumb, pointer and middle fingers right where the skin meets the tip of each nail. I also knit continental style and crochet carrying my yarn exactly the same as I knit – the working yarn is woven over the top of my left ring and index fingers, and under my middle finger. So I can get callouses on those fingers if I’m not diligent about taking care of my skin.
I love lotion bars, and Love & Leche’s in particular, because I can moisturize right in the middle of a row without having to worry about wet or greasy lotion residue transferring to my work. I put on a thin layer as I work whenever I feel my hands drying, and I’m good to go! And if I rub in a thick layer right before bed, it helps my hands heal overnight too. The other thing is that those scents I mentioned above are legit to-die-for, especially if you prefer products that smell like real things from nature, rather than fake, chemically scents.
The best way to round out telling you how much I endorse Love & Leche’s lotion bars is to let you know this: I’ve even ordered them for the Hands Occupied Shop! The Shop is definitely something I’ve only soft-launched in the background for selling pattern PDFs and work workshop signups to this point, but there are two dozen of Love & Leche’s bars literally sitting in the Shop “warehouse” (I own a small business and will therefore be real – it’s the top shelf of my linen closet) waiting to be added. I’m just saying – I would not invest money in a product to sell that I didn’t really love myself. And I wouldn’t be wasting your time either.
Giveaway – enter to win a bar to try yourself!
Ok! Enough about my opinions here – let’s give you a chance to try a Love & Leche Sweet Sheep Lotion Bars for yourself. We’re raffling off a Citrus Rose scented Sweet Sheep Lotion Bar that comes in its own tin as well as a drawstring bag. Enter using the box below – if you’re on mobile, you’ll click a button that takes you to the entry page. Open to United States & Canada.
This sounds like a fantastic product! I LOVE that it’s palm oil free and how you called out the importance of choosing products that are palm oil free. Palm oil is so ubiquitous, and it’s an environmental nightmare that doesn’t get a lot of attention.
I have used this product for years and wouldn’t miss the Santa Fe Farmers market when traveling to
snatch up a supply, and have ord red them online as well. The woman who makes these is heroes in
supporting local people i. her community. All that karma goes into her products!
I love this lotion bar. I have used it many times as my hands dry out from washing constant washing with those harsh bathroom liquid soaps. Frankly they are like floor stripper. I can carry this lovely little tin and bar with me on a plane – not a liquid s no issues. It has saved my hands many times.