Archive (2007-2008)
Caribbean Beat Magazine
Issue No. 97 - May/June 2009
NATURAL BEAUTY THE WEST INDIAN WAY
by Guyanne Wilson
In some ways the people of the Caribbean have always been green. Among the Amerindians, an oft-used cure-all comprised herbs, stones, and different types of snakes mixed in an alcohol-based liquid. Later, East Indian immigrants brought with them Hindu herbal treatments, such as the use of turmeric, or hardi, to cure headaches. Then there are the local “bush” concoctions of our childhood: vervaine tea for a “cooling”, chadon beni (bandaniya) root for fevers, coughs and colds.
Now we’ve turned to Mother Nature to help us create a wide range of toiletries and cosmetics, including body soaps, lotions and body butters; shampoos, conditioners, hair moisturisers and other hair-maintenance products; massage oils and facial cleansers.
Words like “natural”, “herbal”, “organic” and “green” are now familiar to everyone. But they don’t all mean the same thing. The term “organic” has a legal meaning, and is given to crops and animals obtained from farms that follow strict standards, including crop rotation and the intensely restricted use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides.
But while these standards are enforced in North America and Europe, there aren’t similar guidelines for producers in the Caribbean to follow, or anyone to test the products and grant such certification. Furthermore, Caribbean toiletry-makers import many of their raw materials, and cannot guarantee that these have been grown and reared under organic conditions.
For these reasons, many Caribbean cosmetic-makers are reluctant to call their products organic. Instead, some prefer to call their handiwork “natural”, or use the label “herbal”, which describes goods that contain only plant products.
Some producers, such as Trinidad and Tobago’s Cheryl Bowles, favour local ingredients which are usually available without much hassle. The sorrel, coconut water, bois bandé and shea butter used in her Cher Mère products are all sourced locally. Similarly, Michelle Yap of Jamaica’s ItalBlends obtains the goat’s milk she uses in her soaps from local producers whenever possible. The bias towards local ingredients is part of what Bowles calls “culture cosmetics”, the spirit of which is captured in product names including Trinidadian expressions such as Bazodee Body Lotion, Doux Doux Body Butter and Hott Foot Pedi Scrub. A similar sentiment is shared by Italblends, whose product lines use well-known Jamaican sayings such as “Lively Up Yourself” and “Pure Niceness”.
It’s possible for producers to grow some of their own ingredients. At the Soap Kitchen’s base in Tacarigua, Trinidad, a variety of herbs and fruit are grown on the spacious grounds. Leigh Mohammed cultivates lemon grass, rosemary, thyme and other herbs. She also has mango trees, whose fruit she uses. When mangoes are in season, she dries them and stores the dried fruit for use whenever she needs it.
read the online article-
http://www.meppublishers.com/online/caribbean-beat/past_issues/index.php?id=cb97-2-56
Need a bush bath? Try this soap
By Darcel Choy Sunday, June 7 2009
Two years ago Lopez took the plunge and opened her own shop, The Soap Kitchen, located in Tacarigua, where she produces natural handmade soaps and a range of natural creams, organic body butters and aromatherapy bath creations that she promises are formulated with the finest ingredients. According to Lopez, her products are packed with natural anti-oxidants to neutralise free radicals that are a cause of skin deterioration, lines, wrinkles and premature ageing.
In an interview recently at the National Museum’s craft and cultural fair where she was featuring her products, she told Sunday Newsday that she realised a few years ago that she needed a change from the regular eight to four job.
“I just got tired of being behind a desk and decided to put all my energy into making soaps and then my friends and family starting inveigling me to get into business,” she said.
Lopez started getting her business together by sitting down and coming up with new and unique blends for her soaps.
“I am an aromatherapist so I knew how to choose which scents, what would be soothing and invigorating in the soaps. I also knew what essential oils would be beneficial for each type of soap,” she said.
The oils that are used in her soaps include vegetable oils, coconut, olive, sunflower and soybean.
“We also add cocoa butter, mango butter, nutmeg butter and many other exotic butters. The choice of the oils is based on what they want the soaps to do at the end. If we wanted to do a moisturising soap we would use the olive and coconut oils. Shear butter would also be included and then we would just blend all of them together to make the soap,” she explained.
She said that commercial soaps are filled with animal fats while her products are carefully formulated without using any harsh chemicals, detergents, or petroleum based ingredients. Many products also feature organic ingredients such as organic oatmeal, rice flour, and cornmeal.
Lopez offers a wide variety of soaps that have a variety of uses. These include mango, charcoal, rose, bush bath soaps and many others.
She describes the process of production as “a lot of work” but she has four employees to help her along.
“Every inch of the process is done by hand, for example with the mango, we collect the ripe mangoes during the season and then we shred them and dry them in the sun, then we bottle it,” she said.
One of their most popular products is the bush bath soap because it is something people are not used to seeing.
“The bush bath soap is made up of different local bushes like carilli, Christmas bush, hibiscus and a few others. These things clean the skin and take the free radicals away from the body,” she said.
Lopez revealed that nothing is wasted when making these natural soaps. “We use every part, the roots, the stems, the branches everything,” she said.
Lopez, an avid environmentalist, is the mother of two sons, eight and four, who also have a say in what is put into her products.
“My eldest son is always up for something new that I could try. He was the one who suggested to me that I use bananas in the soaps and that has become another popular one,” she said.
She hopes in the future to export her products regionally and internationally and she plans to to introduce two other variants of her Carilli and Bush Bath soaps that are going to come out on the market very soon.
Lopez said the most fun part of what she does is sitting down and creating her recipes. “To see the people I have never met and who have used my products and their response to me is always something positive. People swear by my soaps,” she said.
view online article- http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,101647.html
Museum hosts craft and cultural fairBy Darcel Choy Sunday, May 24 2009
http://www.newsday.co.tt/day/1,30200.html
Betting on cocoa
By Venus Honore-Gopie
Thursday, April 2 2009 from-Newsday Newspaper.
Cocoa farmers are betting their pods on a much-touted Government plan that seeks to revitalise the sector and increase cocoa production. View article online- http://www.newsday.co.tt/businessday/0,97799.html
Ten percent of the nation’s cocoa farmers between the ages of 20 to 35 are now part of The Cocoa Revitaliser Programme (CRP) which aims to attract young people to cocoa farming to help renew and prolong the industry and stimulate added-value to enterprises based on cocoa, said Agriculture Minister Arnold Piggott at the opening ceremony of the Second Roundtable for a Sustainable Cocoa Economy, a big conference held at the the Hyatt Regency, Hotel last week.
The programme was launched recently by the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and the Cocoa and Coffee Industry Board to increase cocoa production to continue attracting premium prices and satisfy the demand for TT cocoa on the global market.
The CRP has assisted 246 farmers financially on 2,390 acres of land. Among 2,000 farmers currently growing cocoa in TT, some 85 percent are between 40 and 55 years.
But a number of local farmers have expanded their production activities to include processing of chocolates, cocoa powder and cocoa-based toiletries, some of which are being exported regionally, Piggott said.
In the last few years, cocoa production has stabilised at 1,000 to 2,000 metric tonnes per annum. Piggott added, “Collaborating with stakeholders in the industry, we have seen the revival and development of over 1,200 hectares, which will double our national output in the next three years.”
Some 2,000 cocoa farmers with average farm sizes of two to five hectares produce 200 to 800 kg per hectare. There are about five to six large farm holdings.
According to Dr Jan Vingerhoets, Executive Director, International Cocoa and Coffee Organisation, there had been an enormous shifting in demand from white chocolates to rich dark chocolates “and you have a high quality grade of cocoa.”
“The cocoa price in the world market is normal compared to double the price you can get from Trinidad and Tobago. Manufacturers all over the world are searching to find the finest cocoa beans in places they would not normally go trying to find find cocoa,” he said.
Farmer Lookhoor in Sudama Village, Fyzabad, is currently working on the abandoned cocoa estate that once belonged to his father and which he wants make viable.
He started from scratch. “The cocoa estate was always there but it wasn’t worked properly until it was revamped about ten years ago,” he said. He purchased his cocoa seedlings from Centeno at $1 each.
His concern is that there is not enough technical advice from either the Ministry of Agriculture or the Cocoa and Coffee Industry Board, adding that he could do with advice on planting new cocoa plants and pruning.
Sudama said his father taught him how to plant and reap the cocoa. “We have to purchase our own fertilisers. There’s no help from the ministry nor from the CCIB to purchase any fertilisers, insecticides nothing at all,” said Looknoor. From planting the seedling to harvesting, it takes five years before a cocoa plant reaches maturity.
“ The CCIB through the ADB is giving farmers a loan but the position with the loan is that the cocoa takes five years to bear and farmer have to finish their payment in five years time,” he explained, noting that the rate is too high at eight percent interest.
The cocoa farmers are now trying to form a cocoa farmers group to lobby for what they want. But the cocoa industry is being given a new lease with entrepreneurs looking at ways to capitalise on the bean. Isabel Brash uses the beans from their Rancho Quemado estate to make her chocolate that is made by hand “It is very labour intensive so I can’t make a lot on my own right now. It is done by order. If somebody wants to make via an order they can e-mail me, that’s how I do it,” she said.
Brash said it takes three days to refine the chocolate but she also makes cocoa powder and butter.
Brash said her chocolate started after she told her brother to bring home some of the cocoa beans for her. “I started to do a lot of work with it through research and by reading a lot,” she said.
Another entrepreneur, Surendra Persad of Quarry Village, Siparia, said the cocoa is processed on behalf of the CCIB which markets it abroad. The products include cocoa liquor, powder and butter but mainly liquor, she said.
“Even though our cocoa is sold at such a high price the cost of production that goes into it needs to be looked at the cost of labour is very high,” she said.
“If we have such a prime product the Government needs to look at putting some form of emphasis on it,” she said. CCIB has to play a greater role in marketing the by-products of cocoa. “They could put more emphasis on marketing rather than the raw beans,” she said. At The Soap Kitchen, Leigh Lopez makes handmade soaps, body and other beauty products. Lopez, a beauty product manufacturer said, the raw cocoa butter is combined with olive oil, cocoa butter, soya bean oil and vitamin E to make the beauty products.
The cost of the raw cocoa beans is probably about TT$20 per kilo. “We purchase a lot of the whole beans and we grind it ourselves which is cheaper,” she said, noting that started the business about two years ago.
“Cocoa is something wonderful not only to make chocolate but it is good for your skin it is a great moisturiser to be used on top of the skin,” she said.
Now, she has customers requesting her soap. “A lot of people like the idea that it is local and the soap does not have any chemicals especially for those who care about the environment and those who care about what they used on their body,” she said.
Biki S Khurana, managing director of the Rausch Plantagenkakao chocolate company said great care was taken with how their chocolate was made. “ Our chocolates are pure chocolates filled with cocoa mass, butter, cane sugar and milk powder. No lecithin and soya.” he said.
“We have partners who have been purchasing cocoa for us in TT for many years from the board directly,” he said, adding that the Rausch company works only with the best in the market.
“The cocoa from TT currently enjoys a high premium which is almost double the stock exchange price,” he said.
Duane Dove, who owns the 30 acre Tobago Cocoa Estate specializes in the Trinitario special hybrid cocoa but which is also grown with cassava. “We also bake cassava bread at the estate so when we have visitors form the cruise ship and they sample it,” he said.
He said the $20 TT per kilo needed to be raised to TT$30 per kilo. “The bulk cocoa which is used for regular candy chocolates in TT is fine flavour but that is only used for artisan chocolates in the market.”
“We have a premium so we get up to $5,000 per tonne which is double the amount you get for bulk,” he explained. He said what the authorities have to do is try and facilitate a better working relationship with the companies who manufacture the by-products.
As it is where is right now a lot of stuff is sold through brokers and agents, he said. “There’s a lot of people in the chain that is making money of the farmer and we need to cut down on that chain and have a more direct working relationship between farmer and manufacturers.
That is the only way growth will be stimulated in the industry,” he said. Like other farmers, he said chemicals were expensive and urged government to help subsidize this cost. .
While TT farmers deal with praedial larceny, in Tobago the biggest problem is dealing with parrots which is a deterrent for farmers. He has hired falconer Kelton Thomas who to help scare away the parrots with hawks .
“He comes in when the parrots are feeding and the hawk patrols the area and scare the birds away. It is the parrots’ natural enemy. That is the most defective way to deal with the parrot problem and environmental friendly,” he said.
“What we are doing is putting nets all over our pods which is pretty expensive and a tedious project. The netting is bought and it takes a lot of time for my staff to go around. I have 12,000 trees all those trees that are bearing have to put nets on them,” he said.
He said across the board, the industry was facing a labour problem.
“We have such a big gap because the older cocoa farmers have died out, the young people don’t know about cocoa,” he said .
He said to stimulate interest, primary schools should organise more field trips to the farms. “It is the same thing with tourism, people need to be educated and it should be worked into the curriculum,” he said.
Last year 500,000 cocoa seedlings were made available from the La Reunion experimental station and sold to farmers at $1 to ensure they have access to superior planting material and knowledge of good agronomic practices for growing, harvesting and processing.
In addition, old plantation trees are being replaced on some farms by newer varieties known, a project known as Trinidad Selected Hybrids (TSH) which is looking at “super” clones which will have a good yield of between 1000 to 2000 kg per hectare, be more resistance to Witches’ Broom disease and possess fine of flavor characteristics.
In order to have mutual support among farmers 10 local cocoa farmers’ group has been formed to share their knowledge and ideas by co-operating with each other. Piggott said as of March 11, 2009 the price of raw cocoa was US $2,300.67 per tonne on the New York Futures market. But TT’s fine flavour cocoa attracts on average US$5,000 per tonne.
The annual earnings of the cocoa industry in the chocolate manufacturing and other cocoa products, Piggott said, is estimated at US $70 billion.
Sampling delights from the Soap Kitchen
By Rhea-Simone Auguste from Trinidad Express Newspaper.
This is the link to the feature. http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_woman_mag?id=161442677 Article copied and pasted from the link above. Thanks Rhea-Simone Auguste and Express Newspaper.
All Photos by: ROBERTO CODALLO
It all started with just TT$2,000 worth of material and the will to succeed. Creative, talented and well-educated, the move from working in corporate Trinidad to starting up a home-based business was a risky one for Leigh Lopez. But fast forward two years to the present and she'll be the first to admit that opening The Soap Kitchen (TSK) was well worth the risk.
"I love what I do. I don't even see it as work because I enjoy doing it," she said while opening a basket of her best-selling products. Within seconds, the combined fragrances permeated every corner of the room. Soon the interview shifted from being one of questions and answers to a few minutes of oohs and aahs over her soap selection with a few people coming inside to see what all the fuss was about.
"You can smell the soap from outside," one curious onlooker shared.
Beyond the luscious smell, the presentation of the soap was impressive: a round of soap made to look like a frosted birthday cake, sliced to perfection; delightful coffee bars with coffee grounds embedded in the bar; crisp, cool mint bars and sea salt bars guaranteed to clean the skin without stripping natural oils.
"I learned how to make soap from my grandmother and I just expanded on that. My first clients were friends and family members and a lot of the process has been trial and error as I go along. I wanted to have an environmentally conscious business as I'm an avid environmentalist and I believe in protecting the environment. In fact, there is very little waste in our soap making process," Lopez noted.
"We re-use and recycle all our containers and try to reduce packaging by buying in bulk. We keep soap packaging to a functional minimal and display in permanent, reusable handmade crates. Our soap bag is made from organic cotton and that is reusable as well. Some soaps come in recycled paper and all of our soaps are 100 percent biodegradable, vegan and environmentally friendly."
Lopez expanded her knowledge of the soap business by doing extensive research. "The soaps they used to make long ago were a bit harsher because of the oils used. I use better oils for the skin. A lot of it is trial and error, using different recipes to see what works. In fact my eight-year-old son likes to say 'mommy is a mad scientist' because I'm always experimenting with different soap recipes."
Beyond the value to the environment, on a primary level Lopez said her products are better for overall skin conditioning. "Our soaps," she said, "are much better than commercial soaps. Our soaps are made with vegetable oils. A lot of the commercial soaps are made with animal fats. Some of them extract the glycerin from the soap. With my soaps, the glycerin is not extracted at all so it really moisturises your skin," Lopez noted.
She added: "TSK soaps are made with food grade plant oils: Olive oil is our major ingredient bringing nourishment, healing and moisture to the skin. Coconut oil moisturises the skin and creates a luxurious lather. We use palm oil for creamier soaps. Mango and shea butters, oils of sweet almond, apricot kernel, castor and calendula are chosen for their skin and hair care qualities in a variety of our soaps. And we only use pure therapeutic grade essential oils to perfume our soaps."
"Other additions come from nature. We use grains, spices, herbs, plant dyes and cosmetic clays from Australi and France. Our labels inform our customers of specific ingredients. Natural soap is better for your skin and what people should know is that we do not add TSK or use recycled oils, petrochemical derivatives or sodium lauryl sulphates."
Some of the top sellers include the coffee soap and the lavender, oats and bran soap. "The coffee is invigorating and it's also great for removing strong food odours so you can use it by your kitchen sink when you're rinsing your hands. For the body, the grounds exfoliate the skin and it's one of the more popular picks," Lopez shared.
Another favourite is the lavender, oats and bran soap which according to a brochure from TSK, "Is a great product as oats have been used topically to heal wounds and various skin rashes and diseases."
Her products are relatively inexpensive and are quickly becoming must-haves for the environmentally conscious. "Now you can get my soaps at Trincity mall at Cajevi Body and Bath, Soma's at Normandie Hotel, at the pharmacy in Hilton hotel, Chic Shak in Belmont also carries it and down South it's available at Herbs N Health in Gulf City."
Lopez has also expanded her business from body bars to offer environmentally-friendly soap powder, hand soaps, lotions, body scrubs, foot scrubs and other home-cleaning products. To see the full selection, log on to www.thesoapkitchentt.com or for more product information, call 640-5119 or 681-1536.
rauguste@trinidadexpress.com
Thank you all.
MEDIA LOVE
The Dream wedding Television show- This locally produced reality series, offers an entire wedding to one lucky couple, valued over $150,000.00. The Dream Wedding, which is a product of Basil Lai Entertainment, is an eight (8) part series. The Soap Kitchen is one the shows sponsors. We sponsored spa gift baskets to the contestants.
MEDIA LOVE
THE SOAP KITCHEN
Participated in Trinidad Guardian Newspapers
How Do I Love Mom competition 2008.
We contributed four spa baskets filled with all natural spa goodness
Soaps, body oils, massage oils, sugar scrubs, salt scrubs and more.
View our spa baskets we gave as prizes in the competition below.
We donated over $800.00ttd in products for this competition.