About

March 2020

I’ve come out of retirement to make face masks.

See the mask section of this website.

Thank you.


2019

I’m retired from soap making.

I leave this website up hoping it might inspire you!

Thank you for visiting.


Hemp Oil Soap

Hemp Oil Soap

America’s oldest hemp soap company.

Since 1993 I’ve made Artha Hemp Soaps by hand in small batches with the finest whole ingredients. My proprietary recipe evolved from recipes that are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years old.

The soap is made with food grade coconut oil, California olive oil, California rainwater, and alkali (from sea salt).

I superfat the soap with nourishing hemp seed oil, and then add a unique combination of ingredients: aromatherapy-grade plant oils called essential oils (never synthetic fragrances) whole grain flours, ground nuts, herbs, spices, and plant roots, gums & resins.

These are ingredients which have proven to be safe over the millennia. Glycerin, a natural by-product of soapmaking, is left in the soap. It hydrates the skin by drawing moisture from the air.

Schumacher College, place of inspiration for my hemp soap

Schumacher College, place of inspiration for my hemp soap

Inspiration

  • This business was started as a stubborn inspiration: while studying environmental philosophy in England at Schumacher College I was introduced to the industrial use of hemp, hemp prohibition, and handmade, herbally-based soaps & cosmetics.
  • This unusual combination of influences followed me as I traveled around Europe and eventually returned home to California.
  • Not knowing I was starting a business, I began experimenting with recipes and eventually developed Artha Handmade Soap with Hemp Seed Oil.
  • The word artha is Sanskrit, our Indo-European mother tongue, and means riches, abundance and wealth, and is the root of the word Earth.
  • Our business name reflects our desire to draw upon our rich, abundant, healthy, and often untapped inheritance.
Hemp soaps and sunflower, hemp seeds, oatmeal, lavender.

Hemp soaps and sunflower, hemp seeds, oatmeal, lavender

Principles

The principles of Artha Handmade Hemp Soaps are to:

  • encompass a macro-level definition of health and beauty in our product design and business plan;
  • make items that promote health and beauty for humans as well as the rest of creation;
  • educate about the industrial use of hemp in order to usher our society toward an environmentally-based era;
  • use the human body and human hand as the basis for craftsmanship, rhythm, and creation.
    The Flammarion Image - hemp soap works with the cosmos

    The Flammarion Image – hemp soap works with the cosmos not against it

      Kosmos

    • Although soap is not legally a cosmetic (according to the F.D.A.), it might be considered one: it is used everyday to create and maintain order and beauty in our physical and psychic worlds.
    • Remember, the word cosmetic is derived from the ancient Greek word kosmos which means world, order, and universe.
    • Many soaps and cosmetics, while seeming to add order at the individual or micro-level, often tear and rupture the Great Web of Life, creating disorder at the collective or macro-level.
    • How a product decays is as important as how it is created: the decay process creates the building blocks for the next cycle of life and beauty.
    • This is why we use renewable, botanically-based ingredients and packaging materials that are bio-degradable and suitable for the home gray water system and compost pile.
    • We want to work with and fit into living systems.

    Artha Hemp Soap IngredientsIngredients

    • The soap is made with food grade coconut oil, California olive oil, California rainwater, and alkali (from sea salt) (also known as sodium hydroxide).
    • We “superfat” the soap with nourishing hemp seed oil, then add a unique combination of ingredients: aromatherapy-grade essential oils (not synthetic fragrances), whole grain flours, seeds, clay, herbs, spices, plant roots, gums and resins, ingredients which have proven safe over millennia.
    • Glycerin, a natural by-product of soap making, is left in the soap.  Sometimes soap makers call this “retained natural glycerine”. It hydrates the skin by drawing moisture from the air.
    • The final creation is a gentle, rich soap, great for all your washing needs.
    • It’s great for shaving and shampooing.
    • People with environmental sensitivities can often enjoy scented body care products again with our soaps.
    • Never tested on laboratory animals but always tested on the soap maker (who is a mammal, don’t forget).
    • We never use palm oil because it destroys the rainforest. It is not a sustainable oil.
    • We never use mineral pigments (for coloring) because minerals must be mined. Mining is an extractive process that destroys Earth. It is not a sustainable method of gathering ingredients.
    Hemp plants -  source of the oil for our soap

    Hemp plants – source of the oil for our soap

    Hemp

    • Hemp, whose botanical name is Cannabis sativa, has been used by humans for at least 10,000 years.
    • Every part of the plant is useful, it grows in practically any climate, and enriches the poorest of soils.
    • It does not require the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers, as cotton does, and yields four times the pulp-per-acre of trees.
    • It has played an important role in the evolution of human consciousness. It made humanity’s first sails, our first blue jeans, the paper for the Declaration of Independence, shoes in ancient China, a famous vestment of the Virgin Mary in Mexico, fire hoses in France, and Russian peasants stayed healthy by eating hemp seed butter.
    • Hemp offers healthy alternatives to many of today’s environmentally damaging industries.
    • Today it is being made into food, medicine, fabric, paint, fuel, and even cellulose plastics.
    Hemp seed oil makes our soap kind to skin

    Hemp seed oil makes our soap kind to skin

    Hemp Seed Oil

    • Hemp seed oil is pressed from the live seeds of the plant, Cannabis sativa (useful or cultivated cannabis).
    • 30-40% of the seed is oil of which 81% is the very healthy poly-unsaturated essential fatty acid known as E.F.A.
    • E.F.A.s are absorbed by the skin, replenishing natural oils that are damaged by sun (UV light) and air (oxygen).
    • Hemp seed oil is known as an anti-inflammatory, it fortifies the immune system, and has a fantastic softening effect on the skin.

             

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