Natural bodycare products hand-blended in the UK
UK-based skin, body and haircare line Green & Spring employs a simple philosophy for their packaging design: let the ingredients speak for themselves. Listed in full on the front of the bottles and containers alongside lovely illustrations of pastel-hued birds, the natural herbal and plant extracts that make up…
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Resourceful dads come up with crowd-pleasing organic chocolate bars
Certainly, there’s sugar everywhere. You may have a hankering for the traditional, mass-produced Mars bars and bionic sours on every corner, or wish to hold out for a more sophisticated free-trade 70% cacao gourmet morsel with enough antioxidants to be classified as a superfood. What about a little bit…
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Gluten-free energy bars from Vermont
Born from founder Leslie Kielson’s energy snack recipe experiments, Vermont’s Battenkill Brittle makes bars and crumble full of healthful seeds. A departure from the dense concoctions found in oatmeal bars, Battenkill’s version is light, crunchy and lightly sweetened. The gluten-free energy bars serve as the perfect treat or snack,…
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Build your own all-natural skincare regimen online
As the concept of customizable skincare moves online with greater sophistication than what could be found at traditional beauty counters, we were intrigued to test the new bespoke line by Truth Art Beauty. The company—created by two friends who met at Harvard Business School—is based around the two pillars of being “truly pure” with only natural ingredients and “truly yours” with tailored products created for each individual’s unique needs.
Like many of its market competitors, Truth Art Beauty deals with organic products. The line of handcrafted, customized blends is comprised of eye balm, face nourishing oil, body salve oil, body buff and bath salts. In addition to using oils in lieu of creams for their effectiveness, Truth Art Beauty makes their products 100% active—meaning they don’t use any fillers (such as water) in the manufacturing process. The brand, which doesn’t test on animals, approaches its 95% organic skincare products as if they were food: ingredients have to be fresh, unprocessed, all-natural and free of synthetic chemicals or artificial additives. Like food, they have an expiration date—the eye balm lasts for six months—because no preservatives are added.
While being pure and natural is all well and good, the products still must be effective. We tried the eye balm and the body oil, each of which we created on the site’s step-by-step formula-building process. The “truly yours” part of Truth Art Beauty’s doctrine that plays on another strong tendency in the market to offer skin solutions hand-picked by the individual based on their specific needs, and the customer is entrusted to know what he or she needs.
When we went on the site to create our personal products, we were faced with an intuitive, easy-to-navigate and informative interface to craft our concoctions. Not only was it fun to pick out our ingredients, but the transparency allowed for total awareness of what we’d be putting on our face and body, not to mention a bit of how it works.
For the eye balm, there are two steps to the selection process. Step one involves selecting a base among two ingredients whose properties—regeneration or protection—are explained along the way. Next, you choose among three “boosts” including firming and tightening, anti-aging and anti-puffiness—we chose anti-puffiness and anti-aging. With that our own blend was ready and on its way.
Body products involve 3-4 steps. Beginning with adapting one’s skin type, and finishing with the selection of a fragrance, the process is set up to allow only compatible combinations of ingredients and properties. Plus, a comprehensive glossary is available on the website and can be checked to find out more about each ingredient. In addition to the customized formulas, ready-made creams are also available.
The goods were delivered in bottles made from recycled glass and plastic, and it should be noted that the ingredients are not listed on the actual containers. Both products we tried delivered satisfactory results, and we were pleased with how gentle they felt on our skin. The eye balm didn’t irritate that sensitive area in the least, and our lids felt brighter and younger after a short time of using the product. The body oil effectively moisturized without leaving oily or sticky residue in its wake.
Truth Art Beauty products are made in New York and are available online. Visit the website to learn more and to build your own personalized face and body regimen.
Celebrate the season with the Hamptons’ local juice
Taking the motto “Made with love in Montauk,” Sweet ‘tauk Lemonade is a locavore juicer located at the far reaches of New York’s Long Island. Founder Debora Aiza makes lemonades that blend local ingredients and lemons imported from optimal growing conditions, sweetened with a touch of raw agave nectar. On a recent weekend in the Hamptons we paired ours with club soda to make refreshing—though we have it on good authority that they shine as cocktail mixers as well.
The unpasteurized drink foregoes sugar in favor of the natural agave for a mild sweetness that packs fewer calories than the standard summer juice, while flavor combinations like watermelon and cucumber and the season’s pitch-perfect iced tea-lemonade mix make Sweet ‘tauk a superior gourmet choice over sugary concentrates. At around $10 per quart, the lemonades are also a bit pricier than what you might see at a stand, but they’re well worth it for the small batch production and all-natural attributes.
The just-launched juices are currently available at East Hampton Gourmet Foods and Balsam Farms in Long Island, NY, though we expect to see Aiza’s concoctions making their way off the island sometime soon.
The Swedish sweet shop introduces all-natural popsicles for summer
Offering a bright white respite from the bustle of Christopher Street, Sockerbit is a Scandinavian sweet shop in NYC’s West Village known for its delectable selection of traditional smågodis (little candies) and its pristine, rainbow-lined interior. The shop—whose name literally translates to “lump of sugar”—was opened in 2010 by Stefan Ernberg and his wife, Florence Baras. Specializing in all things sweet and Swedish—with foodstuffs and toys from neighboring Denmark as well—Sockerbit carries more than 149 different candies priced by the pound. All of their candies are naturally colored and free of genetically modified ingredients and trans fats. “Usually there are more adults in here than kids,” says Baras. “Our candies may look like other candy, but once people try them they can taste the difference.”
This summer, Sockerbit introduced a line of popsicles made in collaboration with Go-Go Pops, a company based in Cold Springs, New York. The flavors are inspired by Sockerbit’s goodies and traditional Swedish flavors like lingonberry and lemon-elderberry pop. Some varieties include small pieces of candy, like the salted licorice, which features chunks of Sockerbit’s bestselling sweet. Like Sockerbit’s other products, their popsicles are naturally flavored and sweetened. “The best part about working with Go-Go Pops is that they are constantly updating the line to include seasonal ingredients,” says Baras. “There is only about one cup of sugar in every 500 popsicles.”
Our favorite popsicles included their Rocky Road fudgesicle, which is delightfully dotted with Swedish marshmallows, and strawberry flavored with rose petals. For an ode to their new home, the star-spangled pop gets a jolt of Americana color with strawberries, blueberries and lemon. The popsicles are $3.80 each and are sold exclusively in-store, while candy is available through the online shop as well.
Goat milk caramels from an artsy Vermont confectionary
Billed as a “farmstead confectionary,” Vermont’s Big Picture Farms is dedicated to blending the sweet creamy goodness of goat milk into candy. As founder Louisa Conrad explains, the short fatty acid chains found in goat’s milk make for a smoother taste in their caramels. Conrad runs the business with her husband Lucas Farrell, both trained artists who have since turned to goat farming, cheese-making and confections. While caramel—a relatively simple blend of sugar, cream, vanilla and salt—leaves little room for variation, we were taken aback by the divinely silky texture of the pillow-soft sweets.
While their caramels are similar in style to those made by San Francisco’s Happy Goat, Big Picture’s secret touch seems to lie in their relationship with their goats. Each has a name and a personality to match, and the spoiled herd changes pastures daily for better grazing. Due to variations in the goats’ breed and diet, the art of the caramel comes from Conrad’s ability to blend milks from different animals in order to get the desired taste. For the packaging, Conrad draws portraits of the goats and Farrell works it into the label.
“If you’ve hung around goats long enough, it would be impossible not to name them,” says Conrad of the brand’s beloved faces. “It’s stiff competition being the cover goat. We try to be democratic about it; no goat gets featured more than once.”
Big Picture Farm goat’s milk caramels are available from their online shop. Interested eaters can keep track of farm life—and news the upcoming chai flavor—on the Big Picture blog.
Organic liquor blending tradition and innovation
It’s not a new product, but for the first time Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction’s signature liquor, Root, is available outside of creator Steve Grasse’s home state of Pennsylvania. Art in The Age, which hosts a retail store in Philadelphia, is a brand named after Walter Benjamin’s landmark 1936 essay, “Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction,” the themes of which Grasse tried to incorporate into everything he produces, “Emphasizing a pre-industrial ethos, before mass production turned everything crappy”, he says.
As a man who prefers gin martinis or straight whisky over flavored liquors, Root surprised me with its layered, complex flavor. It does make everything taste like root beer, and the fact is if you don’t like sugary things you won’t like Root. It’s sweet—in fact I joke that it is what a 14-year-old would drink to get drunk—but it is also 80 proof, old-timey, and delicious.
Grasse, a principal of the creative agency Quaker City Mercantile, is the creator of Hendrick’s Gin and Sailor Jerry rum. After he sold those brands to William Grant and Sons (they own Glenfiddich and Stoli, and are now partners in Quaker City Mercantile) in 2006, he was looking to challenge himself. “I wanted to come up with something that doesn’t fit into any category and is in the plainest possible bottle. I wanted to purposely handicap myself,” says Grasse.
What he developed was Root. Using American herbs, including anise, birch bark, cloves, spearmint and cardamom, he distilled a certified organic spirit based on root tea, the recipe for which goes back to the 1700s. “I thought it would be interesting to create something that was Authentically American,” he says.
“I read about root tea and how it was a small beer, that’s a beer with low alcohol content,” he says. “Charles Hires was the one who took the alcohol out of root tea and rechristened it ‘root beer’. I was inspired by the root tea story. I decided to make it way more alcoholic, but use those same ingredients.” But the goal was also to create something personal – growing up in Pennsylvania Dutch country, Grasse had always loved root beer. “Spirits tend to have these wild stories of origin based on exotic places. Some of the weirdest, most exotic people I know live in Lancaster county.”
His distributors were skeptical. “They said, ‘No one will buy this. No one will find it in the store. It doesn’t taste like anything out there.’ I told them, ‘People will discover it.’ The fact that it doesn’t taste like anything else will be the story.”
Instead of paying bars and bartenders to push the stuff, Grasse went grassroots. He placed Root at farmer’s markets, where he would lay out the herbs for people to smell, and have samples in which people could dip bread to try it. He sponsored a chili cook-off and worked with the Pennsylvania Historical Society. “I said, ‘I want the fat civil war enthusiast who plows through a bottle of scotch a day to love it. And they will. They’ll take it to their dinner parties and they’ll talk about it’,” says Grasse. He also put all his focus on getting the stuff into liquor stores, not bars. “Usually a brand is launched entirely in the bars, with mixologists,” he says. “The industry is ripe to be fucked with. It’s like payola. They get the bartenders in their pocket.”
His efforts seem to have paid off. Root is spreading throughout the US, and Grasse has since rolled out Snap, a ginger liquor, Rhuby, based on rhubarb, and Spodee, a high-alcohol, herbed wine distributed in milk bottles. For Grasse, a history buff, the joy is in producing something traditional, and American, but also in doing something truly different, and messing with the system.
“How many more vodkas or rye whiskeys can there be on the market?” he asks. “New vodkas have become parodies of themselves.”
Effective organic deodorant cream for sensitive skin
The issue of aluminum-based, fragrance-added deodorant poses a problem for those with allergies or sensitivity, or anyone averse to the chemicals required to fight sweat and odor. If we still lived in a nomadic hunter-gatherer society, our personal scents would identify us to our tribe, but unfortunately, that kind of natural state isn’t always a viable option. Anyone who has experimented with alternatives has likely discovered that most natural deodorants, baby powder and crystals are comically ineffective.
That’s why we were thrilled to discover Soapwalla Kitchen deodorant cream. Gently scented with lavender and peppermint, the light formula is applied by hand like any body cream, and absorbs instantly into the skin. No white streaks betray its presence, and there is no waiting period for it to dry. Most importantly it’s effective—having gone dry and stain-free during both everyday activities and even on a particularly intense three-mile run, we can confirm. The moisture-absorbing properties come courtesy of a mix of arrowroot powder, starches, baking powder and kaolin clay, without a trace of aluminum.
Soapwalla founder Rachel Winard started her line of bath and body products about 10 years ago as she was struggling with the symptoms of systemic lupus, one of which is extremely sensitive skin. Although she designed the products for herself, she vetted the formulas, their application and their scents with her friends and family before debuting them to a larger audience who could benefit as well. “I tried other application methods for deodorant but I didn’t love the texture or the fact that I needed to use waxes for them to maintain their shape,” Winard says. “I like the minimal packaging, and the user has much more control over how much and where they’d like to apply the deodorant.”
For anyone who has spent years wiping baby powder off clothes or felt resigned to choose between aluminum or sweat stains, Soapwalla’s deodorant cream might seem like a lifesaver. The cream sells for $12 and can be found online, along with Soapwalla’s complete line of vegan, organic, sensitive-skin body oils, lip balms and soaps.
Organic hydration in an eco-friendly powdered mix
Powdered varietals of anything can be a bit hit-and-miss. As coconut water aficionados, we approached YogaEarth‘s “Purity” coconut water with a due degree of skepticism. While it didn’t quite live up to other fresh offerings, the mix was met with unanimous approval. Powder—while not the sexiest of states—has the advantage of extended shelf life, commuter-friendly packaging and a lower ecological footprint since you’re transporting powder in biodegradable paper rather than liquid in plastic bottles.
YogaEarth’s personal relationship with their farms ensures fair treatment of workers at the source, and their commitment to health keeps the crystalized coconut water 100% organic. The virgin coconuts are hand-harvested in Brazil and Java, and no ingredients are added to enhance the flavor.
YogaEarth’s recently released ready-to-go sticks are also a boon for commuters in need of convenient hydration. The powder fully dissolves without any gritty dregs for a slightly sweet drink or a healthy addition to smoothies. Teeming with electrolytes and minerals, coconut water is the recovery drink of choice post-workout and post-Saturday night.
Purity Coconut Water is available from YogaEarth’s online shop.
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