A Week on the Estate: Mast Hunting, Litter Picking & Gorgeous Soap

Finally, let’s talk soap. We’re proud of our Massingberd-Mundy Milk Soap, made with milk from our very own herd of heritage breed Lincoln Red cattle. We’re so keen to share the love that from 20^th January, we’ll be giving away a FREE bar of Milk Soap with every order of any Massingberd-Mundy produce over £50.

You’ll receive either Anne’s Oat & Honey, Louisa’s Purifier or Mary’s Natural Moisturiser. We’ll pick for you and it’ll be a delightful surprise!

Here’s Mark Vines on the origins of our soap: “The Reds are milked throughout spring and summer when the pastures are at their most lush, and this comes across in the milk. The basic saponification simply involves combining an alkali with dairy fat. Here, we mix lye with frozen milk to get the reaction going, add essential oils, blend it all, pour it into a mould, allow it to set over weeks then cut it into bars. You have to start with frozen milk to prevent burning as the reaction produces heat. Lincoln Red soap is smooth, creamy and excellent for moisturising.”

Here’s Georgina Routh on getting the soap ready for our lovely customers: “I enjoyed the soap project and I’m proud of it. I’d done nothing like it before. I had to create multiple types of soap with names, packaging, safety standards and everything. I came to it cold but did a lot of research and got a sense of what sells.

“It took six months from beginning my research to selling milk soap. I needed the Lincoln Red team to get me 15L-20L of Lincoln Red milk each day to start the project off. The milk needed to be frozen, weighed and split into 225g loaves. Each loaf took 4-6 weeks to saponify, and it can take that long to see if a recipe has worked.

“There was a bit of trial and error but it went well overall. A couple of loaves didn’t work, but the issues tended to be cosmetic. We avoided waste by giving the visually imperfect soap to staff to test. It was thrilling to see the soap selling well and getting such a positive response.”

Here’s Mark on blending the perfect soap for every occasion: “Anne’s Exfoliating Oat & Honey Milk Soap features honey from the bees in the Walled Garden and Estate-grown oats. Louisa’s Purifying Four Thieves Milk Soap is fragrant with essences of rosemary, eucalyptus, clove and lemon. Mary’s Natural Moisturising Milk Soap is unscented and hypoallergenic for sensitive skin, with natural Lincoln Red creaminess to the fore. As ours are traditional, hand-made, small-batch soaps, they hold their shape for longer if they don’t sit in water.”

This is a perfect time to see what the fuss is all about. You can sample our Milk Soap free with your regular gin, beef or poultry order, or you can treat yourself to all three varieties for only £6.95. Your hands will thank you!

If you’d like to join the conversation, we’d love to hear from you. Just head to our Facebook page HERE and comment beneath the latest blog post. As ever, thanks for your support.

* Brambling image by Caroline Legg via Flickr CC