Guess what - we won a Gold Medal for our Soothing Lotion!!!

So, THIS happened:

Which is to say, our Soothing Kefir Lotion won a gold medal for Best Soothing Natural Skincare Product in the Global Green Beauty Awards 2024.

Cool.

Don’t know what to say, really. Tough to comment without sounding – braggy.

But – you know – can I just? Say this…

That a recent proudest moment happened for me when one of the folks at Ceek, the brilliant marketing company that we finally have enough money to hire, suggested text as follows about this award, “We would like to offer congratulations to the team of experts that formulated this product,” I responded: “Erm…no. No team, sorry. No experts. Just — me.”

hehe. Funny to remember now…

Back in the day, took a train to Deepest Darkest Yorkshire, to a place called Soap School, where the amazing couple Sarah Janes and Shawn Dritz taught me how to put our goats milk into soaps and lotion. Lovely people. Came home. Long way, Wales to Yorkshire. Got out stainless steel pots and pans in kitchen, banged about, made messes, finally made nice goatsmilk soap and lotion. Was good. Was fine! But somehow felt – unfinished. Lacking. Just wasn’t quite…enough somehow.

Then, middle of night, thought occurred to me, could I not put our amazing CG kefir into soaps and lotions, AS WELL?

Back all the way to Yorkshire again…”Please Sarah and Shawn, can you help me figure out how to do this?”

They could. They did. However warned it would not be easy. They were right. It wasn’t.

Had to put some kind of preservative into it, or it would go off in two weeks, since it had food products in it. Found this groovy stuff that was used in Swedish ice cream – not so much a preservative as a stabiliser. Very gentle. Good-o.

Put other stuff in it – olive oil! Oat oil! Rice bran oil! All v. good for skin. BIG issue of making lotion though…it’s a bit like making homemade mayo. You got to get the oil and the water to stick together. V. tricky. Way to do this? Add a gentle emulsifier, one to the water bit, another to the oil bit. AND BLEND LIKE BILLY-O! Ta-da, lovely lotion.

Then added different types of essential oils. But which ones to add? Much pondering…then read science study showing that thyme is as effective against acne bacteria as benzoyl peroxide, without the nasty redness and drying. ¹

Then of course, tea tree is just good for everything. So, put thyme and tea tree into the heavy hitting Break-Out Lotion, which does what it says on the tin. Hero-strength, zaps a break-out like you can’t believe. TV make-up artists love it, because it takes the redness out of a break-out so fast.

Then chose lavender for Calm Down Lotion – again, does what it says on the tin. Good for milder spots, rashes, burns, just a lovely, delicate every-day treatment for your skin. Not so HOO-RAH as the Break-Out. More ladylike. Demure.

Then customers ringing up, saying “Oi, I’m allergic to everything, what have you got for me?” For you, my lovely, I make the Sensitive Lotion which has NO essential oils. So gentle. Just milk and kefir and oat oil and rice bran oil – you could eat it. But – you know. Don’t. Because that would just be weird.

Then, my own personal fave – rosemary to go into the Soothing Lotion for ahem – more mature skin. Rosemary has anti-aging effects on the skin due to the fact that it contains carnosic acid, which may help protect the skin from damage caused by UV rays, which may in turn support graceful aging. ²

Plus smells delightful, like a spa. Yay!

But the best bit….the REALLY BEST bit… that makes me get up early and stay up late and bore my husband to tears rabbiting on about it – what makes these lotions special and different to anything else out there – is that they contain our CG kefir.

That means they’re actually PROBIOTIC. Now, why does this matter?

Because your skin is a microbiome. That’s right – just like your gut – your skin is a biome. Am sure you remember this, but just in case:

A microbiome refers to a community of microorganisms (such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microbes) that live on or within a particular environment. The skin microbiome includes a diverse array of these microorganisms that live on the skin’s surface and within its layers. They play essential roles in maintaining skin health by:

Protecting against harmful pathogens
Regulating immune responses
Contributing to skin barrier function
Influencing conditions like acne, eczema, or psoriasis
A balanced skin microbiome is crucial for healthy skin, while an imbalance (known as dysbiosis) can contribute to various skin conditions.

So because you’ve got loads of fragile little bacteria living on your skin, they need feeding. This is what the kefir does. It helps restore the bacterial balance of the living organisms inside your skin, just as it does inside the gut. Crazy, right?

But wait, there’s more…

Might think, but wait Shann, how can lotion be probiotic? Is cooked, yes? Is pasteurised during process of making lotion, so all bacteria are killed off? How can still be probiotic?

Say I – ye be clever clogs. Ye be correct. But know ye this…we had our kefir tested by Prof Jamie Newbold at IBERS Aberystwyth University. Prof. Newbold did loads of stuff to our kefir. He freeze dried it, kiln dried it, turned it upside-down, insulted its parentage. And guess what? It still worked.

That’s right – a lot of the benefit of the kefir still occurs after the live bacteria is killed off. That’s because the stuff that it produces – called metabolites – remain in the kefir whether or not the live bugs are swimming around. These are called POSTBIOTICS. Short chain fatty acids that are so brilliant and anti-inflammatory that they carry on helping your skin and your gut, calming inflammation and creating loveliness, come what may. Making you beautiful from the inside-out.

So, main take-away:

Your skin is an ecosystem. And in order to care for it, you follow the rules of caring for any ecosystem. If you can take care of a pet or a baby, you can nurture an ecosystem. That’s because it’s ain’t rocket science. The rules are always the same, and they go like this:

Feed it.
Love it.
Don’t poison it.

And that’s it, really. That’s what our gold-medal-winning kefir lotion can do for your eco-system, buzzing, whirring, blooming skin. Simples!!

Hugs,

Shann.x

Shann Jones MBE

Founder/Director Chuckling Goat

ps fancy a cheeky 20% discount on our GOLD MEDAL WINNING SOOTHING LOTION? Oh, go on then… here you go…SOOTHING20 – simply pop the coupon code in your shopping basket