The Hands Know It's Fall Before We Do

You can tell fall has arrived by the hands before you ever look at a calendar. Ours get tight and a little rough this time of year, usually before the first frost even shows up. Raking leaves will do that. So will the first weeks of real dishwashing weather, when the water from the tap finally feels cold instead of just cool, and you run it hot without thinking twice.

We notice it most in the evenings. Someone comes in from the yard with hands that feel like they've been outside all day, because they have. Bark, dirt, dry air, a little wind. It adds up. Soap and water get the dirt off just fine, but they also strip away whatever your skin had going for it, and in October that recovery takes longer than it does in July.

We don't have a trick for this so much as a habit. Wash your hands, dry them, then actually put something on them. Not someday, not after they start cracking. Right then. We keep a jar of the Moisture Rich Lotion by the kitchen sink for exactly this reason, because if it's not sitting right there, nobody reaches for it. Little things like that matter more than the product itself does.

For hands that are past tight and heading toward sore, we go heavier. The Silky Body Butter, especially the small jar, lives by the back door next to the boots and gloves, which tells you something about when we actually use it. It's thick enough that a little goes a long way, and it sits on the skin instead of soaking in and disappearing in ten minutes, which is what you want when you're about to go back outside and do it all again.

We also think more about what soap we're washing with once the weather turns. A bar that's mostly about scent and lather might be lovely in June, but October calls for something with a little more to it. Our Goat Milk Soap tends to get pulled off the shelf more often starting about now, and honestly we reach for it ourselves at the kitchen sink, not just the bathroom. It's not fancy. It just doesn't leave your hands feeling like they got into an argument with the soap.

There's a kind of logic to doing this work by hand that we appreciate more every fall. You notice your hands because you're using them, not because you're staring at them. Stirring, pouring, cutting bars, loading the curing racks, wrapping orders for pickup. It's the same work that gives us calluses and dry knuckles that asks us, fairly, to take care of the hands doing it. Feels right that the thing we make for a living is also the thing that gets us through making it.

If you're the type who keeps a bar by every sink in the house, now's a good time to check the supply before the cold really settles in. And if someone in your life has hands that have clearly been raking leaves or hauling firewood all weekend, a jar of body butter says more than a card does.

Come by the shop in Ashland if you're nearby, or have a look online. We're happy to help you figure out what your hands actually need this time of year, not just what smells good on the shelf. Honest soap at honest prices, handmade by our family for yours.