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As some of you may be aware, in May of this year there will be significant changes to the law regarding the sale of unlicensed Herbal Medicines. As a license can cost many thousands of pounds per product, it is unlikely that Toria Pilar will be licensing any of our Herbal Medicines. We are still not certain exactly how these changes will affect our ability to sell Herbal Medicines - typically, the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory Agency) is focussed on major drug companies, not single herbalists. The National Institute of Medical Herbalists is working hard on our behalf to ensure that you, the customer, will still have access to quality products and good advice. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with EU legislation, the impending legal changes are supposed to protect the consumer from unscrupulous vendors but will, in fact, do the opposite.

Please keep an eye on this blog to see how we are going to work with/around these legal changes

All of the cosmetic products are unaffected - its only the Herbal Medicines]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=8 Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:17:03 +0000 xml-rss2.php?itemid=6

Sometimes, being a Medical Herbalist can be a bit like waiting for a bus - you don’t see a particular condition for ages and then three show up at once! I suppose this year’s harsh winter has had some influence, but just lately, I’ve been seeing all sorts of skin conditions, from just dry skin through to eczema and psoriasis. Without exception, every consultation has started with the question from the patient - “Have you got a cream for this?” And every time, I give the same answer that a cream may make the surface of the skin feel a bit better but it won’t necessarily solve the problem.
Let me explain:
Skin is a complex organ composed of many layers of cells. Every cell is surrounded and contained by a membrane that is composed of fats and proteins. The underneath layers of cells are alive but the outer surface cells are actually dead. These dead layers of skin are designed to be a barrier between us and the outside world so skin is pretty impervious. Skin is also very dynamic - the dead cells are regularly sloughed off and replaced by fresh cells pushing up from underneath. With the exception of dry skin or eczema (contact dermatitis) caused by contact with chemicals, virtually all chronic skin conditions are caused by inflammatory processes within the deeper live layers. (I’m not talking about surface infections like impetigo, athlete’s foot or ringworm but chronic conditions like eczema and psoriasis))
So creams applied to the surface of the skin will rehydrate dry dead cells but will need to penetrate through to the living layers in order to have any real effect. Very few substances will penetrate this far and those that do will invariably get into the blood stream and travel all around the body. As most of the substances that will penetrate the skin are toxic, this is not really a desirable state of affairs. It is also why most of the medical creams for skin conditions are only available on prescription and must be used sparingly.
To me, the treatment of chronic skin conditions by applying cream to the effected surface areas only, has always seemed a bit counter productive. The active ingredients need to be potent enough to penetrate, which makes them toxic - and all they tend to do is suppress the symptoms, so they have to be used constantly. I suppose, from the point of view of the drug companies, this is great - they get to sell lots of tubes and pots of cream, to a desperate captive audience. But I think it is a bit like trying to shore up the wall of a house where the foundations have gone. You can prop it up all you like, but it will never be fixed until you sort the foundation. You can suppress the symptoms of eczema with steroid creams but that doesn’t mean the skin is healthy - its just suppressed.
Herbal Medicine is Holistic medicine (sometimes misspelt wholistic). That means that a Herbalist will seek to find the root cause of a medical condition and, if possible, reverse it. It also means that, as every person is an individual, they must be treated as such and so treatments for a single condition (eczema for example) may differ between individuals.
Having said that, the first thing I do when treating any kind of skin condition, is fix the foundations - make certain that the patient is getting all of the relevant nutrients needed to make healthy skin - and invariably, that means an Omega 3 supplement. Despite the promotion of oily fish in the media, the truth of the matter is that, as a nation, we are deficient in this nutrient and anyone with a chronic, inflammatory skin complaint will have a higher than normal requirement. Whilst it is possible to get all of your fatty acid requirements in your diet, it requires a certain amount of dedication. A simple supplement capsule can make all the difference. That isn’t to say that a supplement will cure eczema or psoriasis, or that a lack of the nutrient causes these conditions - it just ensures the skin has a good foundation for healing. Any quality Omega 3 supplement will do the job (more about that in the next post) but, unless your diet is very poor and full of processed junk food, there is no need to add Omega 6 or 9 oils. These latter two oils are often combined with Omega 3’s, and whilst they are essential, they are much more widely distributed in our foods than the omega 3 oils and are rarely deficient in our diets. The addition of Omega 6 & 9 in combined supplements merely have the effect of reducing the concentration of the Omega 3’s.
So...yes I have creams for eczema, psoriasis, dry skin, skin ulcers, impetigo, athlete’s foot, ringworm etc but that isn’t the whole story at all - creams are really just the icing on the cake of treatment for skin conditions]]> Herbal Medicine xml-rss2.php?itemid=6 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:14:14 +0000 xml-rss2.php?itemid=3

There is nothing quite like the feeling of using a bar of hand-made soap. Suddenly the mundane process of getting clean feels like the most decadent pampering - the silky solid weight of the bar, the gorgeous scent, the rich creamy lather and best of all, the way your skin feels afterwards. Hand-made cold process soap doesn’t dry the skin like commercial soap but leaves it feeling clean and refreshed with no tightness.

Roughly speaking. The harder a soap is, the longer its shelf life, but the harder it will be on the skin. A really gentle, moisturising soap will have a shorter shelf life and will be more susceptible to damage from damp. At Toria Pilar, we strive to strike a balance between skin conditioning and shelf life and most of our soaps, if stored carefully, should still be in perfect condition one year after manufacture. The date of manufacture is the batch number of the soap so it is always easy to check the vintage.

All hand-made soaps will shrink with time as excess water evaporates, so a one year old bar may look smaller and feel lighter than a new bar but this is NOT a disadvantage - there is still as much soap in the older bar - just less water. The more water that evaporates, the harder the bar, the longer it lasts in water. So a 6 month to one year old bar will probably last longer in use than a fresh bar.

Hand-made soaps retain the glycerine that is naturally found in the fats the soap is made from. In commercial soaps, the glycerine is removed after the soap is made but before it is moulded. This is because glycerine makes the soap too soft and sticky to go through mechanical presses and rollers. The excess glycerine can also be sold for other industrial processes so the manufacturer gets two products (and two sources of income) from one process. Removing the glycerine also makes a very hard bar that can sit on a shelf for many years without deteriorating. The retained glycerine in a hand-made soap makes the bar milder and more moisturising but can also make it susceptible to damage from damp. This is because glycerine is a ‘humectant’ - it absorbs water from the atmosphere just like an open bowl of sugar will - the soap will become sticky and the label may run - it will still be perfectly useable but will not look very nice.

At Toria Pilar, we prefer not to use synthetic colours in our soaps so we rely on simple natural colourants. The majority of the herbs, flowers and oils that we use do not produce fast colours so the bars will fade if left in the light.

If you want to buy a few bars of gorgeous Toria Pilar Luxury hand-made Soaps at a time to save on postage etc, then it is best to store them somewhere cool, dark and dry. A sock or underwear drawer is ideal because it is dark, at an even temperature and your undies will smell fantastic. From time to time, I meet people who want to buy Toria Pilar soaps as a decoration for their bathroom. These soaps are designed to be used so they will look good in use in your bathroom (and the subtle changes as the soap wears are part of their charm) but they will soon deteriorate if left on a shelf in such a damp atmosphere. The picures below show the difference between a well stored soap and a badly stored one. Both the soaps are Cuckmere Haven, made on 26/08/09 - one stored in a drawer, one left in a basket by an open door in a damp shop (similar conditions to the average bathroom). Both soaps are perfectly useable but I know which one I’d rather have!





When you do come to use your soap, please use a proper soap dish with drainage hole and don’t just leave the soap in a puddle on the edge of the sink. The glycerine in the soap will make it absorb water like a sponge and it will quickly dissolve to nothing. If the soap is left to dry out after each use, it will last a very long time. I have a bar of Mocha Mint at the kitchen sink that I use probably 6 times a day, every day, - it is nearly a year old and still has about 6 months life left in it. So Toria Pilar soaps may be more expensive than a supermarket bar of soap but they will give very good value if a little care is taken.]]> Soap xml-rss2.php?itemid=3 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:53:51 +0000