Journal

From candles and cleaning products, soaps, laundry powders and perfume - we live in a heavily scented world. Unfortunately today, the majority of these products are fragranced with synthetic man-made fragrances, which are proving to be particularly harmful to our bodies - as our systems simply don’t recognise them.  What are synthetic fragrances? Synthetic fragrances are mixtures of various chemicals that produce a desired scent. Often it will take 200 chemicals, in a lab, to create a single scent. According to a 1986 report by the National Academy of Sciences, they found that up to 95% of the chemicals used...

As a special segment on the Santosa Journal, we’re featuring women from our community that have inspired us on our path of living a more contented life.  These inspiring women are doing amazing things and have each made us want to grow, learn and become better people ourselves. Today we highlight Kate from Ora Aromatherapy, the Gisborne based beauty bringing you handcrafted therapeutic aromatherapy products, to enhance your well-being.  1. What simple things in life bring you the most happiness? Sitting in the sun, in nature (or on my deck) with a cup of coffee looking at my son laughing and...

Unlike the majority of mass-produced soap bars available on the market, Santosa’s Soap Bars are created through a time-honoured cold-process soap method, ensuring all of the nourishing benefits and goodness of the natural organic ingredients, actually remain in the final product. What's so special about cold-process soap? At the heart of soap making, is a chemical process known as saponification. Basically, this is a reaction between the fats and oils which react with lye to form Soap. Santosa’s Soap Bars are hand-crafted in small batches, poured into molds and cut by hand - giving each bar its own unique size,...