On Hand Lotions - On Hand Lotions

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PLEASE HELP US BRING OHL HOME TO BRISTOL!

Handmade from blossom to balm

HANDMADE FROM BLOSSOM TO BALM

Skin care featuring Finger Lakes botanicals

Zero Waste body care solutions

soap shampoo bar

SOAP & SHAMPOO BARS

natural deodorant

NATURAL DEODORANT

body care assortment

SHOP ALL BODY CARE

SOAP & SHAMPOO BARS

NATURAL DEODORANT

SHOP ALL BODY CARE

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FLOWER CITY LILAC

truly natural lilac scent

HAND & BODY SCRUB

OHL first took root in NYC and coastal Connecticut, finally blossoming in the Finger Lakes region of New York State.

Read more about who we are, what we make, the plants we grow, and why.

Sweet Rice Facial Cleanser

Naples Brewing Company Beer balm in tin

Thirsty Face and Thirstier Facial Serums

soap gift set with bristol woods, green tea, soap loofah, soap dish

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onhandlotions

natural skin care + body care ::: 100% handmade from blossom to balm in Upstate New York

Shop night together after a long divide-and-conque

Shop night together after a long divide-and-conquer weekend. 🥰 While my pesky pneumonia kept us from the Grape Festival, we got a lot done at both locations and in the gardens and the kids had some needed downtime.

We are SO thankful for your amazing support! All orders should be ready in the next week. There are a couple hundred of you, so please bear with us especially if your order includes custom items. 🙏🏽

The September Sale is still going strong. It's a really, really good time to stock up on soap, solid lotion and scrubs for the winter and upcoming holidays. 🎁 (...I can't believe I just said that.)

Thank you always. Back to work.
-Hayna and Ben
💪🏽💚🍇💜✨

"Look, Mama, even the sky is purple for Grape Fest

"Look, Mama, even the sky is purple for Grape Fest!" 🍇 Standing in the gardens with my little family and watching this sunset together felt positively magical, another reminder of how lucky we are to live here and do what we do. Happy Naples Grape Fest Eve to our hometown, and happy equinox to all. May the new season bring the abundance you need while graciously shedding what you don't, with overflowing gratitude to ease the transitions. ✨

Every new batch of cocoa butter stars brings back

Every new batch of cocoa butter stars brings back some sweet memories. The photo of the kids was taken two weeks before OHL launched, their faces covered in biodegradable glitter lotion. 😅 Our older babies are now teens and their look has shifted from Bright Stars and wool felt kitty ears to black eyeliner and headphones. The last nine-plus years have flown. As these creative free-thinkers approach adulthood, I'm realizing there's still abundant magic, and only slightly less sparkly wonder. 💛

🌟 🌟 🌟

A word on mica and this important divergence from "natural:" We have always used synthetic mica (synthetic fluorphlogopite) because the sources and chain of custody for natural mica are not transparent enough to meet our standard of ethics. The majority of natural mica is mined and transported by exploited children and/or forced labor. I'll leave some links in the comments.

Additionally, despite intensive processing, trace amounts of heavy metals often remain in natural mica, and its particles tend to have rougher edges than synthetic mica. Between ethics and health, this is one time when the synthetic version is the better option.

Our glitter is made of PLA, a biodegradable, carbon-neutral non-plastic made from fermented corn. PLA is safe for cosmetic use and far better for the environment than petroleum-based plastic versions. We feel confident in our decision to use these ingredients and feel it's the most ethical bridge between pure pragmatism and sparkly fun. ✨

September Sale! 🫧 We're hoping to clear out lot

September Sale! 🫧 We're hoping to clear out lots of stock before we move to the new shop so ALL soaps, scrubs, deodorants and medium lotion bars are marked down anywhere from 14-30%. No code needed.

Local pickup at our shop in Naples will remain available through mid-October. 💜🍇💫

Thank you always for your support and enthusiasm along the way. We're so excited for the good changes on the horizon. 😍💃🏻
Hayna and Ben

P.S. If your circle might love a little OHL/BBNY beauty and care this fall, please consider sharing this post. 🙏🏽💛✨

Raise the roof, literally? Electrical's done-done

Raise the roof, literally? Electrical's done-done and the ceiling is going up; fall and winter gardens are planted; kids are caught up with school; and production is almost on target for mid-September. 🙌🏽 Thank you for bearing with us. Hopefully only a few more months of 24/7 work, and then we'll get back to the usual 18/7. 😂 We are so thankful to be here, and to be doing this! Adrenaline eventually runs out but gratitude is the infinite motivator. 💜

429 large and 1360 small per case, and since Thurs

429 large and 1360 small per case, and since Thursday I've cooked, mixed and bottled about four cases (192 gallons). This is the last of it. 🙌🏽💚 In related news, Sweet Rice cleanser will be back in stock really soon, though most of this is headed out wholesale. Thank you for your patience!

I am exhausted 😂 and SO thankful for great music during these super long runs. What are your favorite haul-and-get-it-done-on-deadline songs? Here's the intro to one of mine. 🎵🪗✨ Frankie's G*n, The Felice Brothers

Mermaid green, antifreeze or however you want to d

Mermaid green, antifreeze or however you want to describe it, Oliver's indigo pails turned the right color in exactly two days. Shades of neon blue-green plus a sweet, fruity scent indicate a finished fermentation. There's often an iridescent slick on the water's surface as well, and pigment particles along the waterline where some indoxyl was exposed to the air.

Pic 3: Removing the spent plant matter. Many of the leaves were still bright green and fresh so we put them in clean pails for a much shorter secondary fermentation. We caught these pails just in time before they became too murky for a clean blue color. I couldn't get back out until evening, and if we'd let the foliage ferment even a few more hours it would have significantly reduced the pigment quality. Whew.

Pic 4: Adding calcium hydroxide before aerating. Note the yellow-green water and chalky plume of Ca(OH)₂.

Pic 5: Blue! The color shifts from green to dark denim blue as the indigo forms after aeration. The pails will now sit for a week or so until the pigment settles to the bottom. 🌿💙

Back to school looks a little different here! We'r

Back to school looks a little different here! We're making the most of the hot weather with another indigo extraction. Plant Mom Indigo(als): My garden-loving son is all in, happily studying this fascinating plant. Unlocking the true-blue of indigo takes patience, careful observation, a little chemistry and a lot of trial and error; good lessons for any age. 🙋🏻‍♀️ I'm so excited to be able to share the wonder of it with Oliver this year. 🥰

These seeds were sown back in February and this is our fourth cutting. The stems are divided into pails as hotter weather make it a little trickier to monitor and manage en masse. Once the ferments become a mermaid green color, we'll strain out all plant matter, check the pH, add a few grams of calcium hydroxide as needed, and aerate until the solution begins to turn blue. (The dark blue pails are from a previous extraction that's already been reduced.) Once the indigo flocculates/precipitates, we let it settle to the bottom, pour off the water, and then filter what's left.

Quick summary of the chemistry behind indigo extraction: The fresh green leaves of indigo-producing plants contain both a precursor to indigo called indican, and glucosidase, an enzyme. Indican is bound to glucose, forming a stable indican glucoside within the plant's leaves. Maceration or fermentation degrades the plant matter, allowing glucosidase to mix with the indican glucoside. The enzyme breaks down the indican, producing unstable indoxyl. When exposed to oxygen, indoxyl quickly undergoes oxidative dimerization and forms indigo.

Indican ➡️ (glucosidase enzyme) ➡️ indoxyl and glucose

Indoxyl ➡️ (oxidation) ➡️ blue indigo

Because the last reaction occurs so quickly, fermentation is best done in a low-oxygen environment (underwater). Otherwise, the indoxyl and resulting indigo remain incompletely converted and trapped in the leaves. This way, the indoxyl is instead released into the water, and the oxidative process is both delayed and controlled when oxygen is later introduced through aeration. 🌿

💙 Indigo! Another cutting of Persicaria tinctor

💙 Indigo! Another cutting of Persicaria tinctoria is rinsed, wreathed into pails and ready to ferment. 🌿

Whew. First, WE ARE SO CLOSE! In 12 weeks, a wild

Whew. First, WE ARE SO CLOSE! In 12 weeks, a wild and densely wooded hillside has become a 1,200 SF workspace. Various delays pushed out everything by almost six weeks, yet we will still be in by mid-autumn, a goal that seemed impossible back in April. Thank you to all who have helped us get here! Your orders, generous contributions, post likes and shares, and encouragement have kept us going, building our new shop on the strongest foundation there is: Love.

This is all right on time as the commute to and from Naples recently became much harder for me. Personally, it's been a rough month-plus of what we now recognize as post-stroke relapse coupled with pneumonitis. The worst symptoms are finally waning and I was absolutely giddy to be working independently again yesterday afternoon. Several batches mixing; mordants, scents and dyes steeping; metal blasting...🤘🏽 I may have overdone it a bit, but that grinning pic says it all. 🥰 As much as I'll miss our current place and town, I'm really looking forward to moving the shop home so this feeling will soon be accessible right next door.

Thank you always for your kindness, support and patience as we work toward this transition. There are good things on the horizon. 💛🙏🏽✨

Soooo excited to share this bottle of our own swee

Soooo excited to share this bottle of our own sweet basil essential oil! We've cut seemingly endless bushels of purple and green basil from our garden this summer and stuffed them all into a copper still. On average, after three hours of steam distillation, 6 kg of fresh leaves yielded 30 ml of essential oil plus a few liters of hydrolat. We knew essential oils were both intensive to produce and something to use with discretion, and this illustrates a few reasons why: it takes significant quantities of plant material and a lot of energy to run the boiler and chiller, resulting in a very small amount of incredibly concentrated extract.

In an effort to make the most of each leaf and every distilling hour, we've been experimenting with (organic) enzymatic pretreatments. Finding the sweet spot is challenging: Which agents and other variables will reliably increase yield while maintaining the same physical attributes and constituent levels as an untreated control sample? So far we've seen a solid increase in yield of up to 50ml total per 6kg of leaves, or 1.7 oz per 13.23 pounds, as well as a 50-60 percent decrease in distillation time. This all feels promising. Onward, with fingers crossed and a whole lot of gratitude to be doing this work.

P.S. Currently, Blue Skies Again bar soap features our basil oil. 🌿☀️

Alas, lotion bars don't bloom on sunflower stalks,

Alas, lotion bars don't bloom on sunflower stalks, but it would be really fun if they did! 🌻 All summer we've heard from gardeners, farmers, chefs, woodworkers, potters and knitters who rely on our solid lotion to protect their maker hands, and we agree. This bar is so soothing when applied just before bed, warding off cracked fingertips and split knuckles.

The Gardener's Lotion Bar is softly scented with our clary sage, lemongrass, lemon balm and earthy vetiver roots, all grown organically in our Bristol gardens and steam- and hydrodistilled in house. This blend was inspired by our sweet friends at Fruition Seeds, whose vision, encouragement and heart for collaboration extend far beyond the Naples valley. 🌿

Image: A Fruition Seeds Gardener's Lotion Bar, housed in a colorful tin and nestled in the multiple heads of a Lemon Queen sunflower

Happy Tuesday, friends! 💐 Quick break to send y

Happy Tuesday, friends! 💐 Quick break to send you a rainbow, hastily gathered from the gardens right before yesterday's storms. Seems like we could each use some cheer right about now. 🌈☀️💜

P.S. Peep the new shop in the background, too. We're getting there, little by little, thanks to all of your support. 😊

A teaser! Shades of fire and spice coming soon. 😍 This series has been years in the making.

Base dyes are scarlet and pink from Rubia tinctorum (madder) roots and yellow from Rheum emodi (Himalayan rhubarb) roots. Yarn was then overdyed with various blends of velvety red Coreopsis tinctoria; sunny Cosmos sulphureus; gold-hued extractions from curly dock root; soft browns from a massive comfrey plant; and a few bottles of Naples wine. 🍷All colors were grown in the Finger Lakes.

No hot water at the shop this week meant a quick shift to colorwork rather than soaping and body care, and the timing was perfect. The roots have been in the ground for anywhere from four to eight years, and some of the other plants have been seed-selected by us for several generations, and all of them were finally ready. Local color is slow color and I'm so excited to layer them onto wool, at last. ❤️🧡💛🤎

Oh! About that last outlier pic: I found one more hank each of M and N from the Oceanic series and just added them to the listing.

#LocalColor #NaturalDye #Madder #MadeInTheFingerLakes #IndieDyer #NaplesNY #BristolNY #BristolBotanicals #OnHandLotions

Oh those blues and greens. 🥰 Made a dozen new h

Oh those blues and greens. 🥰 Made a dozen new hand-painted pretties with the last of this season's fresh indigo, as later-season cuttings will go into fermentation pails for pigment extraction. Fine Merino + varying concentrations of leaves = all the denim and seaglass shades of summer indigo. Farmers and gardeners have always known that strawberries and peaches are best enjoyed seasonally, so why not color, too? 🩵💙💚

I'll be back to soaping next week, so stay tuned for some fun cuts. Fresh lemongrass and coriander; maple water and spruce tips; apricot and sweet basil; smoky whiskey and toasted oak... The Finger Lakes are especially abundant, fragrant and delicious right now.

P.S. Yup, we are still working on the building. Thank you so much for your continuous support! Updates soon. 🛠️

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