Yes, really: The Potions from Wildwood ‘Quality Charter’!
As I said in my last post, I’ve been thinking about what I want from my home made holistic health and beauty treatments. I don’t expect age-defying wonder products, but it turns out my demands are nevertheless quite wide ranging, encompassing cost and availability of ingredients, quality of end product, ease of preparation and environmental issues too. Here they all are – my ‘Quality Charter’ if you will!
- Where possible, I prefer to grow my own ingredients in the garden or greenhouse;
- Bought ingredients must be easily available, either locally or via the Internet;
- Frequently used ingredients should not be expensive;
- Whilst I expect infrequently-used luxury ingredients to cost more, they must not be prohibitively expensive;
- Ingredients must be ethically and environmentally sound;
- Preparations must be reasonably quick to make and easy to use;
- By preference, with rare exceptions, preparations should have a reasonable shelf life – at least three months.
- The end product should be effective.
- The end product should be pleasing to use – e.g. fragrant, smooth, as appropriate.
- The end product should be as good as shop bought or better.
- ‘Hand made’ quirkiness and visual ‘imperfections’, for products such as home made soaps are all part of the fun.
Four months ago I would never have dreamed that I could have such expectations from my dabbling in home made health and beauty products. But I’ve been so satisfied with what I’ve achieved so far that I’ve raised my game and have every confidence that this list of demands is entirely realistic. If one of my Potions fails to match up, it won’t make it to the bathroom cabinet!
Actually, that seems a reasonable expectation to me. You can’t expect the same results as multi-billion pound research projects, but you can certainly expect that the Potion should be effective and pleasant to use, and it’s provenance is much more within your control.
I really didn’t expect results like the ones I’m getting. I thought there would be a ‘homemade’ side to them in the sense of ‘make do and mend’ rather than in the sense of handmade by an artisan. (That would be me, by the way – the artisan!)