



to the first edition of Wash[er] Magazine, produced by our team at Wild Prairie Soap Company. It’s our hope that this labour of love both entertains and informs you. Wash[er] is meant to not only share some of our favourite topics with you, but also to (hopefully) connect with you in a more intentional and hands-on way in a world of digital connections. If you don’t know about us, welcome! If you are already a Wild Prairie fan, we hope you enjoy this extension of our brand and find it to be worth the time to read.
In 1999, I was a young teacher with small children and zero ambitions of becoming an entrepreneur (although I was raised by a pair of them). In fact, my dream of becoming a teacher started when I was a child and I expected that it was where I would spend my entire working life. Alas, as happens, an unintended chain of events led me to the art of natural soapmaking, born out of a need to try to resolve my children’s extremely dry and sensitive skin. With the realization of how much this simple product changed their skin (and my own!), I ventured tentatively into the world of entrepreneurship in order to share the goodness of natural soap, and started Wild Prairie Soap Company. Depending on the day, it seems both like forever ago and yesterday at the same time.
I’m so thankful that I took that leap. Not only have I witnessed the benefits of our soap for thousands of people, but I’ve spent over 20 years continually learning, growing and challenging myself in ways I’m not sure I would have otherwise. I’ve had the privilege to work with so many incredibly talented people and some of the best mentors, making this journey the best career choice I could have made. Today, Wild Prairie continues to help lead the way for better skin health, and is distributed throughout Canada, Japan and South Korea.
wash·er / 'wäSHər /
It’s been a “wild” career, full of many ups and so many downs, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. On behalf of our creative and dedicated Edmonton team, I’m proud to show case what we do and how we do it. Enjoy!
Tell us what you think! Reach me at info@wildprairiesoap.ca
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Six easy recommendations to help you transition your skin routine for winter.
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Nourish & Protect with Wintervention
Cleanse, exfoliate, moisturize and soothe with this winter skin-saving collection.
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Nerding Out on the Science of Soap
Experts explain what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to selecting the best soap.
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Enjoy Responsibly, Wash Often Meet the collection of soap made using beer from craft brewers across Canada.
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The ultimate holiday Gift Guide with something for everyone on your list.
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Going Green with Your Bathroom Routine
Eight accessible ways to reduce your environmental impact in the bathroom.
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Bespoke Perfuming with Pura We sit down with Pura Botanicals to get the scoop on creating a custom perfume.
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Get to know the superhero butters used in Wild Prairie’s skin-loving products.
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Supporting Our Community Through Tough Times
Learn how Wild Prairie is giving back with Accessible Soap for All campaigns.
Use a humidifier in your home.
Or at least while you sleep. There is no doubt that the air gets drier in the colder months, and this environmental change takes a toll on your body. Keep skin sup ple and healthy by adding some humidity into your home.
Use a hydrating cleanser.
Depending on the needs of your skin, this can be as simple as trading out a foaming cleanser for a cream cleanser.
Reduce harsh exfoliants.
Skin is more sensitive and prone to dam age when it is in a drier state. The winter season is a time to slow down the usage of harsh exfoliants and focus on nour ishing and protecting. This doesn’t mean to cut out exfoliants completely because we know it’s important to periodically remove the top layer of dead skin, just be mindful of how often and how deep ly you’re working the skin, and the steps needed to repair afterwards.
Upgrade your daily moisturizer.
Opt for a heavier cream if you feel your skin needs a little extra boost now and then. Reach for a rich cream like Wild Prairie’s Wintervention Hand Repair Lotion, Sole Mate Foot Fix, or Organic Dandelion Balm. If you’re extra dry, grab the richer cream every day and replenish deep moisture as often as you can.
Apply lotion after hand washing.
The process of hand washing tends to pull moisture out of the skin, leaving be hind tightness, dryness and sometimes flaking or cracking. Promote healthy skin by choosing natural soap and ap plying a high quality lotion post-wash to add moisture back in.
Use sunscreen.
Even in the winter, the sun’s harmful rays will find you. Don’t risk damaging your skin just because it’s not sun-tan ning weather. Be sure to wear your SPF everyday to protect against premature aging and harmful free radicals.
When the temperature drops, the quality of your skin shouldn’t. Try Wild Prairie’s Wintervention collection to hydrate, protect and nourish even the driest skin.
Available in-store and online at wildprairiesoap.ca .
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Natural Bar Soap
Made with cocoa butter, olive oil and oatmeal for gentle exfoliation and soothing lather.
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Hand Repair Lotion
Contains hemp oil and shea butter for supple, moisturized skin that lasts all day.
Soaking Salts
A luxurious soak made with cocoa butter and soothing oatmeal for deep hydration.
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Lip Balm
Repair and protect dry lips with nutrient-rich rosehip oil, jojoba oil and shea butter.
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Bath Bomb
Shaved cocoa butter melts into bath water, for a moisture-rich bathing experience.
Formulated to absorb quickly for all-day hydration in an easy-to-use, twist up container.
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Feel uncomfortably dry or tight after washing? Does your skin look less than optimal, especially in the winter? Your soap is likely the culprit.
As the number one most-used daily product, whatever you choose for your wash routine has a huge impact on your skin, either making it rough and grey-ish looking or creating a supple canvas that’s healthy and strong.
So what goes into soap? The science that differentiates soap made for pure function and profitability versus soap made for a natural, skin-enhancing, cleansing experience often isn’t well understood by consumers. Let’s break it down.
Pictured: Oatmeal, Milk & Honey Natural Bar Soap | wildprairiesoap.ca
Evidence of the first soap prod ucts date back to 2800 BC, by the Babylonians. This type of soap is made from a simple combination of sodium hydroxide and fats/ oils. Often additional ingredients like essential oils and natural exfoliants are added to create a unique scent and feel and to sup port the integrity of the skin.
In the ‘hot process’ method, fats/ oils like jojoba and olive are combined with potassium hy droxide to create a thick soap paste. This paste is then rehy drated with purified water to create a liquid (and all natural!), non-drying cleanser. The re sult, also known as liquid soap, is gentle enough to use on the entire body, including the face.
1. Energize Natural Bar Soap | wildprairiesoap.ca
2. Energize Hand & Body Wash | wildprairiesoap.ca
Syndet
Not technically defined as “soap”, syndets contain a blend of syn thetics and detergents to create a soap-like cleanser. Mass-pro duced for efficiency and price over purity of ingredients, sodi um tallowate (from beef fat) is a common ingredient, as is sodi um lauryl sulfate (SLS), a deter gent that’s damaging to the skin when used over time.
This mass-produced style of cleanser is the liquid form of syndet. Each use removes the skin’s protective oils exposing skin to vulnerabilities like ex treme dryness, rash, cracks in the skin and other unfortunate reactions. To counteract the damage it causes, manufactur ers add repairing ingredients that attempt to mask dryness.
1. Bars and cleansers that market themselves as “not soap”
2. Body wash that contains sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)
HOPS: one of the main components in beer, hops contain skin-supportive amino acids that help soothe inflammation and boost lather. Think thick, rich and foamy lather, much like the head on beer.
BREWERS YEAST: adds additional nutrients to the soap, like B vitamins and proteins. Nutritious for the skin, brewers yeast makes that silky feeling of a great soap even better.
OLIVE OIL: every bar contains 50% olive oil, providing a skin-nurturing soap that lasts longer than commercial soap.
In the soapmaking process, we replace the water portion of our formulation with an equivalent amount of de-alcoholised beer, done by slow boiling and then cooling it. The denatured beer is combined with sodium hydroxide and plant-based oils of olive, coconut and sustainable palm.
As beer can make the saponification process happen too quickly, we make these in smaller batch sizes of 300 bars. Just prior to pouring the blend into our molds, we add fra grance notes that mimic the beer’s flavour profile, as well as other skin-loving ingredients that suit the wash experience we’re looking for in the finished bar.
For example, a citrusy, crisp lager might have grapefruit and pine essential oils added, and a hearty stout beer soap might have notes of vanilla and coffee. And no, beer soap surpris ingly doesn’t smell like beer at all.
We’ve collaborated with these amazing brewers to create a unique and oh-so-good-for-the-skin collection of soap that is a must to try for beer lovers and anyone with dry skin. If you’re into big, thick creamy lather that’s great for the skin, try a Canadian beer soap!
Conspiracy IPA
Yukon Brewing | Whitehorse, YT
This hoppy beauty from the North con tains grapefruit and pine scotch essen tial oils, and calendula petals to soothe even the driest skin.
The Wolf
Sea Change Brewing Co. | Edmonton, AB
Lead the pack when you wash with this New England Pale Ale soap. It explodes with foamy lather and has sultry notes of passionfruit and pineapple.
Mr. Canoehead Red Ale
Sleeping Giant Brewing Co. | Thunder Bay, ON
Formulated to satisfy all the cravings, this brew bar has a boozy blend of dry hops and juicy citrus for superhero cleansing power.
Two to Tango Jalapeño Mango Gose
Raven’s Brewing Co. | Abbotsford, BC
A fruity bar with notes of mango and grapefruit, try this crisp and refreshing soap for its generous, silky lather and smooth skin feel.
Ribstone Creek Brewery | Edgerton, AB
Pucker up and wash with this tangy, raspberry-scented bar. It has a decadent creamy lather and soothing skin feel for the perfect wash experience.
Iceberg Lager
Quidi Vidi Brewery | St. John’s, NL
Made from beer brewed using pure ice berg water, try this gently cleansing total body refresher, with cooling mint and a dash of sea salt.
Most of us spend between 30 and 90 minutes a day in the bathroom and it’s where you’ll likely find more products and gadgets than the average pantry. We’ve put together a host of tips and ideas that are accessible to everyone to help reduce waste, create space and green out in the bathroom.
Commit to using what you have before you purchase more.
There’s nothing more cluttering to the often precious storage space in your bathroom than too many products. Christa from Rose City Professional Or ganizers offers this advice to reduce clutter, save money and prevent waste:
“When we help our clients declutter and organize their bathrooms, we usual ly find many unused lotions and soaps that they’ve either purchased or been gifted. Yet, clients will say they have one or two favourites they prefer to stick with, and that they probably will never even open or try these other products. We advise them to donate the unopened items to a shelter or community group in need. This way, someone who doesn’t have the luxury of purchasing these products for themselves can be blessed, the product won’t go to waste, and our clients can free up space in their home for the items that they actually like and will use.”
Refill your empty containers.
The last decade has seen a noticeable surge in the number of sustainable life style stores such as Edmonton’s Re:Plenish where you will find a wide range of eco-friendly products like toothbrushes, cleaning supplies and other sundry items. Wild Prairie Soap Company’s flagship retail location offers customers the option to refill their favourite products, including Hand & Body Lotions, Body Wash and Soaking Salts and pick up their discounted soap ends, made in-house.
Reduce your water usage.
Switch to solid, container-free products.
A good majority of plastics consumed in the home come from the bathroom and they’re almost all single use (think shampoo bottles, toothpaste tubes and cosmetic containers). The easiest way to become a part of the solution is to choose products with no-or-low packaging. A single set of Wild Prairie’s all natural Shampoo & Conditioner bars will eliminate up to 10 plastic bottles AND provide the ultimate in sustainable hair care. Next, ditch that detergent-filled bottle of body wash for highly sustainable bar soap like our Revive Natural Bar Soap, made to soothe and cleanse the driest skin.
Another great solid alternative includes toothpaste tablets like those made by Edmonton’s own Change Toothpaste. Designed to be the same as the perfect dose of toothpaste, the chewable, cleansing tabs come in compostable pack aging and are great alternatives to plastic toothpaste tubes, not to mention a great travel space-saver!
Avoid high-waste accessories.
Look for alternatives to bodycare accessories such as metal razors, natural loofah sponges and bamboo toothbrushes to replace high-waste plastic op tions. You might pay more upfront, but in the end, they last longer and don’t add to the environmental footprint of your bathroom routine.
Add plants to your space.
Nothing turns a bathroom into more of a sanctuary than some humidity lov ing plants, like a beautiful Asparagus Fern or Philodendron Heartleaf. Choose plants that love high humidity and lower light conditions and improve your air quality at the same time!
Find recycling alternatives for hard-to-recycle containers.
Use natural cleaning products.
Despite the arsenal of products marketed for cleaning “the loo”, making your own simple alternatives can be extremely easy, low cost and effective against soap scrum, grime and bacteria. According to the experts at Beach Pray Love, the ultimate in natural bathroom cleansing for mirrors, bathtubs, sinks and glass shower doors is a spray bottle filled with 1 cup white vinegar and 2 Tbsp of dish detergent. Spray and leave on shower glass doors for a minimum of 1 hour, then rinse with a damp sponge and warm water. Dry with a microfibre cloth for a sparkling and streak-free finish. Visit bleachpraylove.com for more amazing, eco-freindly cleaning tips for the entire home.
YOUR INVISIBLE LEGACY
Creating a custom perfume is an opportunity to create a scent that reflects who you are and evolves with you. Much like musical notes make up a song and various shades of colour are combined to create a painting, fragrance notes are necessary to make a perfume. Perfume has an incredible ability to transport our minds through time and space, to comfort us, to give meaning, even magic, to mundane moments.
At Edmonton’s Pura Botanicals, scent-seekers can create their own bespoke perfume, choosing from an exclusive library of dozens and dozens of notes from all corners of the earth.
Working with Pura’s in-house nez or ‘nose’, clients have the op tion to create a ‘lean-in-close’ oil-based roll-on fragrance, or a more traditional alcohol-based fragrance with more ‘whoosh’ and staying power. “We help you choose your selection of essen tial oils, absolutes and essences you would like to smell for your base, heart and top notes,” says Pura founder, Lane Edwards, adding that much of the time is devoted to meticulous tweaking of notes, strength and diffusion.
It’s easy for people to decide whether they like velvet blue drapes with a yellow couch, but when it comes down to deciding be tween bitter orange, neroli or linden blossom, clients can get easily lost.
Lane says, “When you reach the perfect combination together, it’s a bit like finding a unicorn horn. Personalized perfumery is a different level of luxury that’s private and personal, literally in visible, but one that’s rooted in who you are, and who you want to be. I think we really need that right now.”
To learn more or book a session, visit purabotanicals.com .
Where to Find Us
Wild Prairie Soap Company | 10345 69 Ave. Edmonton
Freson Bros. | 5139 Mullen Rd, Edmonton
Freson Bros. | 4416 48 St, Stony Plain
Greenland Garden Centre | 23108 AB-16, Sherwood Park
Muttart Conservatory | 9626 96a St NW, Edmonton
Cloud Nine Pajamas | 12511-102 Avenue
Cloud Nine Pajamas | 5168 Windermere Blvd, Edmonton
Good Goods Co. | 10330 82 Ave NW, Edmonton
Re:Plenish | 9912 77 Ave NW, Edmonton
Fort Edmonton Park | 7000 143 St NW, Edmonton
My Filosophy | 15010 107 Ave NW, Edmonton
Butter for the skin? You bet! Exotic butters contain high levels of fatty acids that help protect and repair dry and damaged skin. From anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties to supporting hair health, look for products that contain these three superhero butters for getting that extra glow.
Mangifera Indica Seed Butter
SOURCE: mango seed
QUALITIES: suitable for all skin types; low melting point for easy absorption; light texture, non-comedogenic so it won’t clog pores; helps strengthen and repair hair shaft and follicles; high in Vitamins A, C and E; helps protect against UV rays.
FIND IT IN: Wild Prairie’s All Natural Shampoo & Conditioner Bars, Mango Kiss Natural Bar Soap and Mango Kiss Lip Blam
Theobroma Cacao Seed Butter
SOURCE: cocoa beans
QUALITIES: excellent source of nat ural antioxidants due to high levels of polyphenols that aid in repairing dam aged skin; provides a protective barri er for the skin against environmental stress and dryness; smooths fine lines and wrinkles.
FIND IT IN: Wild Prairie’s All Natural Shampoo & Conditioner Bars, Lotion Bars, Lip Balm and Gentle Soul Natural Bar Soap
Butyrospermum Parkii Butter
SOURCE: African Karite tree nut
QUALITIES: rich source of fatty acids helping those who suffer from skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis; favourable ingredient to help combat sunburn, stretch marks, and fine lines in the skin; proven anti-inflammatory properties; has been used in its rawest form for hundreds of years for a variety of skin ailments.
FIND IT IN: Wild Prairie’s Hand & Body Lotions and Wintervention Lip Balm
The Covid-19 pandemic has been hard on all of us but it’s had exponentially worse effects on some of our most vulnerable community members.
Many Canadians lost jobs, tightened spending, and spent less time out in their communities. Not only did those experiencing homelessness get pushed lower down the list of priorities for donations and support during this period, but their numbers skyrocketed. It was recently reported that Edmonton’s homeless population doubled throughout the pandemic, putting a serious strain on the already limited resources available.
community. “Highlighting the great work these groups do is one of the best parts of the program, and allows us to get that mes saging out to a wider audience,” explains Tanya.
Seeing a growing need for vulnerable populations during the early days of the pandemic, Wild Prairie Soap Company founder Tanya Zurock launched the Accessible Soap For All soap dona tion program in March, 2020. “Not having access to soap during a pandemic is akin to not having food during a famine,” says Tanya. “As a natural soap manufacturer, we knew we could help change that imbalance.”
One of the many incredible groups Wild Prairie has been able to support through these ASFA campaigns is Operation Friendship Senior Society (OFSS) alongside their Community Relations Su pervisor, Jimmy Morrison. OFSS is a local Edmonton organiza tion that offers services without judgment to improve the quality of life for seniors in need.
“Soap is a basic item that some people may take for granted. At our drop-in center, we provide free shower facilities for our cli ents. We provide towels, toiletries, and help them with clothing, as well. Soap represents warmth and hope. With every piece do nated, they know that someone cares about them,” says Jimmy.
Each campaign is specifically tailored to a community service or ganization’s needs, taking into consideration the demographic of each group. For every bar purchased during an active campaign, the company matches it, allowing their customer an opportunity to help out with each cause. To date, the Wild Prairie team, with the support of their customer base, has donated over 7000 bars of soap to organizations supporting people who may not have regular access to personal hygiene products. An important part of each campaign is also to amplify the voices of these organiza tions and communicate the invaluable work they do in the local
If you would like to make a donation to OFSS and support the incredible work they do, visit ofss.org/how-you-can-help
To find out more about past and current Accessible Soap For All campaigns, follow along on Instagram @accessiblesoapforall and @wildprairiesoap or sign up for the company newsletter at wildprairiesoap.ca .
If you know of a group in need, email the information to info@wildprairiesoap.ca .
VISIT US
Visit our Edmonton flagship location for locally-made, natural body care products and accessories. We offer ready-for-sale goods, such as our olive oil based soap and gifts ideas, as well as refill options for a variety of every-day essentials. We welcome you to sample our products, talk to our expert team and receive free samples with every visit.
10345 69 Avenue NW Edmonton, AB T6H 5H9
Monday - Friday — 9am to 5pm Saturday — 10am to 3pm
Email — info@wildprairiesoap.ca Phone — 780-439-6640 Toll Free — 1-866-681-7627