New Stour & Avon, August 13, 2021
Health & Wellbeing
Vicki comes clean on secrets behind By Lorraine Gibson newsdesk@ stourandavon.net
For Vicki Cannings of Blandford, the sweet smell of success came purely by chance. Finding herself working from home during the first lockdown, she decided to do something useful with the extra time that she had from not having to travel every day. Vicki had been working at Blandford Hospital and she wanted to make something practical for her colleagues. “We have lots of beeswax from our hives and I decided to make some soothing balms for the hospital staff for the sores on their hands and faces from PPE,” says 35-year-old Vicki. She began experimenting and what started off as a hobby became an obsession that’s now a thriving business, producing planetfriendly soaps and toiletries from beeswax. “We love honey. It’s where The Dorset Soap Co began,” she says. “My journey into handmade and natural products started when my partner Carl, who is a beekeeper, gave me a pot of beeswax which he had harvested for the first time
SWEET SUCCESS: Vicki Cannings of the Dorset Soap Co
from one of our hives. “He got his bees in 2020 and is the main beekeeper in our house. He’s really passionate about the beekeeping process and the honey and I love the resulting beeswax and wax cappings.”
So, just how easy is it to harvest beeswax? “It’s a fine art! Carl is the master of honey and wax extraction and always brings me back lots of delightful produce whenever he visits the hives,” she explains. “It’s amazing how much
they produce in a short space of time.” “We didn’t want anything to go to waste created a soothing and healing hand balm, inspired by sore hands from all the washing and scrubbing during the pandemic. “I combined the beeswax with cocoa butter and oil we had extracted from our spearmint in the garden and created a Spearmint Body Balm.” “And so, my first ever product (and secretly my favourite) was born,” she adds. On discovering that as well as being good to eat, honey, nature’s sweetener was also the ultimate skin food, she was hooked. “I didn’t want to stop there,” says Vicki, who now works as a medical secretary at the Blandford Group Practice, “I combined the beeswax and rosemary from the garden with our incredibly tasty honey and made our Honey, Beeswax and Rosemary Soap Bar,” says Vicki” I ask her whether the product varies according to the flowers of the season, just as the taste of honey does. “Completely,” she replies,
Honey, you need to bee informed just how good this is
Honey and beeswax smell and feel amazing but their healing properties and health benefits make them just as good for you on the outside as well as the inside Honey has both anti-bacterial and anti-septic properties, which not only deep cleanse skin but make it perfect for preventing and treating acne. It’s packed with antioxidants, so fights toxin build-ups; it also naturally opens pores a 34
combination that can reduce blackheads and leave skin super clean. It has anti-microbial properties to help fight off skin infections and has been successfully trialled to treat eczema and psoriasis. Honey boosts collagen production, which can help reduce signs of aging and slow the formation of wrinkles. It’s incredibly moisturising and hydrates dry, sore skin.
Honey is naturally soothing and has been known to fade scars. Enzymes in honey work as a gentle exfoliator, sloughing dead-skin cells and boosting circulation. So, if I only had one life-saving product, what should it be? The all-purpose balm. It’s made from pure beeswax, cocoa butter and grape seed oil in a range of eight scents and fixes everything from sunburn to chapped lips and eczema.
