5 Skincare Products Made in Wine Country

Wine country is known for a lot of things.  Great wine, sure.  A more relaxed atmosphere than your commute? Of course.  Beautiful views and buildings? Also, of course.  But really, there’s an entire set of industries tied to serving high end tourists that frequent wine country.  For quite some time, that meant upscale hotels and restaurants, but little else.  Now, there’s so much more to do and experience in wine country.  To that end, here’s a few skincare products made in wine country:

Napa Soap Company: This is what happens when a couple of environmentally conscious folks move to Napa Valley and then have three kids, that need to be cleaned up (I’ll add continuously here if they’re anything like the two I have at home right now).  Napa Soap Company has a store in upscale St. Helena catering to folks buying wine for over $100 per bottle and is one of the shining examples of what can go right for a cosmetics company using only natural ingredients and continuing to make only small batches, even as they grow into something of a houshold name.

Sonoma Soapworks: Deborah Van Blarcom is the owner and soap maker at Sonoma Soapworks, which specializes in high quality, natural, bar soap. My personal favorite is her charcoal and clay face and body bar.  The charcoal is an interesting choice in a soap I think, given that we use charcoal to help clean up chemical spills, I wonder if it also helps to clean up years of residual medical chemicals we all walk around with.

Mightnight Oil Soap in Walla Walla: I think the draw for most, is the natural goat milk soap-Midnight Oil is one of the few spots in Washington State following this age old soap making technique.  That also makes me want to support the burgeoning venture, in essence they are helping to show off the rural side of Walla Walla-something that is often lost as wine regions become better known.

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Goldenwood Soap: Another goat milk soap maker, Goldenwood got started in the Willamette Valley in the mid 2000’s, truly making them one of the first wave of high quality small production soap makers. I wanted to include them here because they’ve been around long enough to feature a full range of products from soap to hand creme to body lotion.

Lion and Rose: Have you ever read the back of a deodorant package? It’s an ugly mix of chemicals that I think even the biggest fan of agribusiness might scoff at putting directly onto their largest organ (that’s your skin if you were wondering).  The draw for me is the natural deodorant which is made from products like Aroowoot and Coconut Oil.  You know, stuff that if you eat, won’t kill you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into soap and other cosmetics made in wine country.  This is a growing industry with almost every major American wine region with at least one or two startups in the space.

Mark Aselstine owns a wine of the month club called Uncorked Ventures, which has been referred to as one of top online wine club options available in America due to the high quality of its offers, as well as, it’s unique take on shipping wine only from California, Oregon and the state of Washington.