Elsecar by the Sea

Handcrafted artisan body and home products

Biography

Elsecar by the Sea is a small batch artisan bath, body and home products company based in Medford, Massachusetts. Founded in 2017 it focuses on natural ingredients and products that can bring joy and goodness to everyday moments.

For this year's WMOS event I wanted to try new soaping techniques to in the spirit of play and along the theme of the natural world.

Spring Bubbles reminded me of sunny days in the yard playing bubbles with the kids, this soap was achieved by first creating the spheres and then embedding them into the soap. It required careful attention to the temperature of the soap to ensure that the spheres didn't melt into the next layer.

Ocean Waves uses layers of different types of soap to reflect a slice of the ocean floor. The bottom layer includes diatomaceous earth to give it a sandy color and texture. The next layers of clear and colored soaps needed to be added quickly and from different heights in order to get them to mix and swirl like tumbling waves would do. This soap required quick work to mix the colors of the soaps and pour them together before they hardened, it took several attempts to get it right.

Flower Power soaps are created with natural clay as colorants and molded into these beautiful flower shapes. Silicon molds have been a game-changing addition to the soap makers toolbox as they can transform the humble soap into a piece of art. Sapphire Stones were actually a bonus product, born out of the failure of my Ocean Waves experiments. The color of the failed batch was so pretty and I reminded me of sapphires, so I carved each of the stones by hand.

Artist Statement

Hello, my name is Clare Flaherty and I create products that hope to bring joy and goodness into everyday moments, from keeping skin radiant and healthy, balancing body and mind, cleaning the house, to just having fun!

I handcraft everything in small batches to preserve freshness and work with many different ingredients that are as close to pure and natural as possible. I try to keep a broad range of products so that there truly is something for everyone. I love to experiment so my products will be always changing.

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