Hello And Welcome To My Website(s)!

I'm Kara Needham, an artist and artisan soap maker from the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Since I'm not very good at keeping my websites and social media pages updated I decided to turn what should be two websites into one:)
I was born and have always lived around the beautiful Knowlton area, and with my partner Steve we share five daughters and a century year old house under our own constant unenthusiastic construction, a large garden full of blueberries and flowers (especially lavender) and a love of beekeeping! (oh and I also work at my local hardware store two days a week for a bit of steady income;)

Art de L'Estrie

I'm a self taught artist and have always enjoyed drawing and painting as long as I can remember. After completing a college degree in wildlife and forestry management I somehow ended up spending over 15 years working as a naive-style folk artist painting furniture and specializing in wooden door-knobs (Folknobs) and being involved in local artist co-ops and artisan shows.  I developed a love of natural soap making at the end of 2011 and started  my business Savonnerie de L'Estrie in 2012. I designed and painted all of the logos for the Savonnerie de L'Estrie packaging - in the beginning for each soap label I created a little painting of a different well-known building or landmark here in the Eastern Townships (if you are interested in seeing them you can still check them out here.) I still love to paint and so have dedicated a page on this website as my art page for anyone interested in buying or just viewing some of the paintings I have made over the years and am still in the process of creating.

Folknobs circa 2010

Drawings circa 1992

Savonnerie de L'Estrie

Savonnerie (Soap Factory) de L'Estrie is a small artisan business producing all natural soaps and lotions that I founded in early 2012. As a vegetarian, I ensure all my soaps and lotions are vegetarian and cruelty-free. My soaps, made in the centuries-old cold process tradition, are suitable for vegans as they don’t contain any animal products, but since I do use beeswax in my lotions, balms and butters, those would be classified as vegetarian. I use organic ingredients whenever possible, but all are food grade and natural, biodegradable and affordable, created, blended, cut, wrapped and stamped by hand. I never use palm oil because of the many harmful environmental effects its production has on the rainforests and their wildlife biodiversity, their indigenous people, and especially their orangutans. I use mostly essential oils to scent my soaps and lotions, but there are so many fragrances that just aren't found in nature or are too expensive to buy that I do use some cosmetic grade, phthalate-free fragrance oils in my hand balms. A couple of years ago I decided to concentrate my soapmaking efforts of my sea salt soaps because they are such a unique product that are not seen very often, especially here in Quebec, and they've been becoming more and more popular over the years since I started to sell them in 2014 (it's hard to believe I almost gave up on them in the beginning because they are a much trickier advanced soap to make and I didn't think anyone would be interested!).  I have been perfecting my sea salt soap recipe for many years now so I like to think they are pretty special :-) There are 8 scents and two sizes - the 160+gram lighthouse and a smaller 50+gram rectangle that I’m hoping will make it easier for people to experiment with the different scents before investing in the big lighthouse (or to just try on a whim and get addicted;-)

Savonnerie de L'Estrie est une très petite entreprise artisanale qui fabrique des savons et des lotions de composition naturelle qui a été fondée au début de 2012 par moi-même, Kara Needham. Etant donné que je suis végétarienne, je m'assure que tous mes savons et lotions sont végétariens, biodégradables, sans cruauté, et abordables. Mes savons sont adaptés pour les végétaliens car ils ne contiennent aucun produit d'origine animale et depuis que j’incorpore la cire d'abeille dans mes lotions, baumes et beurres, ceux-ci seraient classés comme végétariens. J'utilise des ingrédients biologiques chaque fois que possible, mais tous sont de qualité alimentaire et la coupe naturelle, créé, mélangé, emballé et estampillé a la main. Je n'utilise jamais l'huile de palme en raison des nombreux effets néfastes sur l'environnement de sa production sur les forêts tropicales et de leur biodiversité de la faune, de leurs populations autochtones et surtout leurs orangs-outans. Bien que l'huile de palme durable est de plus en plus une bonne solution à ces problèmes, je préfère ne pas en faire l'usage. J'utilise principalement des huiles essentielles pour parfumer mes savons et lotions, mais il y a tellement de parfums qui ne sont tout simplement pas découverts dans la nature ou qui sont trop chers à l'achat, donc j’ utilise un peu des huiles parfumées de qualité cosmétique et sans phtalate dans mes baumes pour les mains.
Je suis née et demeure encore dans les Cantons de l'Est du Québec, et vivent maintenant près de la village de Knowlton, Lac Brome, avec mon copain Steve et ses deux filles et mes trois filles. J'ai essayé de présenter ce site le plus complètement (et correctement grâce à ma tante Johanne) bilingue possible, et même si ma famille aime se moquer de mon mauvais français, je vais essayer de répondre à toutes les questions et les commentaires dans la langue qu'ils seront reçus :-)

Original Savonnerie de L'Estrie Soaps circa 2014