You Too Can Smell Edward’s Scent (or Alice’s or Carlisle’s or…)

One of my favorite everyday indulgences comes from a fellow Twilight lover who expresses that love through her art of soapmaking. Her handcrafted goat’s milk soaps are art objects in themselves and gentle on sensitive skin, but the scents…oh the scents!…are delicious for a Twilight fan. Did you ever wonder what Edward smells like? Alice? Emmett? Esme? Rosalie? Jasper? Carlisle? Bella after her change? Jacob Black? You don’t have to wonder anymore.

I’ve invited my friend, Heidi Ritter, to share how she came to explore the Twilight characters through an unusual medium. Her soaps are wonderful in every respect and give me great joy as an extension to the Twilight experience. I keep a bar of “Edward” near my computer as scent inspiration for writing his point-of-view. You can purchase them from her website, Sunset Pines Naturals, where she graciously offers readers of this blog a 10% discount using the code provided at the end of the post. Take it away, Heidi! -PAL

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Why would a grown married woman read a set of novels clearly marketed to young adults? I mean seriously….vampires? werewolves? I’m an adult, right? Right?!?!

Well, I put it off as long as I could, despite the suggestions from my friends that they were worth the read. “Heidi, seriously, you need to read the Twilight books. You’ll like them, I promise.” Yeah, ok, whatever. So I put them on hold at the local library. Audio books are my go-to method of feeding that insatiable need to “read”. In general, I like a wide variety of subject matter and read as much as I can, and often consider suggestions from friends and family about the great book or series they have just finished. So when the title finally became available at the library, I sighed deeply for what I was about to do, then checked it out and transferred it to my MP3 player. I was prepared to start listening, find it unappealing, and move on to the next title in my lineup.

But I got caught up. First, it was set in the Pacific Northwest. Check. I’m from there so the setting came alive to me in vivid detail. Second, it featured an awkward, out-of-place student who didn’t seem to fit in. Check. Third, references to classic literature are both subtly and not so subtly referenced. Check. And finally, its story of first love pulls at your heart strings. Add in just enough of the supernatural to keep it interesting, and I was hooked.

I quickly put the next titles on hold, and relished all the book time I had for the next couple of weeks while I listened to the whole saga. I was particularly intrigued by the detail author Stephenie Meyer included in her characters and settings. It was easy to make the story come alive as I listened, and I found myself searching the internet for even more details on the characters while I painted this picture in my head. I read outtakes and illustrated guides, and cruised around looking at the movie cast as well. I just couldn’t get enough Twilight!

Then I got an idea–I am after all, a creative soul–why not build a tangible connection to this story I inexplicably couldn’t get enough of? Why not bring the characters alive through my own medium? You see, I’m a soapmaker. Miss Meyer did a fine job of describing the Twilight characters by their scents–it’s a theme throughout the entire series–so I embarked on one of my favorite creative endeavors of all time, to develop soaps to represent all the characters. I used only natural ingredients to create the best possible soap and picked all natural colorants and textures to match the characters’ physical descriptions. I followed the scent clues Miss Meyer provided and filled in with my own impressions where she left no specifics. In the end, I created 12 different bars of soap inspired by the Twilight Saga: Bella and Edward, of course, plus Carlisle and Esme, Jasper and Alice, Rosalie and Emmett, Jacob Black, The City of Forks, a special bar for The Meadow, and one for The Volturi. It was one of the most gratifying projects I’ve ever taken on.

Twilight-Inspired Handcrafted Goat’s Milk Soaps

Then, in one of my internet crawls, I happened across the Twilight Missing Pieces blog by Phoebe Ann Lassiter. It was brilliant! I loved every chapter she wrote from Edward’s perspective and delighted in her creation of a diary, and all the other writing she gave us. On a whim, and as a way to thank her for the hours of enjoyment I got from her writing, I sent her an email to share my soap creations with her. Over the next few months a beautiful friendship was born, and I now consider “my PAL” one of my dearest friends–and not because she is a wonderful writer, or a big spender at my website, buying many, many, many bars of Twilight soaps–but because of the beautiful human being she is, and the glorious creative mind she shares with all of us.

So, thank you PAL, for your writing, your kindness, and your invitation to guest write on your blog. As always, your readers enjoy a 10% discount on all their purchases from my website when they use the following code during checkout: Twilight PAL (case sensitive)

My hope is that you will enjoy these soaps as a complement to the Twilight series, but also for their intended purpose as exceptional handcrafted bars of soap–with skin-nourishing goodness, thick abundant lather, and, of course, mouthwatering fragrances!

You can find all 12 soaps “flavors” at the Sunset Pines Naturals website. For questions or more information, contact Heidi Ritter.