- About The Brand -
Family Farm and Business
Both my husband and I work in the wine industry as our "day jobs". When in came time to find a home to start our family and build a business to pass onto future generations we found the perfect spot in Asti, California.
Here in a small canyon across from Pocket Peak we started our family farm Pocket Canyon Farms where we raise a small herd of heritage breed British Guernsey Goats. This magical breed was nearly wiped out by the Nazi's during World War Two. We use their milk in all of our goat's milk products.
Basil and Birch were the first British Guernsey goats born on the farm to our beautifully sweet girl Brocade. These twins have such personality! Basil is sweet and quirky and Birch is a nut. Basil was bred with our girl Farengamo and our first girl was born this year, Freesia. We also added a new baby girl from a ranch in Idaho this year, Trillium.
Brian and I welcomed our first human baby Calliope in the summer of 2016. She is now helping out with farm chores and enjoys smell testing all of Mama's new soap recipe's.
Thank you for supporting our family farm!
Cathy, Brian, and Calliope
The Basil & Birch Philosophy
We started with making soap with our hand milked goat milk from our family farm Pocket Canyon Farms. I combine our milk with rich moisturizing oils depending on what type of bar I'm making. Avocado oil is known for its wonderful moisturizing properties with all of its rich fatty acids and vitamin E. Apricot kernel oil is high in vitamin A and E which are both great for your skin. Olive oil is a great moisturizer which penetrates deep and cleanses. Beautiful sweet almond oil is a wonderful smoothing moisturizer high in vitamin A and E. Canola oil is a wonderful skin moisturizer high in fatty acids. Castor oil is both a great oil for moisturizing and creating lather. Lard is a great and sustainable soap making ingredient! It has a similar pH to human skin and is high inVitamin A and E and omega- 3 fatty acids.
After discovering soap making I started diving deep into different beauty care products and what makes a great, natural product. I view coming up with recipes as part baking and part art. It's exciting to make a product that feels good, smells good and uses awesome ingredients!
