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Love & Leche Lotion Bar Review & Giveaway

April 19, 2018 3 Comments

Love & Leche's lotion bars are a knitter and crocheter's best friend, moisturizing and protecting hands with all natural ingredients an a non-greasy feel.
Every month around this time, I share with you all a close look at a yarn that I think you might like to know more about, and raffle off a skein or two to a lucky reader. This month, in honor of our Read Along Crochet Along, we are mixing things up, and reviewing (and giving away!) something all knitters and crocheters need in their lives: lotion bars.

Why lotion bars and not just lotion?

For all knitters and crocheters, skincare is important. Whether your Knitflixing the cold winter months away, or your hands are dry and chapped from crocheting on the beach, handling yarn for hours on end takes its toll. Especially for yarn crafters, lotion alone doesn’t do the job. Lotion bars aren’t in liquid form. They’re wax discs you can rub between your hands to moisturize and protect your skin, and they usually smell pretty amazing.

Love & Leche's lotion bars are a knitter and crocheter's best friend, moisturizing and protecting hands with all natural ingredients an a non-greasy feel.

Love & Leche Lotion Bars in particular

Love & Leche’s lotion bars are made with a combination of beeswax, coconut oil, almond oil infused with Certified Organic calendula flowers, and they’re scented with essential oils. As you rub the lotion bar between your hands, the heat from your body softens the bar and the beeswax and oil are transferred to your skin without tons of mess.

Love & Leche lotion bars are palm oil free (which is good news for your skin, the environment, and orangutans – seriously, palm oil is not great), perfume and artificial fragrance free, and they’re safe for use on yourself, or even on a pet’s cracked paws. You can read more about Love & Leche’s ingredients here.

They use ingredients sourced locally to their Santa Fe, New Mexico headquarters. The beekeeper who provides their beeswax is pictured on their site. They know the farmers who grow the calendula flowers they use. Even the molds their lotion bars are poured into (which, hello, between the cute sheep and adorable bees, are beautiful!) were designed by a local sculptor. I could… wax poetic (sorry not sorry) about how much I like these, but this cute video is more fun than reading my ramblings:

My two cents

With regular marathon knit & crochet sessions, for me personally, I am lucky enough to have a set of cuticles that only rarely crack, even in winter. My burden to bear hand-wise is definitely cracked fingertips. Try as I might over and over to stop, I still catch myself chewing the odd fingernail when I’m deep in thought or stressed out about a design deadline. Between that bad habit and constantly handling crochet hooks, knitting needles and just about any fiber I can get my hands on, the tips of my fingers take a beating. Especially the tips of my right thumb, pointer and middle fingers right where the skin meets the tip of each nail. I also knit continental style and crochet carrying my yarn exactly the same as I knit – the working yarn is woven over the top of my left ring and index fingers, and under my middle finger. So I can get callouses on those fingers if I’m not diligent about taking care of my skin.

I love lotion bars, and Love & Leche’s in particular, because I can moisturize right in the middle of a row without having to worry about wet or greasy lotion residue transferring to my work. I put on a thin layer as I work whenever I feel my hands drying, and I’m good to go! And if I rub in a thick layer right before bed, it helps my hands heal overnight too. The other thing is that those scents I mentioned above are legit to-die-for, especially if you prefer products that smell like real things from nature, rather than fake, chemically scents.

The best way to round out telling you how much I endorse Love & Leche’s lotion bars is to let you know this: I’ve even ordered them for the Hands Occupied Shop! The Shop is definitely something I’ve only soft-launched in the background for selling pattern PDFs and work workshop signups to this point, but there are two dozen of Love & Leche’s bars literally sitting in the Shop “warehouse” (I own a small business and will therefore be real – it’s the top shelf of my linen closet) waiting to be added. I’m just saying – I would not invest money in a product to sell that I didn’t really love myself. And I wouldn’t be wasting your time either.

Love & Leche's lotion bars are a knitter and crocheter's best friend, moisturizing and protecting hands with all natural ingredients an a non-greasy feel.

Giveaway – enter to win a bar to try yourself!

Ok! Enough about my opinions here –  let’s give you a chance to try a Love & Leche Sweet Sheep Lotion Bars for yourself. We’re raffling off a Citrus Rose scented Sweet Sheep Lotion Bar that comes in its own tin as well as a drawstring bag. Enter using the box below – if you’re on mobile, you’ll click a button that takes you to the entry page. Open to United States & Canada.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Love & Leche's lotion bars are a knitter and crocheter's best friend, moisturizing and protecting hands with all natural ingredients an a non-greasy feel.
Giveaway prize provided by Love & Leche. Opinions are my own. 

Filed Under: Giveaways, Reviews & Sponsored Tagged With: beeswax, hand care, lotion bars, love and leche, love leche

About Heidi

Heidi Gustad is a craft book author, designer & creator specializing in yarn crafts like knitting, crochet, latch hook & macramé. Her first book, Latch Hook: 12 Projects for the Modern Maker, is out now.

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Comments

  1. Andrea

    April 20, 2018 at 6:51 am

    This sounds like a fantastic product! I LOVE that it’s palm oil free and how you called out the importance of choosing products that are palm oil free. Palm oil is so ubiquitous, and it’s an environmental nightmare that doesn’t get a lot of attention.

    Reply
  2. Mary in Minnesota

    April 21, 2018 at 9:09 am

    I have used this product for years and wouldn’t miss the Santa Fe Farmers market when traveling to
    snatch up a supply, and have ord red them online as well. The woman who makes these is heroes in
    supporting local people i. her community. All that karma goes into her products!

    Reply
  3. janice

    April 22, 2018 at 10:25 am

    I love this lotion bar. I have used it many times as my hands dry out from washing constant washing with those harsh bathroom liquid soaps. Frankly they are like floor stripper. I can carry this lovely little tin and bar with me on a plane – not a liquid s no issues. It has saved my hands many times.

    Reply

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Heidi Gustad from Hands Occupied / Craft Book Author and Knitting, Crochet, Latch Hook and Macrame Designer

Hi! I’m Heidi (she/her/hers), a craft book author & pattern designer specializing in knitting, crochet, latch hook & macrame. Really anything with yarn! ❤️  My work combines vintage and modern design elements, featuring bold colors and graphic motifs.

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If only knitting a whole project took 39 seconds… 😮‍💨 
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In this video, you can see how the Intarsia Flower Pillow pattern knits up - two flat panels, one with intarsia, both are blocked, and then they’re seamed. Find the pattern on @hi.ravelry & my website, just search Intarsia Flower Pillow. 🌸 
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P.S. I’m really smiling in this video while seaming the pillow, so I guess I’m proving last week’s claim that I truly enjoy that sometimes-dreaded task. 😆🫣
In knitting, a Left Lifted Increase (LLI) lets you In knitting, a Left Lifted Increase (LLI) lets you add a stitch in between two columns of stitches that leans to the left. Similar to an M1L, LLIs allow you to increase nearly invisibly.
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To learn more about lifted increases, including when to use them and how they differ from Make 1s, head to the 🔗 in my profle. 
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Have you ever used lifted increases? I used M1’s almost exclusively for a long time when I needed to inc between stitches, but when I designed the Intarsia Flower Pillow pattern, I needed something that would allow me to increase a lot near my cast on, and M1’s resulted in edge curling. The more you know! 🌈 
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Yarn: @lionbrandyarn Wool Ease from my Stash / Neddles: @boyeyarncrafts - Just remembered these are the needles I learned to knit on at age 8. 😂
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Last week I got to hang out with my family & helpe Last week I got to hang out with my family & helped babysit my red-headed niece and nephew. So here’s some plane knitting, and a couple pictures (shared with permission) of my babysitting adventures.
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Lessons learned: 1️⃣ Trying to knit around 2 toddlers, 2 cats & 2 large dogs is pretty hard. 2️⃣ I learned during water color time that pink and black make “colorful black.” 🩷🖤 3️⃣ Toddlers do NOT care about your rainbow sorting of their toys. 4️⃣ Toddlers are very good at finding mischief in a very short amount of time, what a surprise. 😂
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Weaving in ends & seaming with mattress stitch are Weaving in ends & seaming with mattress stitch are both so useful for garment knitting! But for me, weaving in ends can feel like a chore while the latter feels like I’ve successfully done magic. 🧙🏻‍♀️ Does anybody else run into this phenomenon? Are you the opposite? Any theories as to why they feel different? 
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In this video, I’m finishing my brand new Intarsia Flower Pillow. 🌸 I’m working with @universal_yarn Uni Merino & the pattern is available at the 🔗 in my b1o. 
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#handsoccupied #intarsiaflowerpillow #intarsia #intarsiaknitting #knitting #colorwork #knitpillow #knittinginspiration #knittersofinstagram
I independently released a knitting pattern today, I independently released a knitting pattern today, my first in 5 years! The Intarsia Flower Pillow is a 16” (40cm) round pillow knit with an intentional combination of intarsia, stockinette, garter and seed stitch. This pillow has everything you need to level up your intarsia technique while also knitting something you can use. 
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This pillow allows you to practice knitting intarsia while simultaneously increasing and decreasing. The Intarsia Flower Pillow pattern was designed to be a little knit-nerdy for learning and a little cute, arming you with many of the skills you'd need to knit an intarsia sweater. 
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Intarsia Flower Pillow is available in the Hands Occupied Sh0p and on @hi.ravelry . You can read more about the pattern on the bl0g, the🔗 are where you’d think.
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YARN: @universal_yarn Uni Merino in Antiquity, Fjord and Conch / NEEDLES: US 2 (2.75 mm) / PATTERN: Intarsia Flower Pillow by Heidi Gustad
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