We're a big fan of beeswax here at Mersea Mudd Shack, so much so, we've built a business on it!! Beeswax is a truly versatile material and it's uses are almost endless, but one of our favourites is the beeswax wrap.

A simple plastic free swap, a beeswax wrap replaces your cling film, going around sandwiches in your lunch box, ends of cheese in the fridge, over bowls of leftovers. Basically anywhere you use cling film, a beeswax wrap can be used instead! You can even use them to make piping bags, to open difficult jars, or to wrap up toothbrushes or soap for when you're on the move.

Our beeswax wraps are made using 100% cotton fabric and local beeswax. That's it! 

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When you first receive your wrap, it may be a little stiff from being folded and sent out. Just open it up and give it a wiggle to revive it! Flexing it and folding it will have it ready to use in no time.

When you're ready to use it, just use the heat of your hands to mould it over whatever you have chosen to wrap up. The beeswax is naturally adhesive, and your wrap will seal around your food.

Beeswax wraps shouldn't be used with hot foods as it will melt the wax off, naked flames should be avoided, as should ovens and microwaves. We also advise you not to store raw meat or fish in them, to avoid contamination. 

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Beeswax wraps will last up to a year before they need some attention. You may notice at this point that they start to lose their stick, or notice a lack of wax. At this point, you can revitalise your wrap by just popping it in the oven for a few minutes. Preheat your oven to 60 degrees, pop your wrap on some baking paper, and place it in the oven for 3-4 minutes. Keep a close eye on it. When the wax has melted, take it out and just waft it about until cool. You can also do this with an iron, using two sheets of baking paper (one on top, one underneath), re-melting the beeswax and cooling again.

If you've already tried this, or they're just a bit past it, then you can give them a fresh coat of beeswax using one of our beeswax blocks. Grate the beeswax onto your wrap and use either the oven or the iron technique we mentioned a minute ago. 

Beeswax wraps should last a lifetime, with care and refreshing. But if something terrible happens, and they are no longer useable you can pop them in your compost. Or why not try making eco-friendly fire lighters, by cutting them up into strips and scrunching them into balls. They burn beautifully slowly and are perfect for log burners and campfires alike.

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You can also make beeswax wraps from scratch yourself. Again by using either an oven or an iron and some baking paper to melt the beeswax onto some 100% cotton fabric. Getting the right amount of beeswax takes a little practise, but start small and you can always add more if you don't have enough!
To make it easier, we've created a 'Make Your Own Beeswax Wrap Kit' which has everything you'll need!

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​More than 1.2 billion metres, or 745,000 miles of cling film is used in the UK every year. Cling film is difficult to recycle, and the majority of it ends up in landfill where is takes 100s of years to degrade and can end up in our oceans. Yes, disposable is more convenient, but beeswax wraps are definitely a more eco-friendly alternative.
And they're far prettier too! 

As we mentioned in our previous blog, your bar of soap will gradually get smaller the more you use it, and you will end up with small pieces of soap that are just too small to get hold of. At this point you could pop them in your soap bag, or you could get crafty and make your own liquid soap! 

This recipe makes enough soap to fill around 4 soap dispensers. If you don't have that many dispensers, don't have enough soap left overs, or just don't need that much soap, you can always halve the recipe to suit!

- 100g of soap leftovers - any scent, any brand
- A knife, cheese grater or vegetable peeler
- Water
- Essential Oils (optional)
- Soap colouring (optional)
​- Blender
- Saucepan
​- Empty soap dispensers

Take your soapy leftovers and grate or finely chop them to make soap flakes. This may not take long if they are already pretty small!

Next add your soap flakes to around 1800ml of water and bring to the boil in a saucepan. Take the mixture off the heat after a minute or so of boiling and stir thoroughly to melt all the soap flakes. Your mixture will be fairly thin, but don't panic!

Allow the mixture to cool for at least 15mins. Stir again. Your mixture should be slightly thicker now. 

Cover the saucepan (or transfer to a bowl if preferred) and allow it to cool for 12 to 24 hours. After the soap has rested, check it again for consistency. The goal is to have a bowl of congealed soap. If it seems to thick, reheat it and add some more water. 

Before pouring your soap into their dispensers, run your finished soap through a blender to smooth it out. Once you are happy with the consistency, you could add a few drops of your chosen essential oil and colouring if you'd like, although if it was previously fragranced this scent should carry through.

Be sparing with the essential oils as they can cause a reaction. Lavender, lemon, eucalyptus or peppermint are great choices as they are non-toxic and have anti-bacterial properties. 
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From 100g of left overs, some boiling water and a little time, you'll probably have enough liquid soap to fill 4 or more of your favourite dispensers. (Of course if you don't have enough dispensers or need that much soap, you could halve, or quarter the recipe to suit)

I'm often asked 'how long does your soap last?'. While I appreciate the response 'how long is a piece of string?!' is not useful, it's life can be lengthened by doing a few simple things.

Here at Mudd Shack, we are ever so slightly fanatical about people converting to soap. Not only for it's benefits for your skin, but also the benefits to our planet. 

A simple bar of soap can replace so many plastic-wrapped items, the obvious ones being hand wash and shower gel. Soap bars last far longer than liquid soap as they use less water, meaning you get more for your money. And just when you thought they couldn't get any better, most soap bars use five times less energy to produce than liquid soap!
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The trick to giving your soap a long life, is to keep them as dry as possible between uses. Using a soap dish with drainage and storing them outside of the shower can help. If you use your soap bar in a sisal bag, make sure to hang it up between uses to allow it to dry.
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Our beeswax soap bars are made using the cold process method, and are left for a minimum of a month before being sold. This is to allow them to cure, allowing the excess water to evaporate and the bar to become harder. 
I know it's tempting to dig straight into your brand new soap bar, the minute it lands on your doorstep, but to get the most out of your soap you could pop it in the airing cupboard for a few days to harden even more. This is not essential, but does ensure if it has picked up any excess moisture on it's travels to you, they are evaporated.
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Our largest soap bars (100g) are quite a hefty lump of natural beeswax goodness, and can almost be too large. (If that's even possible!). If you cut your bar into two, or even three pieces, it can further prolong the life of your soap. The other pieces can then be put in the airing cupboard keeping them hard and dry for when they're needed. You could also put some in a soap bag to use in the shower, or even pop some in a tin for hand-washing on the go!
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Towards the end of it's life, your soap bar will probably break up into smaller pieces. When they get so small they are unusable, just pop them into your soap bag to use in the shower. Or you could get crafty and turn them into liquid soap. (Find our easy tutorial here!)

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We are a small family of three, who wash their hands quite alot (even before Covid!). We have one bathroom in our bungalow where the majority of the handwashing occurs, and often use the 20g bars of soap. (Usually the slightly wonky ones that can't be sold!)

​These tiny bars will usually last us around 10 days, being kept on a bamboo soap dish, therefore being left to dry between uses. Then ends also get put into our soap bag to use in the shower. If these tiny bars give us 10 days worth of hand-washing, just imagine how long a larger bar of soap will last if cared for properly?!

For my second blog, I thought I'd explain the reason why we use beeswax in so many of our products. 
When we started our plastic-free journey, particularly the soap making section, I was keen to use the most natural and local ingredients as possible. After some research into what makes a good bar of soap (namely a hard bar that lasts a long time, with plenty of bubbles) it led me down the beeswax and honey route. This fit in perfectly with the natural and local sentiment, so I contacted a local beekeeper and it all went from there.

The majority of our wax comes from Mersea, our lovely little island where we live. Occasionally we have to head across the Strood (the causeway which floods twice a day if there's a high tide!) to local villages including Fingringhoe and Gt Wigborough, but this is only if my Mersea bee keeper can't keep up with my extortionate beeswax habit! 

Beeswax is produced by honey bees. They have glands on their abdomen that produce the wax, which they then discard in the hive. To start with, it is clear, and only changes to it's beautiful yellow form once it has been in contact with the pollen collected by the bees. The bees use the wax to build honeycomb cells, which they use to house their young, and store their honey. They seal each section of the honeycomb to prevent water getting in. This is very important, as water can lead to the honey going off. Beeswax is usually collected at the same time as the honey. If removed correctly, no harm comes to the bees. The beeswax is cleaned by simply boiling and filtering to remove any impurities. 

Our main cosmetic product we make is soap, and we the Cold Process method for all our beeswax soap bars. Adding beeswax to a cold process bar of soap means it is harder, and therefore lasts longer. There's nothing worse than having a lovely bar of soap, but it disappearing before your eyes because it's not hard enough! You only need around 1-2% of beeswax in a bar of soap in order to do this, and adding too much can mean less bubbles. 
Beeswax also creates a protective layer around your skin, allowing all the other oils and butter to sink in and keeping them there. It's also a 'humectant' which means it attracts water, and helps to keep the skin hydrated. It heals and softens skin, and is antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, helping conditions such as acne, stretch marks, dry skin and eczema. 
You can also find Vitamin A in beeswax, which is great for wrinkles and age spots, and suitable for even the most sensitive of skins. 

As I've mentioned before, beeswax is about the most natural wax around. Paraffin wax is petroleum based, which can't be good to burn in your home. Soy wax is made from the oil of soy beans but goes through many processed to get it to wax form, not to mention the numerous soy bean plantations that have sprung up globally leading to deforestation. But I'm not here to tell you what's bad... so let's focus on the good!

Beeswax candles are the oldest kind going, and are the original traditional candle.

Beeswax had a higher melting point than other waxes, meaning they burn for longer. In fact, they can burn up to 5 times longer than other waxes.  

We all know that bees are crucial to our planet. We hope that by supporting our beekeepers, we can also help to keep the bees safe. Because let's not forget...

​If they go, we're going with them!


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As we welcome 2021, I thought this would be the perfect time for me to start my blog! 

Every year over the Christmas break, I like to plan the next year and the developments and improvements that I can make to my little business. This year was full of plans and dreams for a full re-stock during January, upping our advertising and marketing a little and generally making our soap production a bit more time-effective.
Little did I know, that Mr Johnson would have other ideas! My first week back after Christmas has turned into a juggling act between trying to keep up with all your lovely orders and the dreaded return of home-schooling!
Anyway, with day 2 of home-schooling round 2 completed, and everyone still alive and still enjoying each other's company at Mudd Shack HQ, I'm counting that as a win!

January is normally a time of year, when people make New Years Resolutions. Promises to better themselves in the year to come. But this got me thinking... our new years resolutions are normally centred around ourselves. Loosing weight, drinking more water, doing more exercise... But what about a new year's resolution that goes further than that? What about a resolve to help the planet?

This year, our household resolution has been to further reduce the amount of single-use plastic. We already use the milkman, shop in charity shops or buy second hand wherever possible, and obviously have an abundance of plastic-free toiletries in the bathroom, as well as using the household liquids that we offer on our refill delivery service. But our next step is to cut down on the plastic in our weekly shop, mainly surrounding our food. So we have made a promise to shop locally wherever possible.

At some point this week, between the endless Google Meets that my daughter has to attend, we will wander down to our local butchers with old tupperware pots in hand to house our sausages and bacon for the weekend fry-up. We'll then head round to the bakers with our bread bag, and finally we'll fire up our faithful old Dorris (our 1970 Morris Traveller) and head just off to island to the fruit & veg shop, taking our produce bags on our travels. 

With all this talk of both New Year's Resolutions and children's education at the moment, it dawned on me that surely one of the best things we can teach our children is how to look after our planet. And how to save our planet before it's too late.

With this in mind, and with my 8 year old daughter's help, we made up an Eco Starter Kit. It contains some really easy plastic-free swaps, at a bargain price.
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- Beeswax Wrap - one of my favourite swaps, particularly good for all those last little bits of left over Christmas cheese. Just use in place of cling-film. 25cm square and made using local beeswax with a beautiful bee pattern.
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- Metal Straws - with straws (finally) being banned in the UK, metal straws are the perfect replacement. You'll need one for all those take-away drinks we'll be buying now!
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Whatever your New Years resolutions are. Whether you stick to them for a day, a week, or only an hour. I wish you a happy 2021. It's got to be better.... right?!


Claire xx
Mersea Mudd Shack


PS I also made a New Year's resolution to lose the stone I put on during last lockdown... But with the onset of home-schooling I never even started that one! Oops!!

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