New Products: Charlotte Bronte Soap Collection

As a grad student, I read a lot of books. It's part of the territory. While I enjoy some of them in an academic way, others - for whatever reason - seem to touch a nerve and bloom within the reader's soul. Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop, for instance, was one of those just this summer.

The most intense of these reader-book connections was as a junior in high school, reading Jane Eyre in AP. It was love, love, love from the first sentence. Ever since, it's still my #1 favorite book (though I am long out of high school) and I can still - like all great books - find new and interesting aspects of the novel that surprise me every time I read it. It is naturally no surprise that my first themed soaps were from Bronte.

Plus, as I wrote to a customer and fellow Bronte fan, Rochester gives me the vapors. *swoon*

It is with great pleasure, therefore, to introduce you to my version of a Bronte homage.

The eponymous Jane Eyre Handcast Glycerin Soap

For independent women who speak their minds, who think substance wins over style, for those who stay true to themselves at all costs. Brilliant, clear glycerin with a halo of whipped soap that descends gently into it in a swirl of contradictions: Tea leaves, tuberose moss, and a feminine undertone of sweet pea (we won’t tell if you won’t).

Rochester in Exile Handcast Glycerin Soap

Sent by his family in search of a wealthy bride, he soon fell under the enchantment of Spanish Town's resident madwoman. A golden apothecary color of vintage soaps, it contains the heady but doomed smell of deceitful passion: a traditional nineteenth century men's cologne of mahogany and spices and the bright and alluring smell of kumquat.

Madwoman in the Attic Handcast Glycerin Soap

The dark brooding of love lost, madness, and confined passion. Flecked with bright red spots of insanity, the scent is of the impassioned, raging madwoman in all of us: dragon's blood, rose, and island coconut. This is for all you Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea fans!

And, for extra special fun: a bit from the recent BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, starring Ruth Wilson and Tobey Stephens. From experience I can say it is truly excellent in all respects. And Stephens is the most convincing Rochester I've ever seen (yes, even more so than Timothy Dalton and Orson Welles. I know - blasphemy!)