Friday 15 July 2011

good news for students


i've noticed a few people complaining of dry skin
and sore hands
from immersion in dyepots 
and learning how to tie brutally tight bundles
so
i began a conversation with my favourite supplier
of lovely balms
to enquire whether they might supply us with some small samples
am delighted to say their response was more than generous

will be sending tubes of their lovely
Resurrection Aromatique Hand Balm
to be used by students in class
as well as
other sample packets of their gorgeous products
for me to pass on

so now our already fragrant workrooms
will smell even nicer
and
we can soothe our hard-working hands
at the end of the day

16 comments:

  1. lucky students - Aesop have the nicest products - I used them all the time when I lived in Melbourne jxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Funnily enough I was surprised.. but really shouldnt have been lol....when my false nails started to peel off sideways all of sudden ........and it took me a month or two to realise Id stopped wearing protective gloves to fish fabrics out of the dye pots !
    Talk about daft.....
    And yes, I had noticed how dry my hands were....but still didnt put the dry hands and my entire lifting nails together!
    Great idea for your students that, what a thoughtful tutor you are!

    ReplyDelete
  3. for a second there, i imagined being able to walk into any aesop shop in the world and whisper to the shop keeper the secret codeword "india flint", whereupon the lovely shopkeeper would hand me a brown paper wrapped package...
    sigh...
    great job teach... and good on aesop for being receptive to healthy ideas xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great idea! I am however more intrigued by the photo atop your post than Aesop's tales. It's beautiful. How did you do that?

    ReplyDelete
  5. the photo is the result of a very easy trick...is actually 4 images pasted together in a row, two of them horizontally flipped [is detail of pool of water with reeds and reflections] ie FUN with photoshop!

    and false nails? que? it's not that our dyes are harmful, simply that having your hands in and out of water all day long is equivalent to being a full-time dishpig, with attendant consequences

    ReplyDelete
  6. oh and another thing - wouldn't it be lovely if those Haigh's chocolates i hand out as an antidote to day4 syndrome were complimentary as well!

    at least they're kind enough to package the froggies separately for me...AND they always offer a little chocolate to "try" when I collect my supplies

    ReplyDelete
  7. by the way..nothing to do with your post....your hair...beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oooooh complimentary chocolate--fab idea!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you Yvette for the kind compliment

    ReplyDelete
  10. I don't do dying, but have followed your adventures for a while now. I live in California, and rural, so may not have access to the products you mention, but I have trouble with my hands and nails and I use Bag Balm. I learned about if from my rancher stepsons, and from an art quilter whose hands got dry from handling fabric.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Haighs dark chocolate peppermint froggies... sigh

    ReplyDelete
  12. aesop? haigh's chocolates? after some dyeing fun. sounds like heaven...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hi India
    should your students be putting their hands in dye pots? How about gloves? after all as you point out in your book skin is one of the biggest organs of the body. And some people might be very allergic to some of the chemicals even if they are naturally occurring
    Just a thought!
    Helen

    ReplyDelete
  14. good point Helen!

    i always include gloves on the materials list. but i can't force people to wear them

    in class i make sure we don't use any toxic plants. nor do i use them in my own work.

    and we don't use toxic adjunct mordants.

    although we DO use 'pot as mordant' and use found metals [iron, copper, aluminium but NOT cadmium or lead] in our bundling

    the immersion happens when people eagerly reach into a [cool] pot to extract a bundle - our hands aren't being boiled in the dyes

    so yes, bring and use gloves especially if you have tender hands

    otherwise

    after 4 or 5 days of bundling and rolling and pulling string tight and handling a lot of damp cloth samples

    you will have chapped hands.
    and that's when a soothing smear of Aesop will do them a whirled of good!

    ReplyDelete
  15. que suerte!!!!....que ganas de ser uno de esos estudiantes, no solo por las cremas ;D

    ReplyDelete