Nettle and Verbena

Nettle doesn't look like a skincare ingredient. It stings, it spreads, and most people spend the summer trying to avoid it. But there's a reason it's been used in traditional herbal medicine for centuries, and pressed into soap, it becomes something quite different.

What nettle brings

The plant, growing wild, has tiny hairs on its leaves and stems that sting on contact — the classic nettle rash, familiar to anyone who's brushed against it in a hedgerow near the Black Mountains. But processed and pressed into soap, it behaves very differently. It's naturally astringent, which gives it a gentle toning effect on the skin. It carries a good mineral content - iron, calcium, and silica among them. It's rich in chlorophyll, a natural pigment with a long association with cleansing and calming the skin, and vitamin C, an antioxidant. And it has a long-standing place in traditional herbal skincare, used for centuries.

Where it comes from

Where we can, the nettle comes from close to home — picked from St Mary's churchyard in Hay, just across the ravine from the site of the first Hay Castle, and not far from the original Castello de Haye. We look for fresh spring tips, gather them into bunches, tie them, and hang them to dry in the workshop. Once dried, they're ground down into a powder. When we run through what we've gathered, we top up from trusted suppliers — but the plant that started it, more often than not, grew a short walk from where the soap is made.

Why verbena joins it

Verbena brings the scent - bright, clean, a little citrus-like, with a freshness that lifts the whole bar. It's not a decorative addition. Verbena has its own astringent and toning qualities, which means it works alongside nettle rather than simply accompanying it. Together they make a soap that feels genuinely clarifying - the kind of wash that leaves skin feeling clean without feeling stripped. The lather is soft, the scent fades gently, and there's nothing heavy about it.

Ingredients are the key

The ingredients bring real, useful properties. Astringent, mineral-rich, gently toning — that's nettle's contribution, and it's genuine. Choosing nettle, pairing it with verbena, then blending, pouring, and curing each batch by hand, one at a time — that's our part. Present, attentive work, and we're glad of it.

That's the whole philosophy, really — carried over from the garden days at The Thoughtful Gardener and still true now: pay attention to what you're putting in, and understand why it's there.

Find it

The Wild Nettle & Verbena Hand Soap is available now — made by hand, in the workshop, one batch at a time. Also worth exploring: our full natural soap collection.