The leaves are falling, the light is turning from a bright hot glow to a crisp, clear shine. The sky's blue appears bluer and the air is spicier. I love October, it’s a wholesome but withdrawn month. It's not loud like July, it’s not lovely like May, it doesn't smell like pumpkin spice like November does, it has its very own energy. 

This year the arrival of fall reminds me that there is a time for everything. There is a time to be happy and a time to be sad. There is a time to be healthy and a time to be sick, there is a time to be active and there is a time to rest. Life happens in cycles, and I realize that I haven't really and truly honored my very own personal cycle.

I have not given myself enough rest, I have not given myself enough compassion; like: it’s okay NOT TO. 

The past two or three weeks I spent resting. I explored the question: How does my body feel when it doesn't have to suffer and perform? And I realized it felt tired. I felt endlessly tired. Like the oak tree in our front yard with its branches and leaves hanging heavy as if they cannot resist gravity anymore - I felt tired. So I rested. 

Instead of being stressed out I enjoyed cooking good food, instead of running out of time, I made room to get things done, I paid more attention to being still than to be active. And I realized: there is a time for everything. 

Fall is a very providing time of the year. The cooler mornings give room for thought, the amazingly bright light and crisper air during the day makes me want to peel my eyes in order to take it all in. Everything seems closer, silhouettes of objects seem to be cut with a sharper knife, my vision and my sense of smell seem more aware. 

You won't find a pumpkin spiced soap in our shop this fall - I was craving something else. It went more towards red mandarin, citrusy and smokey with a hint of vanilla; kind of like fresh wet leaves mixed with the first real citrus of the season. 

I also was lucky enough to share this scent-notion with a friend of mine from South Carolina, we paired it with a color palette, and a special edition soap dish; all representing what we love about fall. So here we are with Ladson’s very first awesome collaboration with the author and passionate “idea realizer” Jessica Murnane for Fall and Winter 2022.

Pre-Order Your Seasonal Special Bar!

This month is also a good time to use oils on your skin again since the air is getting dryer. I haven't been using my Watermelon Seed Oil during the summer, because of the high humidity here in Georgia. But now I started using it again, taking a very small amount and applying it to my face morning and night, and it feels so wonderful. There is no oily feel to this product, it absorbs so quickly it feels more like a lotion than an oil. 

In the summer it was a struggle to keep up with my kid’s hair care because they were in and out of a body of water each and every day. 

But now we have time to take baths again! My four-year-old daughter, Else, has reddish, curly hair, and it's always tangled up and looks unbrushed. Plus: hairwashing for 5 kids is a painful chore. But now she is getting used to it, and she loves when her hair feels nice and soft. All my kids use Just Soap to wash themselves. On Else, I use our conditioner bar to condition her little curls. It is easy to use, she can now apply it herself, and it looks so cute the way her curls bounce up and down when she skips across the yard. 

Fall is the time of year where I figure out what is important to me and therefore “care” about it as we head into the end of the year. I know food is more important to me than it has been, so I really started to care about it, and make sure I get the right nutrition for myself and my family. It is important to me not to get stressed out about life, so I care about taking things slower and being more focused with my time - amazingly what we sometimes think is impossible becomes possible when we actually start to care.  

Go outside and really look around, and you will notice all the things that are possible: spiders being able to spin webs across vast distances, trees knowing that the time to let go is upon them, birds in the sky flying in incredible formations to travel to warmer climates, lion’s mane mushrooms cascading in ivory white from hardwood trees. And remembering that you, yes you, are a unique and incredible part of all of this.