We are having a busy run right now with making our stuff.  I made a batch of Copal Medicinal Ointment today.  Here is copal (Protium copal) in its raw form with the cleaned-up material to the front of it:

A pound block of copal is sold in the Punta Gorda market wrapped up in a leaf as shown.  If you actually look closely, you will see all sorts of detritus in the resin.  Through a cleaning and filtering process we remove all the muck out of it to get what is shown in the picture.  It is a really messy procedure because the resin is a very sticky.

So, here is the pot with my magical formula for copal ointment:

The bright yellow stuff is beeswax melting in sticky goo (sorry for the lack of technical jargon).

And then we package it into containers:

Copal is used for skin ailments including bacterial and fungal skin infections.  It also has natural cicatrising properties which aids the healing of skin and helps the formation of scar tissue.  You can read more about Copal if you press on this link.

And, Gnome has been working too…

He has been working his magic on the soaps and has been hand-stamping a custom order batch.  This is definitely not his favourite chore but alas, somebody’s got to do it!  Stamping soaps actually requires co-ordination and correct alignment…it isn’t as easy as it looks!

and this is the result:

Gnome will be cutting a batch of Copal Medicinal Soap later on so I will adding a few more pictures later.  Okay, hope everyone is having a good Sunday!

More Pictures:

In the above picture, the piece of wood at the back is a frame with horizontal wires running along the whole length of it.  The front piece of wood is pushed down to ease the column of soap through the cutting wires.

And, this is the result:

Gnome only uses the cutter for the Medicinal soap because the result can be rough-cut.  For aesthetic reasons, the Artisan Soaps are cut one by one with a single wire.

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