Studio Works: One-of-a-Kind Soaps from the Living Studio

There is the work you plan, and then there is the work that arrives while you’re busy making something else.

Studio Works live in that second category.

While I’m formulating the seasonal releases for PlantLust — refining ratios, sourcing materials, testing stability — another kind of making happens alongside it. A bar poured with whatever plants are asking for attention that week. A study made with charcoal and clary sage flowers rom the garden. A soap I make for my own hands after a long day in the tending earth.

These soaps aren’t prototypes in the usual sense, and they aren’t mistakes. They’re studies — moments when intuition overrides formula, when I follow what the materials want to become rather than what I intended to make.

Over the years, this is where many of my most important discoveries have happened. Skin Potion No.1 first appeared this way — as a so-called “failed” batch that turned out to give glow and nourish winter skin better than anything I’d made before.

Until now, I’ve kept these soaps for myself and my family. But Studio Works are an acknowledgment of something I’ve come to trust: the studio is a living place, and some of its offerings deserve to be shared as they are — unrepeatable, specific, and true to their moment.

What Is a Studio Work?

A Studio Work is a one-of-a-kind bar of soap made outside a fixed formula.

Each one reflects a particular day, season, and set of materials. The scent, color, and composition shift based on what’s available, what’s abundant, and what’s calling for use. Some are deeply simple. Others are more experimental. None are replicated.

What defines a Studio Work:

• A single, unrepeatable bar

  
  

• Made in very small batches

  
  

• Accompanied by handwritten studio notes

  
  

• Rooted in season, process, and material integrity

  
  

These soaps arrive when they’re ready, not on a schedule.

Why Offer Something Unrepeatable?

PlantLust has always been about more than products. It’s about relationship — with plants, with skin, with time.

In a world that demands scalability and sameness, Studio Works offer a different value system. They honor the reality that not everything meaningful can (or should) be reproduced. They invite the user into the living studio — not the polished surface of a brand, but the place where learning, risk, and intuition actually happen.

This is not about perfection. It’s about presence.

How to Use Them

Studio Works are meant to be used, not saved. They’re functional soaps — cleansing, nourishing, made with care — but they also carry the trace of a specific moment. Using one is a small act of participation in that moment.

You might receive:

• A bar made during the first frost of October, layered with lavender and sage

• A summer study in calendula and honey

• A winter soap formulated simply for comfort and repair

Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

The Offering

Studio Works are released quietly, in very limited numbers, as they emerge from the studio.

Each bar is priced at $22, reflecting the time, materials, and unrepeatable nature of the work.

You can view the currently available Studio Works here.

If nothing is available when you look, it simply means the studio is in another phase. More will appear when they’re ready.

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In the rhythm of making, Blair