Each of our candles were already Phthalate-Free and Paraben-Free, but now they are even better. You can light each one confidently knowing they are now also free of:

• Carcinogens
• Mutagens (that change the DNA of a cell, harming the cell and causing diseases like cancer)
• Acute Toxins
• Organ Toxins
• Reproductive Toxins
• anything on California’s Prop 65 list

Now do you see why we are excited?!

Whether you like earthy scents or ones that smell like winter. Fruity aromas or trees blowing in the breeze. Floral fragrances filling the air or the smell of fresh baked goodies coming out of the oven. We are sure to have a Clean Scent soy candle that you will love.

Candle making for us is an art . . . an art we love to share with you to bring beauty and pleasure to your home. Each candle jar has its wick placed by hand. The soy wax is measured and mixed with the fragrance oil, also by hand. And each candle is carefully handpoured.

It thrills us to now be able to add to our soy candles that they are Clean Scent. And the cherry on top? Each one gives you 45-55 hours of clean-burning time. PLUS room-filling fragrances.

You can burn them and breathe in their aromas, guilt-free and worry-free. So light a candle, pick up your cup of coffee or tea, sit back, relax and enjoy . . . a Niobrara Naturals Clean Scent Soy Candle. From our home to yours.

If candles aren’t your thing, yet you would love to enjoy these amazing fragrances, we have soy wax melts! They have completed development and are in the process of being added to our website as quickly as we can get them on.

The post Our Soy Candles are now CLEAN SCENT! appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

We love working together each day and having the opportunity to include our kids in the business. They each have their special volunteer jobs which they love to do. Such as, cutting twine for the sugar scrubs, helping put wicks in candle jars, or restocking products at the market. (The latter is probably everyone’s favorite!)

Our family business is personal . . . each of the products we make, our family loves, uses, and also needs. We then have the satisfaction and joy of bringing these 100% natural skincare products into your lives and homes, as well as our soy candles. (Check out our About Us and read more of our story and why we make the products that we do.)

A big thank you to all of our wonderful customers for supporting our family business, Niobrara Naturals, in 2020 and now into 2021! It was not an easy year for anyone, and we appreciate you all so much. We love providing you with our 100% natural skincare products, plus our Clean Scent Soy Candles and Wax Melts (which are coming soon to our website.)

We (and our four kiddos!) are excited in this new year of 2021 to continue to provide you and your family with our handcrafted products. To our local customers, we look forward to seeing you year-round at the Columbia Farmers Market and continuing serving all of you here through our website!

The post Niobrara Naturals – A Family Business: Handcrafting the Skincare Products and Soy Candles You Love appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

As a part of this wonderful new season in life, Zach and I are looking forward to doing the business together! We are excited about several new products that are in development now, both skincare products as well as wood products that complement our skincare line that he skillfully handcrafts. (Watch for those this spring and/or summer!)

Over the past months, several other new products have also been added to our store. Including our Peppermint Tea Tree Body Butter which quickly became very popular with its deep moisturization, silky smooth texture, and its fresh scent. . .

We have also added new gable box gift sets . . .

We look forward to continuing together to bring our soy candles and 100% natural skincare to you here through our website and at the Columbia Farmers Market!

The post The Business is Growing! appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

7,800+. That is the number of customers who came out and helped make the grand opening of the new Columbia Farmers Market pavilion such a success!

Phase 1 of the construction is nearly complete! The central third of the pavilion, restrooms, a concrete pad for the entire length, and more parking. My annual stall location is just two spots down from the west side of the pavilion and thanks to that, I have shade for most of the morning, which is most welcome during these hot summer Saturdays.

The day started out early and there was excitement in the air as vendors arrived and began setting up their stalls for the first time at the new location, with many of the vendors under the first phase of the market pavilion (my stall is just outside of it and on the right. Eventually the entire length will be covered.)

I was only able to take a few photos before the market began as once the market bell rang and customers began shopping, I stayed very busy!

Looking down the pavilion while vendors are setting up

There is a wealth of diversity of products available . . . vegetables, fruits, berries, honey, cheeses, meat (beef, pork, lamb, chicken), eggs, crafts, canned goods, baked goods, prepared foods, natural skincare (of course:) and more!

My booth – so much natural goodness for your skin and soy candles to fill your homes with fragrance

We couldn’t have asked for a better day for the Grand Opening. The skies stayed overcast and the temperature cooler as the crowds poured through the market. The atmosphere held a level of excitement and fun all day as customers shopped, and I kept very busy waiting on customers, answering questions, visiting with them, and restocking product. At times, almost busier than I could keep up with!

A few of the produce vendors

I really enjoy being a part of this market, and it will be exciting to see the progress at the Agricultural Park as Phase 1 is completed and construction begins on Phase 2!

Tuesday hours: 10am – 1pm

Saturday hours: 8:00-Noon

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While I now get the milk for my goat milk soaps from a friend of mine who lives a few minutes from me, I love still raising a few goats! This year, only one of my three does was bred, and she had the first ever all red Boer goat kid I have had. He is so cute! And is just starting to get playful now and learning how to jump and play. He’s also decided that he likes being petted and will follow me all around the pen.:)

River and her yet to be named buckling

Spring is the season for growth and new life with flowers blooming, garden crops growing, fruit ripening, wildlife raising their young . . . .

A volunteer yellow squash plant in the compost pile

A peach on one of the trees

The blueberry bushes are loaded with berries this year and some are just beginning to ripen. Mmm . . . I can almost taste those fresh from the bush berries!

Daisy out grazing

I electric fenced in a large area for my goats early in the spring, and they are loving the wide diversity of lush browse and grass

Freshly laid eggs in the nest box 

First time to have blossoms on the Elderberries that my sister and I planted a few years ago

Native Jewelweed growing. It is doing so well this year! Much better than last year when there was the drought. I have started harvesting it now and preparing it for use in our Jewelweed Soap (which is great for helping prevent and treat poison ivy!)

Bachelor Buttons back-lit by the setting sun

Love the blossoms on this old fashioned rose bush

A pair of Northern Cardinals built a nest on top of the rabbit cages, and it was a treat to watch first the nest being built, eggs laid, then hatch, and then the baby birds fly the nest (this one was the last to go and left shortly after the picture was taken.

Now spring is coming to a close and summer is about to begin . . . it has been a wonderful season, and I am looking forward to summer being the same!

The post Springtime on the Farm appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

I brought my camera along recently and captured some photos of my booth as well as a few glimpses of the market:

Soy candles, deodorants, gift sets and more

A few of our 16 varieties of all natural goat milk soap

Honey and fresh greens for sale by a couple of other vendors

This past Saturday was our last indoor market, and we will be outside for this coming Saturday’s market on the 16th. I am looking forward to being outdoors again, and so far this coming Saturday looks like it will be nice with mostly sunshine and a high in the upper 40’s!

So if you are looking for something to do on a Saturday morning, stop by 8-Noon at the Parkade Plaza parking lot and shop with the different vendors and enjoy the live music and fun atmosphere of the market!

The post Winter Farmer’s Market Days appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

For example, if the candle has the wrong wick size, numerous things can go wrong when burning it. Have you ever burned a candle only to have it burn right down the middle, leaving a lot of wax on the sides of the jar? This is called tunneling.

It often indicates that the candle has a wick that is too small for the wax and fragrance. (Tunneling can also be caused by burning a candle for periods of time that are too short, which doesn’t give the candle enough time to burn a melt pool all the way across.)

If the candle has too large of a wick, though, then your candle burns too hot, and you won’t get those 45-55 hours of burn time. Plus, the jar will heat up hotter than it should.

Different soy waxes will also burn differently, as will different brands of wicks and different fragrance oils.

This is why test burning is so important! Its goal is to find out and ensure that each new candle scent will burn well, without tunneling if burned properly, and give you those room-filling fragrances.

Three new test burn candles: – Patchouli – Rain Water – Peppermint Eucalyptus –

After I had a baseline for the soy wax, wick type and size, and the brand of fragrances I use, most candle scents make it through the test-burn with flying colors. However, some need a bit of tweaking. Our Very Vanilla, Pumpkin Souffle, and Winter’s Hearth candles are in that category. Their fragrance oils are ‘heavier’, and cause them to burn differently requiring a larger wick size.

So, what is a test burn? This means burning the candle all the way down in 3 hour increments with at least 6 hours between each burn. Throughout each burn, the candle is checked to see:

• If it is giving a room-filling scent
• The jar isn’t getting to hot
• How wide the melt pool is
• How deep the melt pool is
• The flame size
• Once it burns all the way down, did it give the 45-55 hours of burn time?

Sometimes a candle fails the test burn, and I might need to try a different wick size. Sometimes, a fragrance oil just doesn’t reach the standard of room-filling scents that I want for my candles so it doesn’t make the cut.

But if the new candle checks out on each of the above (plus a few more), the new candle scent is made and ready for you to enjoy!

Shop our line of Soy Candles – made with American grown and produced soy wax

The post Why (and How!) I Test Burn Each Candle Scent appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

With being a ‘one person show’, it isn’t easy getting pictures during the actual making of the products! But between steps, I have been able to capture some of the processes over the last few months. Here is a glimpse into the ‘before’ some of your products arrive at your doorstep or you pick them up at the farmer’s market . . .

Logs of soap that have just been taken out of the soap molds and are ready to cut. Each log is cut into 24 bars.

(These soap varieties are: Activated Charcoal, Meadow Grove, Peppermint Tea Tree, Lavender Oatmeal, and Lavender.)

A long line of soy candles that have just been handpoured. They will sit undisturbed until the wax hardens.

Time to make more bath salts to restock!

This made me smile when I cut it! A batch of Cedarwood soap and this bar smiled back at me

Not quite the most exciting shipment to receive for my business, BUT, these are what get your orders to you!

Time for wick-trimming, lids, and labels, and then they are ready to go fill rooms with their fragrances (and maybe yours!)

And there you have a glimpse into the production process of some of the products!

The post Behind the Scenes appeared first on Niobrara Naturals | Always All Natural Skin Care | Plus Soy Candles.

The scent of lavender is a popular one, and beyond even the pleasing fragrance, Lavender Essential Oil has many health and skin benefits. Here are my top 7 favorite reasons to use this oil in our skincare products and also as a stand alone oil:

1. Relaxation -perhaps its most well-known benefit, is its calming, relaxing, and sleep-inducing qualities, making it great for use before bed. If you have trouble sleeping, a few drops on your pillow will help aid you in sleep. Using our lavender bath salts and body butter have similar affects.

2. Stress Reducer – adding to benefit 1, Lavender essential oil is good for reducing stress and lowering anxiety levels by simply breathing in the aroma.

3. Natural antibacterial and antimicrobial properties – making it an excellent oil for acne prone skin, as well as applying topically to minor bites, wounds, infections, and burns (it is advised to dilute in a carrier oil before use.)

4. Natural anti-inflammatory properties – which means it can help ease pain when diluted with a carrier oil (such as olive oil or sweet almond oil) and rubbed and/or massaged into the area of pain

5. Natural air-freshener

6. Headache Relief – combined with Peppermint Essential Oil, these two oils can help ease headaches through aromatherapy or rubbing into the temples.

7. Soothing – to burns, razor bumps, sunburn, and bruises

This vibrant and colorful plant is not only beautiful, but as you can see, has a diversity of benefits to our health and skin!

Checkout our products that contain Lavender Essential Oil.

*If pregnant or breastfeeding, always research essential oils and consult your doctor before use.

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— Niobrara Naturals —

The new name speaks more to the heart of our business: crafting not just skincare products, but ones that are all natural and so good for your skin.

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