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'Tis the season for celebrating!

Whether you're inviting loved ones into your home or enjoying the festivities on your own, this season of celebration is the perfect excuse to make a dreamy charcuterie board, pour a cocktail, and light a candle.

How to Make a Charcuterie Board

When we make charcuterie boards, they have meats, cheeses, breads & crackers, fruit (dried and fresh), and a mix of nuts and olives. This mix creates lots of variety in colour, texture, and flavour, making it a hit with friends and family. 

Where possible, shop at your local farmer’s market to support nearby farmers and vendors. It’s also a great way to discover new flavours and meet new people!

For meats, we reach for essentials like genoa salami, coppa, and prosciutto, sometimes adding chorizo and pepperoni. 

When it comes to cheese, we love a mix of hard, firm, and semi-soft cheese. For hard cheeses, we like parmesan, aged gouda, and asiago. For firm cheeses we love manchego for a more complex flavour, or cheddar for something classic. If using semi-soft cheese, try havarti, or mascarpone for a really soft cheese. 

From here, fill your board with your favourite breads and crackers. A hearty, rustic bread is delicious and will hold the flavour of the meat and cheese. Artisanal crackers like Kii Naturals offer lots of flavour, crunch, and a different texture than the bread. Or try a gluten-free option like Mary’s Organic Crackers. 

Now’s your chance to add lots of bright colour: fruit! A mix of fresh fruit and dried is our preference, but you can do either / or. For fresh fruit try grapes and berries, cherry tomatoes, even apple slices. We love adding dried apricots because they go so well with the cured meats, but you can add any dried fruit you love. 

Last but definitely not least are the nuts and olives. Raw cashews are a softer, neutral option but pistachios, roasted cashews or almonds will also work well here.

Cranberry Cocktail Recipe

There’s tons of festive drinks out there, and one of our favourites is the Fresh Cranberry Mojito from Joyful Healthy Eats. It’s light and refreshing, and it can easily be made into a mocktail by skipping the rum and opting for a non-alcoholic spirit like Seedlip instead. 

Set the Mood with The Bare Home Candles

Once your food and beverages are sorted, don’t forget to set the mood for celebration. 

Lighting one of our hand poured candles will do the trick. A blend of ethically sourced coconut and soy wax burns clean with a cotton cored, non-toxic wick.  Featuring natural scents like lavender, grapefruit, cedarwood, sage, and more, you’re sure to find one you love.

Each candle burns for over fifty hours, although it’s best to let them burn for 3-4 hours at a time before blowing them out and lighting a new one! 

Thank you for reading all about charcuterie boards, cocktails, and eco-friendly candles! If you have any questions, send us an email at rachael@thebarehome.ca. We can’t wait to hear from you.

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Around here, natural laundry soap is an eco-friendly home essential. 

Maybe you’re looking to avoid ingredients that are harsh on your skin and the environment, switch to a biodegradable formula, or try a detergent that’s safe for baby’s gentle skin {and cloth diapers!}.

Whatever your reason, today we’re walking you through three steps to an eco-friendly laundry routine, featuring natural laundry soap. 

Step 1: Laundry Stain Stick

The first step in any eco-friendly laundry routine is a laundry stain stick. It’s eco-friendly for two reasons: reducing the use of single-use plastic and avoiding harsh ingredients. 

Packaged in recyclable paper, a laundry stain stick means you can skip the single-use plastic bottles and containers a conventional stain remover may come in. And while you’re skipping the plastic, you’re also skipping harsh ingredients that can be harmful to your skin, your home, and the environment. 

A laundry stain stick is easy to use. For spot treating stains, lather with water and work the soap into the stained area before laundering as usual. For a complete hand wash, lather with water and soap on the entire item. 

Step 2: Natural Laundry Soap

Once your stains have been treated, reach for natural laundry soap, like our Lavender + Sage Laundry Detergent. 

One of the myths about eco-friendly products is that they don’t work as well, or smell as nice, as the conventional options. We’ve taken this to heart while formulating all of our products to create eco-friendly cleaners that are natural, effective, and enjoyable to use. 

The plant-powered goodness of our natural laundry soap does the dirty work for you: it’s tough on stains, yet colour-safe, and effective even in cold water (which reduces energy costs!). 

Our natural laundry soap is concentrated, with a biodegradable formula that’s hypoallergenic and cloth diaper friendly, so you can feel good about what you’re washing your family’s clothing in. 

And it’s naturally scented with organic essential oils: we’ve paired the fresh floral and mildly sweet scent of lavender with herbaceous notes of sage. 

Step 3: X-Large Wool Dryer Balls

An eco-friendly alternative to disposable dryer sheets are X-Large Dryer Balls. Handmade in small batches using only natural wool from Canada’s oldest wool mill, dryer balls have tons of benefits. 

They can lower drying time by 25-40%, thus reducing energy consumption and cost. They can help reduce static, and they’re one more way you can make an eco-friendly, natural swap in your home (aka avoid the harsh ingredients in conventional dryer sheets). 

Laundry Tip: Add your favourite essential oils to the wool prior to use for an added boost of scent.

Thanks for reading up on natural laundry soap. If you have any questions, send us an email at rachael@thebarehome.ca. We can’t wait to hear from you. 

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When Ashley first started the Bare Home, it was more than cleaning products. Think fair trade foods and zero-waste essentials. But she quickly realized that the community was most drawn to the refillable cleaning products, so she pivoted her business to focus on these eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic. 

A couple of years later, our refillable cleaning products are the cornerstone of the Bare Home so today we’re sharing: do refillable cleaning products really reduce single-use plastic?

What are Refillable Cleaning Products? 

Refillable cleaning products are products that can be refilled when empty, instead of tossed into the trash. This works well for two reasons: reducing single-use plastics and convenience. 

Refillable cleaning products reduce single-use plastics by saving all the individual plastic bottles you’d use if you weren’t refilling, and they offer convenience because instead of running to the store when you’re out of dish soap, you can walk to your cleaning cupboard and refill the bottle. 

How do the Bare Home At-Home Refill Stations Work? 

If you’re just getting started with refills, we recommend one of our At-Home Refill Kits because they come with a 3-litre refill box and the corresponding glass bottle you’ll refill. 

If you’ve already got your glass bottle, check out our 3-litre refill boxes. 

Once you’ve got your Bare Home products, it’s time to set up your at-home refill station. We recommend setting up your refill box in your linen or cleaning closet, in a kitchen or bathroom cupboard, or anywhere you store your cleaning supplies. When it’s in reach it’ll be easier to refill! 

To open your refill box, punch the perforated hole in the front, pull your tap out of the hole, remove the seal tab and you’re all set! Push down on the tap to refill your glass bottles as needed.

At-home refills are not only eco-friendly, they offer convenience you can feel good about!

Do Refillable Cleaning Products Really Reduce Single-Use Plastic? 

Yes! Each 3-litre refill box of cleaning solution replaces six 500mL plastic bottles! Which means every time you use a full 3-litre refill box you’re saving six plastic bottles from the landfill. 

Since our launch in 2018, our community has saved over 100,000 plastic bottles from the landfill, an incredible feat we’re so proud of! 

Thanks for taking the time to learn more about how refillable cleaning products work, and how they can help your family reduce single-use plastic. If you have any questions, send us an email at rachael@thebarehome.ca. We can’t wait to hear from you. 

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