Thirty-one persons, including adults and young people in Anguilla, have now developed skills in soap and candle-making. An exhibition of the attractive-looking and useful products was staged in the lobby of the General Post Office on Tuesday this week and, if the interest of the manufacturers and the support of the public continue, the naturally-made items may appear regularly on the local market.

Lorna Bacchus, student artist, Eleanor Sutton-Mason and Bernice Fahie-Richardson

The exhibition came in the second week of a three-week workshop involving the Anguilla National Creative Arts Association, an ever-busy group whose chairperson is Bernice Fahie-Richardson, the Small Enterprise Development Unit of the Anguilla Development Board and the Caribbean Technology Consultancy Services of the Caribbean Development Bank.

The workshop was facilitated by Marie Eleanor Sutton-Mason, a craft production specialist at the Nevis Craft House, employed by the Government there. Originally a trained artist, she studied in Canada and became an interior designer, a ceramist and an upholsterer. After residing in Canada for many years, she returned to Nevis to impart her skills as a career person in arts and crafts. Ms Sutton-Mason, who is known in Anguilla by a number of schoolmates at East End, is the daughter of James Sutton, Snr, a past headmaster at the Old East End School. She was invited to Anguilla by

Finished Products of Soaps and Candles

Catalina Hawley of the Small Enterprise Development Unit to facilitate the soap and candle-making workshop.
“Soap-making is a long process. You have to make a basic soap which is made with various different types of oils – like olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable oil and canola oil,” she explained. “It has to be mixed with lye, a very costly substance which is also made from a natural product like wood ash. We use lye because this is what causes the suds in the soap. It goes through a process… where the lye and the soap have to cure for six to eight weeks so that the suds can take effect and the lye evaporates from the soap. When that is done, it is grated and melted down and then the other ingredients are used to make many varieties.”

The varieties of soap were made from local fruits and vegetables including carrot, cucumber, watermelon, mango and ginep seed and mango pulp, pumpkin, tamarind, pomegranate, pineapple, noni, passion fruit, mauby bush, coconut, avocado and aloe-vera. Commenting on the use of the soap, Ms Sutton-Mason said: “It is for your face and your entire skin. Your skin is the largest organ of your body. The way I look at it

Catalina Hawley and onlookers inspect exhibition at Post Office

is that, if you eat fruits and vegetables, you can have them from inside out. You eat the fruits and vegetables, and you can also use the ingredients from them and take care of your skin from natural materials.”

Several types and styles of scent candles were also made using imported paraffin wax and bees’ wax with added fruit and vegetable colourings. The products included dipped candles, floating candles, voline candles and tapered candles.

Mrs. Fahie-Richardson expressed much appreciation for Ms. Sutton-Mason’s work and the efforts of the Small Business Development Unit and its other organisations in sponsoring the workshop. “We are happy to be doing it because it is opportunity for the young people as well as adults to get these skills which they can use in the future,” Mrs. Fahie Richardson told The Anguillian as the items were being made.”

She went on: “Already there are some participants who are eager to start their own business. If that is the only outcome, we are proud of it and are grateful that Ms Mason was able to come and that Catalina was able to discover her.”

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