Astarte

Astarte is the ancient Greek goddess of war -- well, that and fertility and sexuality. She is often depicted in the altogether, nekkid, starkers. And for good reason. You can't get your fertility on whilst wearing knickers. Nor your sexual groove. And I've read historic accounts of naked warriors (warrioresses?) conducting battles quite efficiently with their junk bobbing about, so ...

Astarte's common symbols include a horse, a dove, a sphinx (half human/half ???), a lion (part of the sphinx symbolism?) and a dove. She is one bad-ass mamma-jamma. It makes sense that a soap bearing her name would also be pretty bad-ass.

Astarte by Eleneetha is quite possibly one of the most mostiest soaps I've ever used. As shea butter soaps go, this one is tops. Big and chunky and smelling like -- well, goodness, smelling like something soft and feminine and sensual with a bit of a hard edge, something strong and unyielding is swirled around in there. Davana is in there, and davana -- believe me on this one -- is a tough aromatic to work with. She takes no prisoners, she consumes, she infiltrates and devours. And there's frankincense in there, this lends the sweetness and holiness to the soap, the calming, nurturing aspect. And the odd thing is, both davana and frankincense embody like attributes -- both can be in your face and demanding, and both can be (when dealt with by a deft hand) subtle and sublime, sweet and lovely, feminine and forgiving. So here we have two sides of the feminine; the life giver and the stalwart warrior. The lion and the dove.

Bottom line, this soap is spectacular.