Don’t Lose Your Head!

As the air turns crisp and the leaves change to oranges and reds, something changes in the world. The days get shorter, the harvest is gathered, and the coolness of the air brings people closer together signifying winter will be here soon. Pumpkins grow and ripen, picked to be decorations and their seeds roasted for snacking. Soups and chowders and stews boil in pots in kitchens around the northern hemisphere as the smell of pumpkin spice, apples, and cinnamon laces the breezes blowing by. As people begin to gather around their fireplaces, many read darker stories meant to inspire some fear and fascination. One such story is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.

Following the schoolmaster Ichabod Crane as he moves to the picturesque village of Sleepy Hollow from Connecticut, the story tells of how he does his best to win the hand of Katrina Van Tassel. Ichabod views the village as put under some kind of enchantment as he seems to feel time slow down in the area. The people move a little slower, spend more time in their daydreams, and believe in things that “sensible people” didn’t think of. Ghosts, goblins, and creatures of the night were believed to roam around in Sleepy Hollow, with the most notable supernatural resident being the Headless Horseman. The legend tells that the Horseman was a Hessian soldier who lost his head to a cannonball during the Revolutionary War. People of the town believe that since the Horseman rides near the church, his body must be buried there. The Hessian rides through the town in search of his missing head.

Ichabod loved to hear the ghost stories of this village as he rotated his room and board from family to family of the students he taught. He found that he enjoys the finer things in life and loved spending time with the farmer’s wives and daughters who feed into his insatiable hunger for supernatural stories and food. But there is one beauty who catches his eye, Katrina Van Tassel. Katrina takes singing lessons from Crane, who prides himself on his own voice, and she flirts with her teacher in return.

The night of a party at the Van Tassel’s, Ichabod is found to be the best man in the room but leaves after the party is finished thanks to Katrina disappointing him. The path Ichabod took home brought him past a tree that is supposedly haunted. And leaning against that tree, a dark figure loomed. The figure made its way onto the road as Ichabod rode his decrepit horse back home. The schoolmaster tried to shake the uneasy feeling pooling in his gut and when he looked behind him at the figure and found it to be without a head on his shoulders, his fears were realized. Pushing his horse to the fullest gallop, he rode past the church where the body of the Horseman is said to be buried. The pair race along the trail until Ichabod crosses the bridge nearby believing that the bridge would keep him safe. The teacher turned to see if the Horseman would give chase, but it met with the severed head being hurled in his direction, knocking him off his horse.

As day broke, the horse returned to its stable without a rider and the townspeople found hoofprints and a hat near a smashed pumpkin close to the bridge. Some say it was a prank pulled by Katrina’s other suitor, others say the Horseman finally found a head to put himself to rest. Ichabod Crane was never heard from again in Sleepy Hollow. 

While the Headless Horseman lost his head to a cannonball, it’s a wonder people haven’t lost their heads for this soap. Scented in pumpkin, sandalwood, tonka, and oud, the soap Ichabod’s Chase is meant to bring you to that chilly, autumn night in front of the church as Crane rode his horse to escape across the bridge. The warming fragrance of the sandalwood and tonka remind us of the friendly air of the party he left while the pumpkin and the oud give us the chilling and deep scent of the Hessian soldier who throws the carved pumpkin head at Ichabod. The orange and black coloration scream Halloween as the soap is stamped with a jack-o-lantern face and topped with a beautiful tumbled carnelian. The Headless Horseman may not ride in Sleepy Hollow anymore, but this soap will remind those who use it of Ichabod’s last ride.

To get your own bar of this fall soap for $16, shop below!