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PLUS ...
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What are you waiting for?!

My Skin Soap Studio

New Champaka Nectar Perfume is ready now!

Our new perfume is nearly ready to begin bottling

A New Holiday Limited Edition fragrance is one step closer to you!
I am finally nearing the bottling time I and am really feeling a bit very "over the moon" about the newest perfume offering, Champaca Nectar

This pure essential oil perfume is sweet, intoxicating, epicurean and wears a devilish grin! You can read about it in earlier blog post here.

Titania and Oberon Perfumes

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene I

These days when we think of fairies, we think of child-like figures with minor magical powers. Tinkerbell, from Peter Pan, is a good example. It wasn’t always that way; in ages past, the fae were powerful, magical nature spirits. Oberon and Titania, as their King and Queen, were their royalty.

Oberon is most recognized from William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He appears in earlier French and German legends, dating back to at least the mid-13th century. He is handsome and proud, with a sly and earthy sense of humor, and a passionate lover with both a jealous nature and a wandering eye.

As lord of a sacred grove, his fragrance blend is woody and earthy, with citrus and ginger notes befitting a fiery temper. In deference to his love for his wife, Oberon’s soap contains raw honey.

Oberon’s blend of essential oils:

Five-fold orange, vetiver, amyris, ylang-ylang, desert amber resin, sandalwood, fresh ginger, five-fold lemon.

These days when we think of fairies, we think of child-like figures with minor magical powers. Tinkerbell, from Peter Pan, is a good example. It wasn’t always that way; in ages past, the fae were powerful, magical nature spirits. Oberon and Titania, King and Queen, were their royalty.

Titania is most recognized from William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although the Queen of the Fairies is traditionally nameless, Shakespeare named her from Ovid’s Metomorphoses, after the daughters of the Titans. She is a woman of unearthly beauty, with pride and power to equal that of her husband. She loves flowers and growing things, and sleeps in a bower of lush, tangled greenery.

Her perfume contains sweet and fruity notes, with green and herbal tones befitting her love of nature. Her soap has been made with a generous helping of raw silk.

Titania’s blend of essential and fragrance oils:

Apricot, sugary vanilla, papaya, jackfruit, green herbal, light floral, five-fold lemon essential oil, white thyme essential oil (linalool), clary sage essential oil.

Do not test the gnome. Defender of all things Bandi loot.



See that sack over his shoulder? It is filled with soap made of crayons, beeswax and coconut oil for a nice hard stonelike balls to pelt you with should you try to overtake him.

Fall preview

Sad dog eyes

Gearing up for the holdays!

Pic 1: Amber resin soap

Pic 2: Soap rack being filled.



I am only about half way done loading the soap rack but here are some pics just for fun. :) All natural colors used only.

Amber resin soap is the really dark soap shown.

Soap last night

Avalon restock, a bit darker in color than normal. Same soap just wanted a change for Fall.

A new soap for Fall. Pumpkin with essential oils of cedar wood, lavender and nutmeg.
Yum.

Something new is coming soon!

Our limited edition essential oil perfume oil will be ready in time for the holidays!

We haven't named it yet but how about some random notes to drool over?

Vanilla oleoresin, a medley of dark resins and balsams, sandalwood, golden champaca flower, bergamot, cocoa absolute, orange, nargamotha, blue cypress and vetiver.

If you'd like to make suggestions for a name, please let me know. :)

Nothing has been normal.

Hi,

Let me start by saying that nothing for me has been normal for the last month.
In addition to my son going back to school in August, his getting sick two weeks into school, then his recent 9th birthday on the 15th of Sept., I have been completely busy with the business. It's been full days of work and then some for me including full weekends. Thanks to everyone responsible to allowing my little grassroots business to grow. Without you, I wouldn't be here.

In other news: We are sad at our place this week.

On Monday, Nanny (Grandma) passed away and our entire family is still struggling with it. We're getting by alright, but it's been quite sad and I think we are all exhausted to be honest.
Rest in Peace sweet Nanny. You are loved, missed and always in our hearts.

It's been an incredible couple of weeks here.
I have been so busy and it really feels good.
Thank you!

Amber Sambaca is traveling the country ...

I am just getting ready to ship out many bottles of Amber Sambaca to some wonderful people! I hope you all love it. It was a true labor of love, this perfume.
It gave me some wicked fits in the development stages over these last several months.
I am really excited to have people experience it!

Hair horns and blue bathwater

A friend of mine makes these bright blue bathbombs which my son loves! This isn't the picture I was looking for exactly but you can still see the water color! How fun is that. :)
The best part ... he isn't blue when he's done. The other photo is my son shampooing his hair and happily displaying a closeup of his hairhorns.

More new soaps are available!

Many of our new soaps are now up on the website! Feel free to go browse some of our new soap selections such as Marmalade Skies, Cypress and Cardamom, Lemon Myrtle Ginger and Sandalwood Spice!

Amber Sambaca is ready

Our latest perfume Amber Sambaca is now available!

See details and information here. Amber Sambaca Perfume

Bottling Amber Sambaca perfume begins!

After a couple more straining just because it's never a bad thing, finally some bottling has begun. Where's my dropper??

Introducing Amber Sambaca perfume!

Our new Amber Sambaca perfume is not for the meek at heart. It is a complex, heady exotic perfume said to inspire provocative thoughts of romance and sensuality. Opening with a medley of lush and musky Arabian jasmine sambac, mandarin, fresh ginger, orange and rose absolute, and finishing with a deep rich array of amber resins, vanilla bean oleoresin, vetiver, sandalwood, lavender seville absolute. All grounded nicely by myrrh and patchouli in a base of Organic virgin coconut oil, fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil, macadamia nut oil, and cyclomethicone. This perfume dries down very differently on the skin than it’s scent directly from the bottle.
That said, it must be experienced on the skin for an hour or more to enjoy it’s many layers and evolutions. Photos to follow this week!
Visit My Skin Soap Studio for more ...

Seaweed Absolute a pictorial

A pictorial in shades of green.
1. a few drops of seaweed absolute in alcohol
2. after aging a couple weeks the fickle absolute hasn't thinned much
3. strained to a lovely shade of light green
4. one drop of lavender seville absolute
5. a few drops of blue cypress and blue chamomile added before stirring you can see the color dissapating.

Oh my !

Well.
It's a crying shame the Chamomile & Bergamot crumbled soap. I took a bar to the shower with me today in the interest of R&D and it is really intoxicating and just the right amount of fresh, clean and so sexy.

My my my. I will forgive it for being crumbly and yellow.
This could be in contention for my newest favorite soap, perhaps.

I love creating something new, then being completely surprised and won over by it!

New soap and restocks, some new looks

These fresh soaps will be available the 2nd week of August.
Sorry I had the listings out of order. They should correct now. :)

I likely will not offer the blue chamomile and bergamot soap for sale due to it's high cost to produce and the fact that it came out very brittle and crumbled like ruins. It looks so sad but smells really nice.

Ingredients: Distilled water, oils of palm kernel, coconut, extra virgin olive, rice bran, sodium hydroxide, unrefined avocado, mango butter, babassu, sesame, macadamia nut, castor, essential oils, clays. Some soaps may contain fragrance oils in addition to essential oils. No artificial colors.

From Top to bottom:

1- New Lemon Myrtle Ginger essential oils of fresh ginger, lemon myrtle, ylang ylang, black clay.

2- Restock Plumeria & Ginger with essential oils of fresh and dried ginger and plumeria fragrance and pink clay.

3- Restock Ginger Mango Melange with mango fragrance, essential oils of fresh and dried ginger, orange, french green and midnight black clays.

4- New Cardamom & Blue Cypress essential oils lemon, cardamom, peru balsam, vanilla oleoresin, blue cypress and patchouli.

5- New Pineapple Sandalwood essential oils of sandalwood and amyris and pineapple fragrance, and french green clay.

6- New Marmalade Skies essential oils of tangerine, myrrh, fresh ginger, ylang & lavender with rose clay.

7- Blue Chamomile & Bergamot essential oils of bergamot, blue chamomile, vetiver and fresh ginger.

8- Restock Soul Fire essential oils of vetiver, orange, tangerine, cardamom, and peru balsam with aussie pink and black clays.

9- New Peppermint essential oil of peppermint and aussie reef red clay.

10- New Coconut Vanilla our own blend of various coconut and vanilla fragrances.

Harry Potter Book release = more time for soap!

Late last night my husband and son went to the Harry Potter book release party at Barnes & Noble. They didn't get home until after 1 am sometime but this left me with 2 free hours to get more work done, so I caught up on more soaping! I am on such a fresh ginger kick and can't seem to help myself. Fresh ginger essential oil is so expensive but it does not smell like a smelly socked dried ginger essential oil which is what is typically found for sale. Fresh ginger essential oil is many times the cost, but it smells divinely like you were slicing up fresh ginger root. It makes my mouth water it's so good.

Here is what got made!

Plumeria & Ginger restock - Plumeria, ginger, ginger and ginger, rose clay. :)

New Marmalade Skies - tangerine, fresh ginger, ylang, myrrh, amyris and bulgarian lavender with rose clay.

Bergamot & Blue Chamomile - bergamot, fresh ginger, and blue chamomile.

I have several flavors of lip balms to make as well but it's been a very productive week even if I had to do it all in the dead of night. I am happy to have this work load behind me!

Soap soap soap!

I feel better now.
I finally had a chance to soap 5 batches and it feels really good.
I need to do the same tomorrow and knock out another 5 batches to get caught up.

Twists on some originals for the summer will be available in about a month.

New Blue Chamomile and Lemon Lip Balms

Tonight, I got a chance to make lip balms.
It's been on my to do list for a week at least. I have a few types to make but have been wanting to get to something new, not old, not borrowed, and yes, blue.
These 2 lip balm selections are Ambroisia aka Pina Colada which has always been a crowd pleaser and a year round favorite.
New for summer is our Blue Chamomile & Lemon lip balm which features essential oils of german blue chamomile, folded lemon, and folded tangerine.
Chock full of soothing delicious goodness, both these super mega lip balms are full of fantastic ingredients: natural beeswax, organic virgin coconut oil, virgin camellia oil (green tea seed oil), babassu oil, unrefined avocado oil, castor oil, and red raspberry seed oil, jojoba oil, german blue chamomile, folded lemon, folded tangerine essential oils.

New Cocoawood Rose & Orange and Fresh Ginger Organic Sugar Scrubs

Delicious conditioning luxury sugar scrubs are a great way to keep skin looking lovely for summer time! This is our last installment of scrubs for the summer. Due to the extreme heat here in Southern California, shipping scrubs can be costly and messy due to high summer temperatures, so we will not start production on scrubs again until October 2007.

Orange & Fresh Ginger is a blend of folded orange, fresh ginger and wild frankincense essential oils.

Cocoawood Rose is a blend of cocao absolute, rose absolute, sandalwood & amyris essential oils.


New Scrubs are ready in just in time for soft summer skin!

Cocoawood Rose Scrub Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, mango butter, pure white sugar, babassu oil, extra virgin olive oil, monoi de tahiti oil, coconut cream powder, non fat milk powder, cetyl alcohol, cyclomethicone, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol, butylene glycol, caprylic/capric triglyceride, cymbidium grandiflorum flower extract, essential oils of cocoa absolute, sandalwood, rose absolute, amyris, phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, isopropylparaben, isobutylparaben, butylparaben.

Orange & Fresh Ginger Scrub Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, mango butter, pure white sugar, babassu oil, extra virgin olive oil, monoi de tahiti oil, coconut cream powder, non fat milk powder, cetyl alcohol, cyclomethicone, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol, butylene glycol, caprylic/capric triglyceride, cymbidium grandiflorum flower extract, essential oils of foled orange, fresh ginger & wild frankincense phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, isopropylparaben, isobutylparaben, butylparaben.

Time for more lip balms and more

Well, it's time to get cracking on more lip balms and finish up one of my latest perfumes. It's not quite done yet and I am still deciding how to bring it all together. This is an oil based perfume so this is a quick pic of one of many strainings which take place during the process.

Right now it is patchouli, vetiver, myrrh, lavender absolute, jasmine sambac, fresh ginger, folded tangerine and orange with lots of vanilla oleoresin and amber resins!
Maybe some bergamot, orris root or rose absolute. Decisions to make.

Where's my dropper....

Give Us Your Poor

I think this is fantastic!

I love Natalie Merchant and what she stands for in the world of human rights.

http://nataliemerchant.com/BuriedTreasure/guyp/

My sweet dog Emmett

My dog Emmett over the years. :)

Beeswax Absolute

Today I am working with my beeswax absolute Apis mellifera.

Check out the cool chat box on the right

Thanks to Patti for the tip about CBox, it's a fun gagdet.

PROCRANSTINATION

Why is it when I have other work to be done - all I want to do is create essential oil perfume blends? I am so addicted. My dropper is my best friend these days.

My Golden Champaca, lavender absolute and seabuckthorn co2 have arrived and I can start mixing soon. Hopefully I will find time this weekend to make organic sugar scrubs, lip balms and soaps to restock.

I can't help myself

I just ordered .25 oz. of Golden Champaca CO2. It was 52 dollars for that tiny teeny bottle, but I can't wait until it gets here. I have previously used a sample sized vial in perfume and I fell in love.

I am also going to work on something soon with Seabuck thorn CO2 I hope.

Lately I am enjoying some fabulous soaps from Patti!

Pink Lotus Absolute

nelumbo nucifera india

hooray! playing today with oils.