Time To Get Glossy!

Now that the weather is starting to chill ever-so-slightly, I wanted to make something delicious and nourishing for our skins-a liquid sponge so to speak, and I think I've hit the jackpot! Meet my new bath and body oils called Gloss. I am in love with Gloss-not because I made it, okay, maybe a little bit, but they've re-introduced me to the art of bathing! I don't like taking baths, but now that I work out in the evenings, my aching bod looks forward to a warm tub full of skin-softening oils. The cool thing about Gloss is the oils do not just float on top of the water like the Gulf spill, but it transforms your bath water into a scented and silky private spa escape. Here's what's in it:

• Sweet Almond Oil: skin-softening and rich in proteins, minerals, and fatty acids
• Golden Jojoba Oil (hence the color)-Rich in vitamin E and known for its healing properties and leaving a silky, satiny barrier on the skin
• Apricot Kernel Oil-Rich in vitamins A&E, and penetrates deep into the skin without leaving a heavy, oily residue. It's also known to help skin retain elasticity and suppleness
• Avocado Oil-Superb skin hydrator absorbing deep into skin tissues.  It also helps to relieve the dryness and itchiness of psoriasis and eczema.
• Fractionated Coconut Oil-straight carrier oil that helps the more therapeutic oils (see above) absorb more readily into the skin.
• Tocopherol-anti-oxidant so the oils don't go apesh*t on you.

So there you have it! On their own, these oils are pretty powerful, but when combined together, they're the Justice League of skin moisturizers, and they're now available here in 3 fabulous scents:

Raspberry Hooray!

 Raspberry Hooray

Meet my second official holiday soap: Raspberry Hooray. This time I stayed kind of true to what we expect in a holiday scent: something sweet, edible-smelling, and fun, and this one does not disappoint! Last year, I made this soap, Lardy For the Party in the same scent, and it was a hit. I really didn't know what the reception would be, but i had one customer buy 4 of them at once, and I only made 9 bars, so yeah, I was pretty pleased, lol. Unlike Lardy, however, Raspberry Hooray is totally vegan.

 Lardy For The Party

 Raspberry Hooray contains top notes of raspberry, pear, and apple, with middle notes of Madagascar Vanilla, sugarcane, butter, and maple, and bottomed out with a shot of vanilla extract. Okay, that's the official scent description, but I gotta tell ya: All I smell is pure raspberry and cream. That was all I needed to convince me to use this fragrance! Raspberry Hooray will make its offficial day-bew in the coming weeks....

Do Not Eat This Soap!

Pepper jumped up on my work table the other day after I un-molded this baby and was sniffing hard-to the point where I swear her grubby, little tongue was going to start flickering in and out at any minute. You would have had to call the Human Society on me if she did because it took me forever to make this soap!

I adapted it from this WSP recipe, and I'm pretty please with the results. Apple Pie is my most favorite pie in the world (with sweet potato and lemon meringue running a very close second), and I had planned on making a cold processed version of it, but I wasn't sure if the scent would hold up and I was still toying with a design for it. Thank goodness, I found this one because that cp version would have probably never gotten made.

Without going into a lot of detail (visit the link for all that fun stuff), this soap took me about 3 hours to completely make. I already had mold to make apple/peach slices, so I cheated on that part. The longest and most annoying part of making layered melt and pour soaps for me is the setting up between layers. If you don't let each layer set up firmly enough, your next layer could just seep all the way through and ruin the batch. If you let each layer set up too long, then you'll have an obvious line of demarcation like my last layer. I didn't intend to do that but the finished soap would have been very squat-looking-like a half bar, and I wanted the apple slices to stick out on top so I created a new layer. Anyway, here they are: Pretty Brown Apples: apple pie-scented-with-a-hint-of-snicker doodle topped with brown sugar soap! And yep, they're available now.