Weenus Was The First Blow

Weenus Testing

Remember when I shared with you about the WEENUS TEST....my daughter's old-detection test? To update yourself on Tween nonsense go here and read about it. And test yourself... I dare you, and then, I wish you luck. I failed miserably so don't feel bad if it didn't snap back like the old days

Strike One.

The other day, my daughter and I were hanging out and gabbing while I drank my morning coffee and she suddenly looked at me with great admiration and said, " Mom, your crow's feet look so pretty."

Strike Two.

Later that day, I'm lying in bed and my son comes and snuggles with me. We are in a sweet embrace and he looks at me with great admiration and says, "Mom, that hair that's growing between your eyebrows.... is that called a uni brow?"

Strike Three.

I'm not sure anymore about the look of great admiration. I am now thoroughly convinced that it is evil child-ness. Or just the plain truth. Now I understand the curse that my parent's wished on me when I gave them hell (although I was a pure angel before I turned 15 - no joke).

First I'd like to say, to my daughter's credit, she said she thought my crow's feet were beautiful because it was proof that I was a happy person and smiled a lot in my life. My son? Well, he has no excuse. Yes, my mother's side of the family is from Transylvania (Eastern Europe where Dracula was from) and they are eyebrow wonders of the universe over there. I am very good about keeping myself uni brow-free. I pluck every week. Otherwise, I might look like Frida Kahlo. But then, she is from Mexico and I am clearly not.

So go ahead and have children, but if you are vain, be very very careful, because your inflated sense of self will be gasping for air on the floor while you are trying to understand how these beautiful little babies that were godsends before today, clearly just took your youth right out from under you. Watch your step. You might trip on a saggy piece of skin hanging off of your body.

Smell The Roses

I have not been feeling well for a good three weeks. Some days are better than others. I feel unbelievably exhausted, lifeless sometimes, my whole body aches and I have very little time because I am sleeping life away. I don't feel SICK SICK, like having the flu or a cold, more like someone used me as a speed bump on school grounds.

I decided that with life being crazy busy with business, blogging and family, that I should be more noticing of things. So, from now on, I will try to take notice of things and share some of these with you at least once a week. My weekly series will be called Smell The Roses. This will remind me to do just that.

Here is my first installation:

The Beach Today

If you are ever so inclined to see the weather in my neighborhood, you can go here. They have updated photos every five minutes. This website is used by all the surfers and kite boarders in Jupiter so they know if they should pack up their gear and hit the beach. I am telling you, the surfers and kite boarders mean business.

Great day to be at the beach. I am here working and making sales calls.

Maybe later I'll go take a salty breath of fresh air.

Have a great day!

Desmond - Good And Evil

He is looking very angelic in this picture.

My son, age 7. His two front teeth are missing which I have such a weakness for. All he has to do is bat his eyelashes and grin with the gaping hole and - voila! Whatever he asks for is his. ;)

This one looks like Dracula or Gene Simmons (again).

Keep Yours Cool

Do you see my shea butter sitting between the peaches and white grape juice in my fridge? That is my personal baby stash. What could be better than working out in the summer heat, in the garden or on a roof, taking a nice shower and finally, the cherry on top: rubbing cooled shea butter on your freshly cleaned skin? It is so cooling and refreshing - makes me want to go sweat.

Pink Champagne On Bubbles

Pink champagne on ice. Mmmmm. Well, I created an alternative to alcohol in the morning. For those of you who want to bathe in pink champagne, I have Bubble Rubble available in that scent. So pretty,too. I am just loving this light bubble gum pink!


Don't they look like colorful marshmallows?

Sales Calls Days

Yick. Making sales calls is just about my least favorite thing to do. I get a weird feeling in the pit in my stomach and I just want to go under the covers and go to sleep. Phone call after phone call. Then, email follow ups, samples to send and then, do it all over the next day.

Again I say Yick.

My short term goal of getting into one day spa for every state hasn't quite materialized yet. My efforts really only just begun, because of the research that needed to be done first.

In any case, I will plug away and do it because I have to. I can't expect every part of my job to be fun every day, right? :)

Do Nails Breathe?

Way back when, I decided to get fake nails. I love the way manicured nails (short, long ones) look, so I got them done last year ...you can read about it here if you want. After having them for a couple of weeks, I happened to be talking to an executive in the nail industry who described the nail bed and the nail's breathing. She went on about the need for less toxic materials being used on the nails. I went to the nail salon to take them off a few days later, fearing that I was suffocating my hands! Eeek. Back then, it didn't make sense to me and it still doesn't, although now I found a nail professional that shares my opinion but backs it up with facts, which I think are interesting.

As much as I'd like to get the nails and have pretty hands again, my work just does not support the beauty of it all. I bust open big pails of butters and oils, am formulating sugar scrubs, cream, shea butters. I wear UN-latex surgical gloves when I need to mix with my hands and I am constantly getting into the dirt when I plant in my garden, so having nails makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for my lifestyle, but one day perhaps I will be less hands on in scrubs and dirt. :) Maybe.

Penny is the nail professional I speak of and she writes Sugarlicious blog and Zularis Naturals Natural Nail Care blog and if you are into nails and nail care, you should definitely read some of her posts.

She has given me permission to reprint her post on the topic of nail breathing. Thank you, Penny.

Busting Nail Myths - Do Nails Breathe?

I was talking with someone the other day about nail enhancements....AKA artificial nails. Seems they were having their enhancements removed to allow their nails some time to "breathe". Oh my....I could almost feel my head about to spin as I encountered what must be the number 1 nail myth around. It's bad enough when the regular person on the street thinks their nails are breathing. It's even worse when a nail tech thinks the same thing and passes along incorrect information to their customers.

The truth is your nails DO NOT BREATHE! EVER!!!! The only breathing taking place in your body happens in the lungs. Your nails are made up of keratin...a fibrous protein. This is the same stuff that your hair is made of....and your hair doesn't breathe either. Once the nail grows from the matrix (the part of your finger that the nail grows out of) it is basically dead. It does not feel, has no blood supply, etc. Which is why you can trim your nails as well as hair without feeling pain.

Because your nails do NOT breathe there is no logical reason for removing all your nail enhancements to give your nails a rest. The enhancement covers the dead portion of the nail so your nail will continue to grow out. At times, whatever material your enhancement is made of, may begin to age or breakdown after being exposed to various chemicals, etc. When this occurs the material covering the nail can become brittle, begin to discolor or even crack/flake off. Some people keep their nails too long and the constant banging on the nail can also cause problems with the enhancement. This is why it is important to regularly maintain your nails once enhancements have been applied. If a problem is caught early then your tech can re-balance the material rather then soak off the entire enhancement.

As a side note: people sometimes also refer to their skin breathing as well. Actually what they are talking about is the fact that the body controls it's internal temperature through perspiration. If you didn't sweat then your internal temp would rise and damage your organs. Nails do not sweat either....but that's another popular nail myth to be tackled in another post.

The WEENUS Test

This is what I have to say about getting older.

I like the wisdom, experience, humility, the friends I have made and time I've been here, but FE! to all the ickies I am beginning to notice: the grey hairs popping up on my head (the top of my head no less. Couldn't it start near the BACK of my head first, so I don't have to look at them every time I look in the mirror?), the lack of skin elasticity I am starting to notice, the weird *snap* in my ankle I hear every time I walk... step, *snap* step, *snap* step, *snap* - what is that anyway!!?? ...the fact that gravity is actually beginning to annoy me, the significant decrease in me taking risks, the fact that I can't ride roller coasters now without imaginating my death with great detail as I fall from the ride, my realization that death is inevitable and everyone dies, the undeniable lack of glances I receive from men, and the complete absence of needing to show my I.D. for any adult goings-ons. There are so many other things I can't even think of right now.

So here's a scary test. I have been told by an 11 year old that the skin on your elbow is called a WEENUS (yeah, I know) and that it is a true indication of one's age. Oh, really? Well, if you straighten your arm and pull the fattest piece of that skin away form the body, the speed in which it retracts tells you RIGHT THERE if you are old. If I pull mine out, I have to kind of push it back, because it doesn't snap back very easily. It is slow going. So apparently I failed the young WEENUS test. I am officially old. Whatever.

I must roll with it.

OK, so these are my birthday hopes for the next year: I give my children all the love and support they could possibly need, I make more true friends, I eat more veggies, I focus, I stop to smell the roses, I make more money, take more pictures and I remind myself (thanks to daughter Nina- the 11 year old who came up with the old telling test in which I FAILED) that "yesterday was the past, tomorrow isn't here and today is the present - so treat it like a present, a gift." My daughter shared that with me a few days ago, and even though it may sound cheesy at first, it makes a lot of sense.

So happy birthday to me!

Yay that.

SEXY Laundry Day

We are testing out a new scent that we are digging. It is a wonderful scent in soaps, but comes off a bit more floral in body products.

The new complex and secret scent is called: SEXY Laundry Day.

Description: Fresh and clean with notes of exotic flowers...jasmine and ylang ylang.

If you'd like to test it and give us feedback, you can. It is available on Product Body only in the Trial Sized Crush On You (for now). If we get a great response, we may keep it for a long time....

I think it is a perfect Summer scent that isn't fruity or coconut-y.

Day Spa Challenge

Product Body has a new goal of getting into one day spa per state. That is a small goal, but one that is UBER important to us. The spas that we supply to have been so happy with our products. They use bulk scrubs, shea, cream and Mama Bomb for treatments and then sell retail jars in the front.

Product Body products are being used/sold currently in day spas in these states:

Florida
Illinois
Maine
Massachusetts
Missouri
Oklahoma

Not enough... We have to step it up a notch or two...or three.

So, if you know of any spas you love that Product Body would be a good match for, let us know, or let them know, and Product Body can continue to grow!

Give Credit Where Credit's Deserved

My last post, "A Care PackageTo The Troops" needs an addendum. The brain behind the idea...

Our new intern, Alexandra, has been helping out here at Product Body and doing a great job. She is 14 years old and wanting to learn this bath and body business. (How lucky for us!) They recently moved back to the Tequesta/Jupiter area a couple of weeks ago.... how lucky for us that Alex wants to be involved in our operation?!

Yesterday, I asked her to think of something (promotion, sale, etc.) to highlight Independence Day in some way. She came up with the idea of sending a care package to the troops and then letting our customers have the opportunity to participate with their purchases. All Alex - what an awesome idea!! I have been thinking about the troops for a long while. I get choked up every Sunday when I watch This Week With George Stephanopolis when they run the list of all the fallen soldiers; In Memoriam.

Gives me chills every time.

Thank you, Alexandra for coming up with a great idea and giving me the opportunity to give back to the hard working young men and women who probably would LOVE a shower filled with treats from Product Body.

Smart girl. :)

A Care Package To The Troops

We've decided to send a care package of our products to the servicemen and women stationed in the Middle East in the hope that it can provide them with a few moments of relaxation and luxury. Who wouldn't need a little pampering after being in the desert in one outfit, with one bar of soap?

So for the month of July, every time anyone makes a purchase on our website that totals $40 or more, we'll add another product to the box. If you want us to include a message from you, just put it in the comments field during checkout. We'll also list (first name, last initial and hometown unless you tell us otherwise) the name of every customer that helped make the box bigger.

So help us make them happy! They deserve it.