Coming Soon/Leaving Soon - - Hear All About it!

Seasonal Fragrances and Products that will be dropped until next Fall and new Spring fragrances will be taking their place this March.

Scents we will be dropping:

Black Pumpkin

Poison Apple

Enchant

Cathexis

Lair (this is being debated because of all of the pleading we have received from our happy customers who want us to keep this in our permanent line)

Products we will be dropping that are seasonal:

Salt snow

- we currently have it available in Black Pumpkin and Poison Apple

******@@@@****@@@@***@@@@***********@@@@****@@@@

I am working on some fantastic perfume oils I think will knock you over, but they will not be ready for production for a couple more weeks so bear with us. Testing is not complete and we want it just right for our smell connoisseurs.

Please always remember you can always contact us for any information.

Don't forget, there are 2 locations you can shop for our products:

www.productbody.com

and

www.productbody.etsy.com

Crush On You Is Officially #1

Crush On You has topped the charts at Product Body. It is our top seller, it is the top discusser, the top raver, it's all anyone ever talks about these days. In fact, I am making it everyday just keeping up with the demand of the master exfoliators out there. (You know who you are ;P)

I originally made Crush for the body, but found myself using the scrub mostly for my hands at the kitchen sink because we are tuna fish eaters and garlic lovers here and that Crush On You takes odors right off the hands. Oil, too. Since I make the stuff, I have a tub of it at every sink in the house. I also love using it as a pre-shave for my legs. I love the roughness of a scrub on my lower legs especially. The rougher the better ...they are in a constant state of inner itch, so the scrub just eases the tension (hard to explain, so I'll just drop it so I don't bore you all).

Since Crush On You was born a few years ago, it's been just a body scrub, or so I thought. This year, my cousin tells me she's been using it on her face and has been for months. People at work keep stopping her and asking her where she's getting her "work" done. "Are you going to a dermatologist or getting plastic surgery or botox, or what!? I need their phone number!"

Get outta here!

She says to me, "No, Jo. Really." Then she tells me her son (who is also my Godson and 16 years old) has been using the Crush On You and his acne cleared up since he started using it. WHAT!? Get out. Okay, now, looking younger and beng acne free? Give me a piece of that Kit Kat bar! So guess what? I started using Crush On You as a facial scrub every night before bed for about 2 months, and my skin is way softer, looks smoother and my pimples are at bay. Hormonal acne can't be treated... those come from within, but the excess ones? They are gone!

SO if you have a Crush On You in your possession, try it on your face for a few days and see how you feel and look. Then write me an email if you have any feedback for me. I want to hear what YOU have to say.

I do.

The New Cream - Almost Done

All natural other than the preservative. Niiiiiice. Preservatives? You say, I don't need them? Take a look at that disgusting moldy cream at Anne-Marie's blog. Now think about it. What's better, a little preservative or some nasty mold that could killya?

Wick Size Does Matter

Has this ever happened to you? This is called tunneling of the candle. This occurs when the wick size is incorrect for the wax that is used. The core of the candle will burn straight down, eventually suffocating the flame due to lack of oxygen.

I thought I bought the right wick size for the container I used, but the wick that was recommended by the vendor was for beeswax not soy wax. I hate wasting wax, time and shipping costs.

Back to the drawing board...

On a good note, the scent is wonderful! It was a creamy floral.

I'll let you know when I make candles that are burn proof. ;)

Another Experiment

I can't tell you the new scent we will be introducing for the Fall/Winter holidays, but it's good!

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.

Better Photos Of The Bubble Bars

My daughter, Nina, helped me make the bubble bars yesterday.  She chose the colors and scents and I think she's getting quite good.  You see how I groom her?  One day.... maybe she'll take over.  :o)

New Find : Eco-Friendly Beauty Tools

Eco Tools. Brushes and bath accessories. Earth friendly AND affordable!!

All of their brushes are synthetic (good for saving the animals) and they work so well. They are quite soft in comparison to many brushes on the market and honestly, they feel like the real thing.  I am not a big make-up gal, but when I wear it, it has to look good.  These brushes do a good job of evenly applying foundation, blush and eye shadow. The large make up brush is a mere $8.00, which is a fraction of the cost of makeup brushes at Sephora.  You can even get 5 brushes of varying size for only $11!

The handles on all of the brushes are made of lightweight bamboo, which is a wonderfully fast growing, renewable resource. (I love bamboo plants, floors, handles....etc. It is the wonder wood.)

The bath accessories, such as the sponges, mitts and buffs are made of cotton, ramie or loofah and are nice in the bath.  Soft and pretty.  Look at the pictures.  These are pictures I took at home.  This is my "set" and I am so pleased with it all.  I haven't had a chance to use every single item yet, but I am sure having loads of fun trying!

Bubble Rubble Experimenting

Sweet Vanilla Mango before curing when it turns BEIGE! The purple is the lavender.

Sparkling Champagne Bubble Rubble before curing.

Coconut Vanilla Clouds Bubble Rubble before curing.

I tried a completely different recipe to see if I could replace one item for another in the Bubble Rubble formulation and they came out pretty, but they are droopy and still "wet". That batch will go in the trash tomorrow. As you can see, I used my cake decorating skills on this (haha!), but the pretty puffs won't cooperate.

The place smells like a foggy perfumery with champagne, vanilla mango, lavender and coconut in the air. With all my experimenting, I must get pounds and pounds of cream of tartar (which is also great for making homemade play dough, fyi).

More on Bubbles and Bombs soon.

The Bomb Making Continues

Yesterday I attempted the bomb making for the second time. I made three different batches.

The first batch was the Pink Cupcake. This time I tried using a natural color instead of the Wilton Gel Colors made for cake decorating. I used Ultramarine Pink Oxide, which is a powder. I incorporated it into the mix. Before I filled the molds with bomb, I used candy sprinkles to the mold to add to the cupcake theme (and scent).

The second batch was the Cocoa Bombs. The light brown color comes from unsweetened Giardelli cocoa powder I incorporated with the baking powder and citric acid. I used dark chocolate fragrance. Before I filled the molds with bomb powder, I used the same cocoa powder to sprinkle in the mold for a nice eye candy effect.

The last batch, I thought to make the simplest bombs of all. No color, no kaolin clay, no borax....just super basic with Champagne fragrance and a candy heart for decoration. These came out the best, with not ONE of them breaking, cracking or morphing in any way.

Who knew?

These are White Champagne, Pink Cupcake and Cocoa bombs.

None of these had any cracks. The White Champagne Bombs were the most basic of of all the recipes I tried.


Some of these cracked....frustrating.

Here are the Divine Citrus and Kumquat Bombs I made the other day, all wrapped up. I wish I were a more crafty person with more fabulous tags...

I will continue to try these bombs, but it is very frustrating that almost half of them crack in the center. I tried the squeeze differently, but maybe I should go with the more simpler of the bombs with color. Okay, until next time. I will keep you informed when I make the next batch. These will make excellent Valentine's Day gifts.
xoxo

Smell This!

Many years ago when shopping for perfume and getting seriously overwhelmed with odor, a young woman working at the shop brought me a tin filled with coffee beans to smell. Why? To clear my nose of scents and bring my palette back to neutral. It worked... I was able to be "objective" again and continue smelling the hundreds of perfumes I had ahead of me, with the tin of coffee beans close at hand for every ten smellies I reached.

According to her, one's nose can only take about ten perfume/fragrances before the sniffer is blown out. This is true for some. I think my nose is tainted after about three sniffs. When I am formulating and scenting, I always smell the final product to double check it all came out as lovely as intended, even though I follow my own recipe exactly. Sometimes, I walk over to the espresso machine, lift the lid on the fresh beans reservoir and take a deep inhale. This brings me back to zero so I can smell again accurately.

If you are planning on visiting the perfume section in your nearby department store, bring a cup of fresh coffee beans in a closed container, so you can come home with the scent you actually smelled and not the one you thought you smelled.

Which Is Your Favorite Scent? POLL

It's really hard to know what scent will work for people.  I try really hard to choose scents that are as close to "true" as possible when I add them to my products, but not everyone likes floral or citrus or sweet chocolate....  For instance, I am not a floral scent person even though I LOVE flowers.  Someone asked me once if I make anything in gardenia.  Well, I hadn't but I knew that it is a popular flower, so I found a delicious oil that I thought was close to being true.  So since I have offered gardenia as a scent choice in select products, I have been receiving many many letters like this:

"Received package today when I got home from work. Tore into it, sniffed it, and couldn't wait to jump in the shower.... The gardenia is wonderful! Thanks so much for letting me have a try. I think I'm addicted to your products. =P

Warmest regards,
Rachel

P.S. My best friend is equally enamored with your products. She "borrowed" my giant jar of Cream when she came over yesterday... I don't expect I'll see it again, so thank goodness I ordered more."

I like sweet and citrus scents on my body, but there are people who live for gardenia or lavender so I try to find the best of those scents.  Do you know how many fragrance oils I have here that aren't good enough for me because they are not quite right?   I have spent WAY too much money on fragrances that I don't like, but if I can create products that make one feel really good and cause the eyes to close and the nose to breathe in the good scent?... Well, then, it's all worth it.

What scents are your favorites?  You never know, I might just take your fave and create a new blend..... :)  Leave comments!!

"There Is A Man In My Shower" Soap Review On The Soap Bar

My husband's "guest" soap review has just been posted on my other blog: The Soap Bar.   It is a post all should read, being informational but mostly hugely comical.  I laughed so hard I pulled a muscle under my ribs.  

Lip Balm Disappointment

I have been pretty disappointed with lip balms in general for a number of years.

• Lip gloss is too sticky and when it isn't, it vanishes too quickly.
• Lip balm generally feels either too greasy and un-conditioning or too waxy.

I am not big on huge brands like Vaseline, Chapstick, Nivea etc. Carmex was good for me in college, but that was umpteen years ago and my lips need more. I need to not have it sit on my lips like a pile of melted candle wax or slip off my lips like a slip-n-slide.

Every so often, I find a brand I like, but before I get through the pot or stick, I realize the bad parts I hate about it. If I taste anything, I am grossed out. If it is too smelly or too icky smelling, I'll throw it out. The scent is super important to me, too, so if it smells like Cheetos or Root Beer, count me out even though I am a foodie gal.

Because of my curmudgeon-like attitude, I think I will have to torment my family again and whip up more goodies in the kitchen, but this time for the lips.... until I find a formula that will really speak to me, or rather sing to me. Tis the season.... Winter is upon us and I owe it to the folks who feel the same way I do.

Regarding lip plumpers. I have despised the tastes of the ones I have tested. What the heck are they seeping into the goo? Any thoughts?

My New Favorite Thing

I have been on a mission to find a coconut scent that I like from well over a dozen different vendors of mine. They never smell like coconut, though.....not even close to the real thing. It is kind of like every candle that claims it's vanilla, smells like this gross bleck. I actually love the smell of real vanilla but can't stand vanilla in general because it smells heavy, musky, yucky and fake.

So I still haven't found the perfect coconut fragrance oil, but I finally bought some organic virgin coconut cream oil and when I popped that cap off.... Wow! Gorgeous coconut smell wafted from the rim. It was a perfect blend of coconut and coconut. Not a strong smell, but a true scent. I had to pry my nose out of the opening. I could have breathed it in like that all day. Well, it really goes to show ya that the real thing is key.

I might have to play around with some coconut products very very soon. More concoctions, I love it!

I have 4 of these coconut trees a-swaying in my backyard and they are bursting with coconuts! I should get a machete to hack off the shell to get to the goods. (Knives don't work. We've also tried smashing on concrete, cracking, hammering....those are hard suckers)

Bath Melts and Bath Cupcakes

My children are between camp and school so we decided to try some "baking" in the kitchen. Not a huge success as far as the final project, but we all had fun creating them, and I am sure they'll have even more fun bathing with them. I used Ann-Marie's bath cupcake recipe loosely (very loosely). I worked around it with my own ideas, changing this here and that there, but I think it all was a flop.
The cupcakes came out too mushy. I was going for a squishy marshmallow texture, but instead, I ended up with a crumbly fudge-like base. I pored them in paper cupcake holder to keep them contained, because before I stuck them in the freezer, they were pretty gooey.

My frosting consisted of confection sugar, cream of tartar, 3 egg whites(the real ones), color, warm water and caramel lip flavoring. I had no meringue or egg white powder and I used far too much water (that was an accident). Then we topped our own cupcakes with cosmetic glitter, Starbucks Mocha Powder, real caramel, and smashed bittersweet chocolate. The toppings were the most fun to play with and eat.
Of course working in the kitchen with two ten year olds and a seven year old can be a slight challenge, but I had no agenda except for having fun and seeing what we could create with what we had in the house.
As I mentioned in my last posting, I want to get more creative and introduce more fun colorful items to the line, but I have a long way to go. The confection perfection that some have may be unattainable for me because I am a mixer and maker, not a decorator. I tried today, but I am not so good at it. I will keep trying because it is fun, but I am not at all close yet!

Soap Blog

My friend had a beauty - life blog and announced that she was interested in testing and reviewing handmade soaps. I thought it was a great idea! Her life, however, recently took a turn in another direction and is unable to keep up with the project. I decided to take on what she started (with her blessings) because A) I love soap and B) I want to help expose handmade soap makers to the public and give them the kind of press that jump started Product Body only a short time ago.

Beauty bloggers review make-up, body products, bath stuff, fashion, you name it. People have come to me, both individual customers and spa/shop owners through the reviews that several beauty bloggers posted about our products. The bloggers were great. I first contacted them to see if they might be interested in trying my products, then I mailed them samples and waited.... hoping they were going to post positive things about us. Well, they did, and without the exposure they gave us, I don't think we would have been considered for the magazines we've been in so far or have secured some of the retailers that carry Product.

I can't wait!! So here is my OTHER blog (as if I am not busy enough!), where I will be posting shortly! It is called The Soap Bar Blog. Come check it out soon, and if you make soap, send me some and I'll write about you!! :)

So excited!!

Pumpkin Scrub For The Fall

Well, formulations are complete on our new Pumpkin Scrub (I know, boring name, but to the point). We formulated batch after batch and the whole place filled with pumpkin smell for weeks! It smelled as if someone was baking a pumpkin bread or pie. (The scent still lingers....)

I am pretty excited. I have been fanatically researching new ingredients, their properties, finding suppliers for them and so on. I think we are spot on with this scrub, but I have no interest in duplicating it with different fruit or vegetables. I like to create new, unique scrubs each time. More work and more fun make it more interesting for buyers. I look at competitor's scrubs, and it feels like their just tweaking one or two ingredients, but basically, they all have the same stuff in it. Makes sense if one is happy with a formulation, duplicate, duplicate. But, not me. I find that each product is its own entity and that my next scrub will be completely different.

I have started my Honey Scrub, for those of you who told me they want me to create one. I am close, but not quite happy with it. I must change a couple of things to make it right, but OH MAN, honey is amazing! It is a wonder ingredient. Sticky, yes, but so good for your skin and so yummy smelly. Since my research on honey, I am thinking of doing a multiple honey taste test. I had no idea how many different kinds of honey there are. I will be purchasing all of my honey locally from a well known Florida apiary.

I'm not a big bee fan, but they make honey, beeswax, and royal jelly, all good for you. So to celebrate, I had honey on buttered toast last night for dinner. Dripping with honey. :-)

"Mad Scientist 2"

Sounds like a very bad, scary independent film.

Sometimes it feels that way in the formulary and sometimes it's like one of those mornings when you wake up feeling that new, fresh, positive outlook on life. I have been very content making body products for the last 3 years. In fact, we are in the process of completing a new product for Fall. Very fresh, very cool, very yum.

Those of you who have been selected by us will receive a small sample of our "1st go around" before finalizing the secret formula. We like to get folks who are not our friends to try our new prods voluntarily so that we can get the most candid feedback available from people who are true product junkies. We will then open up the gates in late August for the new, ultimate Fall body experience!

As you have noticed I have a pattern of keeping y'all in suspense. . . . . So stay tuned!

:)

Mad Scientist

I apologize for the lack of posting lately. I have been furiously concocting formulations of moisturizers and by the end of the day, I am pretty much spent. That energy I get from working a typical day here was depleted, because I was in my mad scientist mode. I am out to make the perfect concoction. A skin moisturizer that leaves skin unbelievably soft,but not greasy....completely natural and smelling lovely. I am working on a way to make a "cream" without water as my base. Butters tend to be, well....buttery and greasy. Lotions and creams are made with mostly water, which helps in that it's not so greasy, but with water one must use preservatives. There are limitations. Natural preservatives like vitamin e and rosemary extract are great for increasing the shelf life of oils, but do nothing for protecting the product from mold, yeast, and preventing against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Once water is introduced to a formulation, it will start to degrade and grow bacteria and/or mold.

There are synthetic paraben-free preservatives, but still sadly synthetic. So here I am trying to create the masterpiece of creams, without chemicals and without being too greasy, and I am frustrated. (sigh).

There are other alternatives, so I must continue researching and just you wait, I will create the elixir magnifique! However, I still remain humbled...