I just discovered Regretsy

Before today, I had never seen www.regretsy.com.  I'm not sure if I am glad I've seen it now but it does bring to light that there is some strange stuff going on at Etsy. 

Luckily, none of my soapers were attacked by the catch phrase "Where DIY meets WTF" but one Alchemy request showed up that made me laugh until I cried.

 **Ahem**  Did one of you guys make this soap for him?

Happy Friday!

In Honor of my Simon

Hello all.  Today is November 4th.  2 years since we elected President Obama (for better or worse) and 3 days since the birth of my youngest furbaby and the light of my life, Simon!

Weighing in at a massive 5 pounds, Simon brings so much joy to my life that I cannot believe I got by without him. 

When I first got Simon, on Christmas day 2007, he didn't even weigh a pound but he could make some massive noise.  He was a gift from my dear friend Dennis and had a big white bow tied around his adorable little midsection.  When he came walking toward me, I was in shock.  How could I ever keep something that tiny alive?

We had to take him to the vet in order to clear him to fly home.  The vet warned me not to take him outside until he weighed at least 3 pounds because NY streets can be dangerous and covered in germs.  He spent the entire plane ride from Savannah to NYC perched on his brother's head in the carrier.  I loved him instantly but also knew that he was going to be VERY different from his brother Teddy.  Where Teddy was light, Simon was dark.  Where Teddy is quiet, Simon is LOUD.  Where Teddy is mellow and relaxed, Simon is HYPER. 

When it came time for Simon's first bath I was nervous.  He was so very very tiny and I didn't want to sting his eyes or dry out his puppy skin.  I had noticed that Lush sometimes has dog washing parties so I asked them for a mild soap recommendation.  I was told that Honey, I Washed the Kids would be the perfect option.  Scented of honey and caramel, it seemed perfect for my little boy. 

So we gave a bath a whirl.  Simon loved it.  He licked at the soap and it didn't seem to even bother him.  He played with the bubbles.  I only dropped him under the water once and he came out soft, clean and smelling amazing.  To this day, I only wash Simon with this soap.  He loves it.  I love it and it's perfect.  In fact, at my house, we call it "Honey, I Washed Me Simon."

Happy birthday Simon.  I hope we spend many toffee scented years together.  Mommy is on her way home.

Stuff I LOVE! (and a little friendly giveaway)

Other people call this soap porn and, while I love that name,  I didn't want to steal it from some of my favorite bloggers. 

So for now its the typically descriptive Erin description "Stuff I Love"

I've been combing Etsy looking at soap and falling in love every five minutes.  Sadly, I have 36 soaps I have yet to review and an impending trip to Europe to pay for so...I can't.

But maybe you can.  And then tell me about it.  In fact, if you buy something from my Stuff I LOVE! lists during the month of November, I would love to have you do a guest blog.  I'll post the blogs during the month of December. Everyone who blogs here will be entered to win a $25 Amex gift card...to buy more soap (or pay bills or whatever but soap is more fun.)

Here are the rules:

1.  You must review a soap listed on my Stuff I LOVE! blogs during the month of November.
2.  You cannot review a soap you made
3.  You must notify me by emailing me at kennedy.rodriguez@gmail.com no later than December 1st, 2010 of your intent to blog.  Please let me know which soap you will review.  I will confirm your email by replying.  If you did not get a reply, I did not receive the email and you should re-send.  No confirmation means I did not receive your entrance.
4.  A list of guest bloggers will be listed on this blog on December 2nd, 2010.
5.  Completed blog must be received no later than December 15th, 2010.
6.  Please try to keep the reviews as positive as possible.  We are not trying to humiliate or embarrass anyone or put a soaper out of business.  I reserve the right not to publish a blog that I think will harm the soap maker's business or mental status.
7.  All Guest Blogs will be posted between December 16th and 31st.
8.  Guest bloggers who blog about this competition will get an extra entry.  9.  Guest bloggers who blog about this competition will get an extra entry.
9.  Winner will be chosen by a random drawing (using a computer generator) on January 5th, 2011 (giving me time to get myself home from Georgia).

10.  Winner's prize will be shipped via USPS between January 6th and 10th, 2011. 

And now for Stuff I LOVE!  I'm going to be prolific in order to give you tons of choices! (Please note all photos are from soapmakers soap.)

Cute Little Duckie Soaps on Ponds by Sheri's Soap Opera:
These typically come in lemon verbena scent but you can choose a different one.  They are SO CUTE!

Blackstrap by Alchemic Muse: 

Beyond the fact that this is called Blackstrap, which makes me think of all sorts of naughty things but it contains figs.  And we all know I would buy poo if it smelled like figs.

 Cereal Killer by Anderson Soap Company is an olive oil soap and it smells like fruit loops.  Since many of you don't live in NYC and therefore cannot have cereal milk soft serve at momofuku milk bar, this one is for you.  It SAYS it's great for the kids but I say eff the kids.  Erm...what I mean is use the soap for yourself!  Alternately, I am totally into the Spring Salty Bar (second picture)

Vegan friendly Rose Quartz Gem Chunk Soap by Angelic Soap!  This one cannot be described.  Observe:



For the show obsessed people among us, I recommend SudsNSuch's Magic Slipper Rubberband Bracelet and Ring Bubblegum Scented soap.  Not only does it smell of bubblegum, one of my favorite shower time scents but it has take away gifts inside.  Give them a friend and say "I thought of you while I was in the shower this morning."

 

And from my secret favorite soap blogger, Anhoki, Life is Beachy.  Reading this incredible soaper's blog always reminds me of how short and important life is.  Look at this beauty:

 

I will just copy her description of this soap because it makes me laugh:

 

As I sip my flirtini I see the tiki hut filling with babes in bikinis and dudes in Speedos. Guido is at the bar spinning and tossing around bottles. Free drinks! An ukulele, bongos and a few of Eduardo's closest buddies are serenading us as the sun begins to set. As I take it all in the aromas of fresh ocean breezes and bird of paradise fill the air. A tap on my shoulder has me startled. I turn to see Eduardo with nothing more than a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a smile. Life is beachy.

Life is beachy is a wonderful oceanic blend of bird of paradise and ocean. Made with olive, coconut, canola, palm and soybean oils with mica for color. Fresh, clean, simple.
 
Aunt Nancy's Soap brings you Chocolate Serendipity which sounds like a fudge brownie for your skin.  Yum Yum YUM.
 

 

The most crunchy all natural sounding soap on my list is Honeyed Lemon Magnolia Granola Bar by Etsian GetLathered.  It combines so many things I love and makes me kinda hungry for breakfast.  So it's PERFECT for morning.

 

My last one for this week is in honor of my upcoming trip to Europe.  Capricorn Soap Company's With Love From Paris.   I'd buy this one for the packaging alone.

 

 

This should be plenty to get you started.  I hope someone is willing to turn their $10 into $25 and get a new soap.  Come one, come all guest bloggers.

To Sick to Blog

Sorry kittens.  I had a nice little shower with Lush's currently not being made soap Pineapple Grunt but halfway through my shower I realized I could barely stand.

So its been sofa sleeping all day for me.

I'll try again tomorrow.

hmmm...something I realized today about Lush

Hey there folks, it's Old Favorites Monday again.  Since its the start of the official Christmas season in my house (the roomie loves her some Christmas) I thought it would be appropriate to dig out some Snow Fairy Shower Gel by my friends at Lush. 

I know I have been kind of down on Lush lately and, while I prefer soaps from small hand made soaps, I really do love Lush.  It's the first place to show me that soap went beyond Dove and that things made by people's hands are preferable to things made by machines.  And while I find Lush's continued use of SLS to be disturbing, I suppose SLS is not some evil baby-stealing ingredient that makes you insane.  In fact, many of you reading this may wonder what my problem is and why I keep harping on the evil's of SLS.  For those of you, I encourage you to click here and read a blog post written by Victoria, BC based Rocky Mountain Soap Company for a little more detail on why SLS is not our best friend.  The bottom line is that it just isn't natural and therefore has no real place in a product that touts itself to be handmade and natural.  It's just an opinion, but one that seems many of my sensitive skinned kindreds share.

But moving right along. 

I'll tell you the good first.  I love Snow Fairy.  It's FUN.  It's pink.  It smells like bubble gum.  It sparkles...it calls out to the Debbie Gibson loving tween I was not so terribly long ago.  It foams, it bubbles and the smell sticks around long after the shower, something I also like.

However, while showering I discovered something interesting.  I was perusing the list of ingredients and saw the following:

Water (Aqua), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Cocoamphoacetate, Lauryl Betaine, Perfume, Sea Salt (Sodium Chloride), Lactic Acid, Synthetic Musk, Cocamide DEA, Titanium Dioxide, Iridescent Glitter (Polyethylene terephthalate and Acrylates copolymer), Benzyl Benzoate, FD&C Red No. 4, D&C Red No. 33, Methylparaben, Propylparaben


Who with the what now?
 
So I get the synthetic musk because real musk is an animal product.  Water I know.  SLS...yuck...
 
But WHAT is the rest of that crap?  Fortunately, Lushopedia answered some of it but seems icky.
 
Is it just me or is nothing in there really that natural sounding.
 
Now, here are the ingredients for Honey, I Washed the Kids:
 

• Honey Water (Mel Aqua),
• Propylene Glycol,
• Rapeseed Oil,
• Sunflower Oil,
• Coconut Oil (Brassica napus; Helianthus annuus; Cocos nucifera),
• Water (Aqua),
• Sodium Lauryl Sulfate,
• Sodium Stearate,
• Sodium Hydroxide,
• Perfume,
• Beeswax (Cera alba),
• Sweet Orange Oil (Citrus dulcis),
• Bergamot Oil (Citrus bergamia),
• Aloe Vera Extract (Aloe barbadensis),
• Sodium Chloride,
• Gardenia Extract (Gardenia jasminoides),
• Titanium Dioxide,
• *Limonene,
• *Linalool,
• *Benzyl Benzoate.

Is it just me or do those seem more recognizable?  I checked out lots of Lush products and Snow Fairy seems the most chemically.  Am I totally off base?

I still love Snow Fairy, though.  It's like being Barbie for a few brief moments.

Happy Monday!

I got so excited I forgot to take a picture!

I had a fantastic shower this morning.  Alyssa, one of my wonderful blog readers, recommended that I purchase Pumpkin Apple Butter Soap from Lippincott Soap Co. And OH MY GOD am I glad I did.  Before I launch into a total love fest analysis of my morning shower, a little about Lippincott.

My newest favorite soaper is based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (interestingly, home of some of my favorite clients) and they use food grade oils in making soap.  It's cold process and they are moving toward using only organic palm oil.  No yucky SLS to be found. 

No, onto Pumpkin Apple Butter Soap.  I took it out of the plastic and sniffed.  It smelled nice but nothing to write home about.  Then I got it wet.  Seriously, the entire shower was a cloud of warm, spicy yumminess.  I tried to ignore it while I washed my hair but kept picking up my little sliver of soap sniffing it.

When the time came to finally lather up I lathered and lathered and lathered because this soap just smells so good.  Maybe my nose wasn't sensitive enough to differentiate between the many many scents described by the soap maker but I can describe Pumpkin Apple Butter as fruity, like a warm pie or cobbler without the bread smell...so I guess like the filling of the aforementioned.  And the fruit is heavy on the cinnamon. 

The lather on this soap is like a dream.  Abundant, creamy and silky.  I used it to shave my legs and it worked like a charm.  There is also something in the soap that is softly abrasive and served to gently exfoliate, which I appreciate.

Post shower, the scent doesn't linger much, which is fine because that prevents a mix with my perfume.  However, my skin is soft and feels hydrated. 

This soap is definitely on my top 10 favorites list and that is saying something.  Thanks for the recommendation, Alyssa.

When soap smells like...well, soap

Lately, I have been going through my soap collection and cleaning house.  I'm getting rid of stuff with SLS and soaps I don't like.  It's a shame you cannot donate soap to a shelter or something.  I always cut my soap into chunks because I like to preserve and because I like the soap to fit in the palm of my hand so it is fresh.  This means I have a hundred little (meticulously labeled, in most cases) baggies of soap. 

At any rate, between the past their prime soaps, the soaps I don't like and the soaps that have fallen victim to either the bathroom humidity or NYC bug problems, I am throwing out massive amounts of soap.

Of course, I am also discovering some never used/never reviewed bars of soap.  That part is cool. 

At any rate, I came upon an unmarked bar of soap in my stash.  It is brown and white and looks like it should have some sort of chocolate scent.  I suspect I know where this came from: some odds and ends I ordered not thinking that, due to the fact that they are odds and ends, they aren't labeled.  I sent most of these to soap loving people who don't take "tasting" notes but this one must be a left over.

I won't announce where I suspect it came from because I don't know for certain.

But this soap...well, it sucked.

It was pretty enough but it smelled like nothing.  Like detergent.  It reminded me of the soap smell in the showers in my cabin at summer camp.  Just plain clean the dirt away soap.  I suppose, in theory, there is nothing wrong with soap that smells like soap but I am the girl who prefers her dish soap to have a unique scent (like lavender and lemon grass is that so wrong?) so for me it was like a wasted shower.

I get that some people have allergies (I do too) but why would one want a detergenty smelling soap?  I don't get it.  But a peruse of my old stand by Etsy shows me that many soapers have a scent free soap.  Does scent free mean "smells like soap" or something different?  I COULD order one and find out but that would be a waste of money for me. 

I tossed this soap out immediately.  It was too pretty to smell of nothing. 

I must be some kind of aromatherapy addict because it just started my day off wrong.