I Guessed I Missed it When Etsy Got an iPhone App....And Soap Arrived!

Today I discovered that Etsy now has an iPhone app. 

Dear Bank Account,

It was nice having money in you.

Now I don't. 

Blame Etsy.

*le. sigh*

At any rate, in other happy news, two recent soap purchase have arrived in my humble abode...Cedarwood and Cypress Handsoap from Solstice Botanicals and the two soaps I ordered from Angelic Soap.

In other news, I am also the first purchaser of Bacon Bits the soap from Happy Goat Soap which is exciting for so many reasons.  One is that I read the shop's blog, The Maa of Pricilla, religiously (its refreshing and funny and delightful) and another is that I have been watching the progress of this little soap for awhile.  So to order it first is SO exciting.  But more on that later.

Teresa over at Angelic Soap was nice enough to send me some samples with my purchase (which I bought on epic sale so she is just so generous).  I didn't take a picture of the first one I used, which was Black Raspberry Shea, so I am borrowing one from her Etsy shop.  Take a look.

Its like art...real art that smells amazing...

I literally used the whole sample in one shower.  It went something like this...

Wet and lather left arm, rinse, sniff, repeat on right arm.
Decide left arm needs another washing (so I can sniff it)

Repeat process.

I swear the stuff even moisturized my horrible Hobbit feet.  I smelled like raspberries all day but not cloyingly so.  And the texture was simply divine.  The only reason I haven't tried the two I bought yet is that Miss Lazy Pants (yours truly) needs to take some photos of the epic packaging before getting said soap wet.  Tomorrow morning, I swear.

Also, while borrowing the picture above, I noticed that some of the soaps in Angelic Soaps shop are named Black Temple Incense and Grimoire (Book of Shadows).  The description of the latter contains this:

"Grimoire will leave your skin silky and smelling faintly of the rare treasures of antiquity."

 I CLEARLY need to smell like the rare treasures of antiquity.  And so do you.

So much excitement to come!

And then he said

...Stop ruining the bathtub, Erin!

Sigh.  It seems my haphazard methodology of leaving the soaps on the side of the tub is pulling up the paint.  Bad Erin. 

So now I am in the market for some soap dishes.  Preferably suctiony ones that will stick to the wall in the shower.

I think I like this one:



Helps!  Helps I say!

 This is probably the practical choice:

I'll be practical when I'm dead!

This one is nifty but would it damage my lovely soapies?

It's magnetic...like my personality

And this one is pretty but pricey:

So niiiice

So which do I pick?  And how many is too many?

A Shameless Plug

I just started another blog.

Here it is http://ekcantcook.blogspot.com/

It's about my culinary adventures.  You should read it.

That's all.

Erin

My First Handsoap Review

Recently we ran out of hand soap in the bathroom.  The other person in my abode is a big fan of Method Foaming Hand Soap which is totally cool if you aren't a complete and total soap snob.  Also, Method contains SLS and we all know I am not a fan of that.  While SLS is certainly not the devil, I do find one thing I contained on the Method Web site interesting.  It lists the ingredients and notes the following with regards to SLS and it's "Health + Environmental Summary": "low skin irritation in use and non toxic; readily biodegradable; derived from coconut oil."  I'm fairly certain that this cannot be patently UNTRUE or the legal team for Method wouldn't let them post it on the site.  All up, however, it isn't what I want for my family.  So I convinced my co-decision maker to let me shop for some handmade hand soap on Etsy.

Thanks co-decision maker...

I came up with two that were nice, well made, reasonably priced, and had scents that were refreshing but not too feminine.

I'll discuss the second one when it arrives and we use it.  But our first new hand soap is Citrus Basil Foaming Liquid Soap by the cleverly named Foam on the Range.  Hailing from Kansas (The Sunflower State) all of the products contain sunflower oil, which is nifty.

Here is a pic from the Etsy posting of this soap.  I will show you my pics as well but I think our friends at Foam on the Range are much better photogs than I:

The bottle is cute enough to just plop on the counter

The soap arrived and, after we finished up what we currently had, we busted out the Citrus Basil.  I was instantly surprised by how clean the soap left my hands feeling. I know that Foam on the Range doesn't use harsh chemicals as their blog is as adamant about ingredient quality as any I've seen.  But the lack of commercial detergents does not show itself in this product.  My hands felt squeaky clean after washing.

The co-decision maker said he liked the soap claiming it had a refreshing scent that was clean and safe for a man but not too manly.  We like this soap.  We like it a bunch.  And the price is so reasonable.

Here are some pics of the soap in my humble bathroom.

I genuinely love the labels

neatly blending in

A quick post

So, as I was cruising through my daily blog updates I saw this blog from Etsian, Angelic Soaps.

She's having a sale, ya'll...and not a little sale...a 50% off sale.

So I hightailed it over there and bought the Sensual Jasmine Velvet Shea (typical, I know) and the Gingerflower Shea.  Here are pics from Etsy side by side!

I am so excited to try them! 

July 2012 - The Best in Soap Blogs

I'm not feeling so amazing, lovely readers.  I am doing a 9 day Isagenix Cleanse and, while I am sure it is doing my body worlds of good, the not eating much (which for me is REALLY not much, considering I don't eat much to begin with) I'm just run down.  It has been a hellacious week.

So, I amused myself by catching up on many of the blogs I follow.  ANd I found some awesome things to pay forward.  So, here you go folks...July's best soap blog information...gleaned from the vast expanse of the interwebs by yours truly.

Over at the blog for Aunt Nancy's Soap, she has shown some new soaps on the curing rack.  One of the new ones, Green Cactus looks amazing.  It isn't up on her site yet I will claim a bar as my own as soon as it is...I mean LOOK:

On another blog, I found mention of an Etsy shop that isn't soap but still has me obsessed!  Real Fruit Jewelry makes, you guessed it, jewelry out of real fruit.  For example, this pendant made from a tomato.

Coming soon to NYC's FiDi...The Clean Diva in this necklace.

I can easily think of three or four people who would love this stuff and, at $24 including the chain, so affordable.  I'm sold.

I haven't ordered from this next place but I've been meaning to do just that for quite some time.  Margarita Bloom is like a bath and body store MADE for me.  Since becoming a much thinner and healthier me, I find that embracing the curves given me by nature (not french fries) is important.  I don't want to be a skinny bitch and I am proud to be healthy.  And my natural shape has led me toward a very 1950's pin up girl style fancy.  Marilyn is my style icon with Bettie and Rita hot on her heels.  I also like to throw in a decent amount of June Cleaver for good measure.  So imagine my excitement at a home page thatincludes quotations from all of my favorites.




Sake Rose Blossom Soap anyone?  Yes, please!



A Lady in the Garden?  Only when I must be...

The soaps are made with ingredients I love such as coconut oil and goat milk.  Everything just looks so appropriate for my fantasies of being Ms. Monroe.

Brambleberry has a recipe for making candles out of actual lemons and I think they are just adorable. 

Doggy Soap is something I actually need right now.  I love my little pups and especially adore them when they smell clean.  Ta-da!  Sirona Springs has the perfect thing for my boys and I am stoked to try it out soon.  I'm no lover of liquid soaps and this will be perfect for my tiny guys.

Only sweet smelling pups en mi casa!

Next on my list is a blog written by The Nova Studio.  This awesome post talks about the different kinds of soap and why each of them have their place in our clean little community.  Read it, its worth it.

My new favorite soap selling Web site may be Amathia Soap Works only because the descriptions are so good.  I'm particularly coveting the Moxie Cucumber Jasmine (seen above) as I love jasmine and I think cucumber is a great summery refreshing fragrance.  (Have you tried Skinny Girl Cucumber Vodka...yum)  But what I love about the Web site is that they tell you everything you could ever want to know about the soap.  If you have allergies, personal issues with certain ingredients, or are just overly curious, this is your dream spot. 

Erin over at Naiad soaps did a month long soap a day project on her blog (you'll see I also ganked the real fruit Etsy store from her too) that can only be believed if seen.  My favorite was Day 20.



So sparkly and blue and I want it now!

 I like the soap options on the Bella Fresca site so much that I had to just pick one and this one made me laugh.:

This one has the scent of dirt in it...like Camp Snoopy in the summertime.  But if I put this in my shower, how will I be able to see it?

My final note from around the internetz is an article on The Natural Beauty Workshop blog.  It tells you about ingredients in things and how they can impact you.  Since I am always babbling about these things I thought it might be interesting to see someone put it more eloquently than I.

That's all I have.  Up soon when I have a chance to breathe, I have to tell you about my new digs as well as the hand soap I ordered...

Finally, a soap I won't be trying

Here's where I am conflicted. 

Lately, many of the amazing women I know have been having babies, I've mentioned this before.  And many of them have become HUGE proponents of breast feeding, which is also cool.  The US Department of Health and Human Services has given funding to form and support a National Breastfeeding Campaign designed to help the average American both understand the benefits of breast feeding and also educate people on the hows, whens and whats of breast feeding.  All good stuff.

I won't lie, I have a personal discomfort with breast feeding but I realize it is my own problem.  I won't go too much into it because I know many people who read this could defeat me with logic in a hot second.  My reaction isn't logical...La Leche League International has entire articles on how to deal with breast feeding haters, so I guess I'm not uncommon but let's move on.

I get the benefits of breast feeding and think all women who can and want to breast feed should.  But lately, all of this good feeling about breast feeding has been exhibiting itself in some new and fascinating ways.  By this, I mean the advent of products for consumption made from breast milk.  From The Icecreamists in London who, in 2011 served breast milk ice cream to patrons (it sold out) to an NYU project that resulted in making breast milk cheese and Chef David Angerer's breast milk cheese , the use of breast milk has certainly morphed and the effects are polarizing.

Chef Angerer with his wife and child.  For more on his opinion, read the blog he wrote about it.  Interesting stuff.

So, of course breast milk soap would be part of this, right?  When I first saw mention of this phenomenon on Shecky's list of "Weirdest, Most WTF Beauty Products Ever" I thought this must be something that soapers are doing in their own homes to make use of what's extra.  After all, you are what you eat, right?  So maybe this soap is better for baby that Johnson's No More Tears.

Why have that when you can have this? 

But no, I suppose it can be quite the moneymaking enterprise to sell breast milk soap.  Etsy store Cahmille sells several different scents and varities of what soap maker Jessica calls "Mother's Milk Soap."  You can even buy a really pretty sampler of scents from her here at a super reasonable proce if you are so inclined.

Another Etsy store, The Green Box, sells some REALLY unique flavors and the soaps are just gorgeous.   Take a gander at the Healing Hemp natural Mother's Milk Soap. 

If you'd like to do it yourself, there is a recipe here but I warn you to read these precautions.

I'm admittedly not a scientist but I cannot imagine that this is not without its issues.  After all, many communicable diseases are spread through breast milk.  I'm not sure I would want to buy Mother Milk soap but I think the idea is fascinating.

I'd love to hear from people from various parts of my life comment on their feelings on this matter?  Has anyone tried the soap?

Food for thought on this Monday.