Showing You Some Things

I wanted to show you what we've been doing the past couple nights... candles!  Now, I don't yet have the good, real photos of the candles, but these are some progress shots.

We melt our wax in our largest crock pot (we have three).  In fact, here's what it looks like when all three are going at the same time...

That photo was taken the day we made six batches of soap and shampoo, plus our bath salts.  It was a long day, even with the help of our friend Kerry, who came early and spent all day with us.  Having her there was a live saver!

Kerry has asthma and severe allergies, so in addition to the gloves we all wear when making soap, we got her a face mask.  When the lye hits the water (or worse, the tea for Healing Tea & Mock Turtle or the beer for Mashed In), the fumes could be too much for her.

And that's Kerry's hand mixing our huge batch of bath salts.  Eric and I weighed and measured while Kerry mixed.  Like I said, life saver.

But on to our candles...

Like our Healing Tea, in a pretty mottle sage green, scented with green tea and eucalyptus.

And our Chocolate Decadence, in a mottled mahogany color, scented with chocolate fudge, hazelnut, and vanilla.  I love it when the house smells like this!  I love it so much, in fact, that I took the leftover wax and poured it into an old double boiler which no longer has the bottom pot.  We put two votive wicks in it and will use it as a sort of container candle for ourselves.  Why waste wax?

And our Autumn Harvest, which had its first pour last night and will receive its second pour tonight.  This one's a beautiful mottled red, and scented with apples and cinnamon, plus some pear, plum, grapes, nuts, and a hint of caramel.

All of these will be up on the site soon, ready for ordering.

Speaking of which, those of you who've ordered from Reef Botanicals more than once may wonder why, when I'm so detailed in blogging the pretty wrapping and packaging from other handmade artists, our packing materials aren't so pretty or consistent.  Well, thing is, we recycle.  We use the packaging materials in which our supplies and other things we order arrive.  So sometimes you'll get shredded paper, sometimes bunched sheets of packing paper.  Sometimes we'll use bubble wrap, especially around our glass containers.  When and if we run out of packaging materials from others, I run supermarket paper bags through a shredder and use that!  Only as a last resort do we actually purchase packing materials.  It's just our small contribution to the wide world of recycling, that's all.

So there you go, some stuff about us and how we work and what we're up to.

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Steal a Kiss!

Ever hear of Thieves' Oil? Neither had I, until just a few months ago.

I have this brilliant and talented friend, Zack.  Zack seems to know an awful lot about a lot of things - he's getting a graduate degree in psychology, is an actor, and makes the most wonderful leatherwork products that he sells.

He's the one who asked for chamomile in our soap and shampoo, which resulted in the reworking of our Lavender Soap and the chamomile present in our Mock Turtle shampoo.

But back to the thieves' oil.  As the story goes, during the bubonic plague in 1413  Europe, there were thieves ransacking the houses of the dead and dying.  Thing is, the plague was incredibly contagious, as I'm sure you remember from your history classes, but for some odd reason... the thieves didn't catch it.

Finally, four of them were captured in France and charged with the thefts.

At the trial, the magistrate offered the thieves leniency if they would reveal how they managed to avoid contracting the dreaded plague despite their close contact with the infected corpses.  The thieves disclosed that they were perfumers and spice traders who had rubbed themselves with a concoction of aromatic herbs.  It worked!

Well, I like this story.  I like this story, and I like the herbs used... cinnamon, clove, eucalyptus, rosemary, and lemon.  So what do I do when I like something!  I make something from it!

This time, I made Thieves' Oil Lip Balm, the fifth balm in the Reef Botanicals line!