Exclusive New Label

The new version of Mashed In beer soap is all done and has been wrapped.  It's ready for purchase at Reef Botanicals and at the NJ Beer Co. brewery at 4201 Tonnelle Avenue, North Bergen, NJ.

How awesome does that look with the new label merging the NJ Beer Company logo and our own style... just like the soap itself!

What We Did Today

We've been living as if our entire house is the back room of a soap & candle company.  Our kitchen full of crock pots and tubs of oil, our dining room crowded with carry cases full of soap.  Our dining room table covered in candles.  Boxes of the stuff we use to set up our booth at craft shows.  We've been eating our meals at the coffee table in the living room.

We love what we do, and it all smells so good, so it hasn't been torturous, but it's a bit ridiculous.  We want to be able to have guests, after all.  And... y'know... be able to walk all the way around our dining room table.

So this morning, Eric went to Home Depot and bought some plywood to go with the 2x3 studs we already had. And now we have this!

Supplies and stock, all neatly arranged!  I love it.  This'll make it so much easier for us to find everything and keep track of what we've got and what supplies we need to buy and stock we need to make.  It'll make it quicker and easier for me to gather and pack your orders, too.

There are also two other places in the basement where there were already shelves built in, and those house our lye, salts, essential oils, candle molds, soap molds, and other supplies.

It's geeky, but I'm so excited!

Shared with:

Roots

When I was little, before I had more reasonable aspirations like "orthodontist" or "medical research scientist," I wanted to be a mad scientist when I grew up.  Yes, specifically a mad scientist.  I loved my microscope, but I wanted to create explosions.  I guess I figured I'd have to be mad to explode things.

Funny thing?  I ended up a lawyer... and then a face painter.  Yes, both at the same time.  And of course most recently, Eric and I have become soapers.  Yes, we run three full businesses.  In becoming a soaper, I've found that I went back to my roots... working out recipes with Eric, stirring the molten soap in the crock pots, trying to keep it from foaming all over the kitchen, ransacking cabinets to see what we can put into our latest recipe... we're mad scientists!

And you know what?  I was right when I was a kid.  It is fun!

Oooooooooooh, so that's the key!

Good grief, I'm a little bit doofy.  So you know I was kind of up and down with the shampoo at first, my hair felt weird for a while, then better.  A couple days ago, it was weird again.  And I talked to Eric, because I didn't want to be selling to anyone products that I couldn't stand behind.

And we realized what I was doing wrong on the "weird" days.

I was using it like soap.  When I use bar soap, I scrub.  When using bar shampoo, I was scrubbing.  This is wrong.  You need so very little of it (which means it lasts even longer!) that I was using waaaaaaaaaay too much and pretty much grinding it into my hair.  No wonder it was behaving strangely!

I've stopped that, and just barely rub it, or even lather it between my hands, and just use the lather... it still lathers like crazy and now works like a dream!  So... the key is... use a teeny tiny bit.  Make it last longer.  Get your money's worth.  And it'll be perfect.

Learn something new every day.

Purity

Why "Purity"?

After all of our experimentation and fanciness, we've gone back to basics.  Our newest soap is a genuine Castile, containing only three ingredients:  olive oil, deionized water, and sodium hydroxide.

This is, therefore, the purest soap there is.  It's the original unadulterated Castile soap.  In fact, because we make our soaps via the hot process method, this is truly the original soap and method.

Granted, it is unlikely that the original makers of soap used crock pots... what with the lack of electricity and all.  It's much more likely that they used a big cauldron over a fire, in fact.  I'll be honest, we're not going to go that way.  We're all for tradition and authenticity, but we've only got twenty-four hours in a day.  Back in the days when the method included cauldron and fire, I'd bet people were pretty much making their own soap for their own families, rather than running businesses like ours.  I'd also bet that the ones who were in business weren't running it over the Internet, so their market was a tad more limited.  Add to that our rather excitable dog and three very curious cats, and an open fire is just not a good idea.

Aside from that, though, and back on-topic, this is the original basic soap.  No scent, no color, no additives at all.  This also makes it vegan, as you can imagine.

This, of course, makes Purity the best soap possible for those with any skin sensitivities or allergies.  Well, if you're allergic to olives, I imagine it's not the best idea.

What's it look like, then?  Well, rather like this:

Pure, creamy white.  Nothing else.  We love it.

It's already available on the Reef Botanicals site, but we will debut its in-person sales on Tuesday evening, at the Clockwork event.  Come visit us!

Charlie Brown Never Knew This Kind of Peppermint Patty

These vegan-friendly Peppermint Pumice Patties, I mean.

They're a mini version of our new Peppermint Pumice Foot Rounds, and a great trial size, the same size as our hand soaps.

Made with a mix of oils, cocoa butter, peppermint essential oil, and ground pumice, these all-natural soaps will clean, enervate, massage, exfoliate, and moisturize the most overworked part of your body - your feet!  All day, we walk, we stand, we jog and run.  Even when we're sitting, we never take every ounce of weight off of our feet.  We wear shoes that pinch and push, and that don't breathe.  Now in the cold weather, our feet don't even get a break with the temperature - they're variable frozen and overheated, chilled and stifled.  It's about time to take care of them!

That's not all we've been doing, though.  We've replenished our stock of vegan-friendly Lemongrass & Sage soap, this time in a proper size to match our other bars.  Just like the originals, though, these are made with a mix of oils for a great lather, lemongrass essential oil for that terrific citrus scent, and real sage.

And this time, we had enough soap "batter" for some hand soaps too!

All of these items, as well as our new Clean Cut shaving and bath soaps...

 ... are already available online, but locals will be able to see and smell them in person at Clockwork II:  Steam Pirates Invade, where Eric and I will yet again be vending and selling our soaps, scrubs, and candles.  This is a related event to Halloween in December, so I can't wait to see what they come up with this time.  If you're free on the evening of January 5, come by and witness the lunacy, plus meet us and see what I've been jabbering about since November.  Hopefully seeing our products in person will make you fall in love with them, as you should.

There's more in the works, of course.  Watch this space for news of more new and different products, specials, events, and more.

Getting to the Root of the Matter

Root of the Matter soap, that is.  Our newest vegan-friendly soap is made with pureed ginger, beet, and carrot - three different roots.

The funny thing is, we originally did this soap because we wanted the ginger scent, and we wanted to try getting color from the beet and carrot, and didn't think much past that.  We obviously researched to make sure that none of those are harmful for topical use, and they're not.  So it was full steam ahead with the production.

The colors were obviously an experiment.  Eric was pushing for more of a mix of colors, like our Fudge Chunk soap.  I wanted to try the two-tone layering.  The ginger is present throughout the soap, giving it a very faint ginger smell when dry, that gets more pronounced and definitely noticeable while the soap is in use.  I know because I showered with it this morning, and it was heavenly.

Then we took half of the soap and mixed in beet, and half with carrot.  The carrot half - the bottom - gave us a nice orange color.  The beet, though, didn't turn purple or red, much to our surprise.  It's a nice, natural, earthy tone, but decidedly not red or purple.  We were sure that with the way the fresh beets were staining my hands as I peeled them the red would just pop.  Not so much.  As it is, I really like the way these turned out, it was just unexpected.  Gotta love experimentation.

Because of the way we make the hand soaps, we didn't do those two-tone, but they are damn cute!

When it came to writing up a description of the soap, I did some research into the ingredients to see what I should say about them.  Well, as it turns out, all three roots involved have virtues that are espoused for various health and well-being purposes among those who are into holistic remedies.

All three are said to have antioxidant properties and various other benefits, but the most surprising to me was the carrot.  I actually read that carrot is said to have some sun protection built in.  Apparently, when carrot oil is used in conjunction with regular sunblocks, it enhances the power of the sunblock.  I'd had no idea.  I hope it works and that our soap can provide some of that benefit.

In the meantime, I do know that I just love it for the smell, the feel, the lather, and the way it washes clean.

The best thing?  These are up on the site, just in time for the remainder of our promotion:  Free hand soap of our choosing with any purchase through December 19!  Finish your holiday shopping at Reef Botanicals!

The New Face of Hand Soap

As I posted the other day, my sister and brother-in-law got us the best Chanukah/Christmas gift! Well, the new Ginger Soap is busy curing, so we were able to change up how we do our hand soaps while they're still soft.

Previously, you'll recall, we were making plain, albeit hand-rolled and cute, soap balls, like so:

Those are the Fudge Chunk.  We don't have many right now, so they're not on the site.  At any rate, our new design for hand soaps is much better.  It looks like this:

How adorable is that?  Each hand soap made from today forward will now be marked with a cat paw, making it somewhat flatter and easier to handle.  Our other hand soap varieties will be replaced with these as the stock runs out.

I really am so excited about these it's silly already.  I can't help it; they're just too cute!  Each is 1.5 oz, and would make great guest soaps.  Now if only they'd cure faster... did I mention I'm not a patient person?

Look for them on the site soon!

Something New

While we wait for our last very interesting batch of soap to cure - and I really can't wait to unmold it to see what it looks and smells like, since there's ginger involved! - Eric and I decided to try something new tonight.

It's a success, I think.

We have made our very first sugar scrub!  It's brown sugar and oils, together with cocoa and some other spices to make it smell just heavenly!  (So it's vegan-friendly.)

It'll be debuted this Sunday at Halloween in December, a fundraiser for the family of Isaac Bonewits, a noted author and teacher who is fighting cancer and as a result has a lot of bills to pay.  Eric and I would have been attending anyway, but now we're donating a gift basket to the fundraiser's silent auction.  Plus, we'll be vending, selling our products and donating a portion of the proceeds back to the fundraiser as well.

Please note that the container in the photo is the one that will be used for this initial batch of sugar scrubs only; it will not be the jar that will appear on the website.  This is a glass container, and because we are concerned for your safety in the bath, future scrubs will be available in a clear plastic jar with a white lid.

Eric and I both tested the scrub tonight, and then washed our hands with our Oatmeal Honey soap.  Even after washing, our hands were notably moisturized and softer.  We're so excited that it worked!