A Reminder for Valentine's Day

Our products make great gifts!

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Artist Spotlight: Part Thirty-Six

This week we meet Jan, of Jewelry by Janelle.  You've met her here before, though.  Her banner might spark your memory.

Riiiiiiiiight, the chick who makes that absolutely freakin' amazing wood jewelry!  You can find a ton of it in both her Handmade Artists Shop and her Etsy shop.  And you can learn about all of her work on her blog.  But let me whet your appetite.

Zebrawood Cuff Style Bangle Bracelet

White Jade Calla Lily Earrings in Antiqued Brass

Pair of Exotic Color of Tulipwood Rosewood Hairsticks

Green and Gold Byzantine Necklace with Front Padlock Closure

Copper Crystals and Beaded Bracelet

Pink Ivory Teardrop Pendant in Antiqued Brass

Silver and White Freshwater Pearl Cluster Earrings

Honduran Rosewood Neck Cuff

Black Enamel Layered Necklace with Black Mother of Pearl Focal

I know I'm usually a lot more wordy than this, but I think Jan's wares speak for themselves.  I don't need to be so verbose this time, right?  I mean... just look at those photos.  Just look!

Wanna know what's even better?  She's giving away this gorgeous ebony bangle!  Just go here for details!

Your Wish Is Our Command

Upon request, Reef Botanicals will soon be carrying luxurious and gorgeous bath salts!  Like everything else we make, when we say we're going to carry bath salts, we don't mess around.  Each bath salt will contain our custom blend of Dead Sea salt, light pink Himalayan salts, French organic grey sea salt, Epsom salt, Dendritic salt, and essential oils.

Why are we taking the trouble to mix all these salts together in a special blend for you?  Why not just dump some essential oils into a jar of Epsom salt, make it pretty, and call it a day?

Well, my friends, because we care about you!  Let me explain...

First, the Dead Sea salt, a salt we already use in our Heaven Scent salt scrub and our Deadwood Spa Bar.  For our bath salts, though, we're using a coarser texture of Dead Sea salt.

For those who don't know, the Dead Sea is a land-locked lake in the Middle East.  It is the lowest point on earth and is known for the high salinity of its waters.  The water of the Dead Sea is 7x more salty than any other lake or sea, and contains rare and beautifying elements that are not naturally occurring elsewhere in high concentrations.  The magnesium in the salt promotes the healing of skin tissue and provides the skin surface with an anti-allergic element.  Bromide soothes the skin, relaxes body muscles, and tranquilizes nerves.  Sulfur is a natural disinfectant.  Potassium is a moisture regulator that maintains a neutral environment in the skin.  Calcium is a building block for corrective tissue.  Sodium relieves stiffness and muscle cramps and maintains a neutral environment in the skin.

Pink Himalayan salt is not just a gorgeous mottled pale pink.  It's mined from the ancient sea beds inside the Himalayan mountains.  It's completely unrefined, and we use it in its raw, natural form.  This salt was formed over 200 million years ago in the primeval sea where the first signs of life formed in the mineral rich water.  Because of its location and how it was formed, it is extremely pure and free of contaminants or pollutants.  It gains its pink color from the high iron content.  It also contains trace amounts of 84 minerals and elements, including potassium, magnesium, calcium, iodine, zinc, and sodium.  Himalayan salt has long been used as a holistic treatment for poor circulation, high blood pressure, dry, damaged, or irritated skin, muscle soreness, joint pain, and detoxification.

And then there's Grey sea salt.  In Brittany near the town of Guerande, France, are marshes and low lying areas suitable for salt fields.  There's a mini climate that is much milder than the rest of Brittany.  The currents of the Atlantic run cleaner there than in many salt harvesting locations.  This confluence of nature makes for an ideal area for a salt farm region.  Guerande has no peer in Europe for the quality of salt produced.  The salt fields of Guerande are long and narrow so the top of the evaporating sea water can be swept by hand to harvest the precious sel gris de Guerande, containing a complex balance of the sea and her minerals, with large grey crystals.

Epsom salt is a pure mineral compound, magnesium sulfate, in crystal form.  The crystals are formed from evaporated brine pools in the Earth's crust.  The two key ingredients, of course, are magnesium and sulfur.  Magnesium eases stress and improves sleep and concentration, helps the muscles and nerves function properly, regulates the activity of over 325 enzymes, reduces inflammation to relieve pain and muscle cramps, and improves oxygen use.  Sulfur flushes toxins, improves the absorption of nutrients, helps form joint proteins, brain tissue, and muscle proteins, and helps prevent or ease migraine headaches.

Last but not least, there's Dendritic salt.  We use just a touch of this.  Dendritic is a finer grain than the others, and it's been crystallized to provide a larger surface area to help retain fragrance.  This is the ingredient that ensures that your Reef Botanicals bath salts will stay fragrant as long as possible, to give you the perfect aromatherapy experience to accompany the other benefits of the salts.

Together, these ingredients create the bath you most want - relaxing, enervating, romantic, or inspiring, based on the scent you choose from our varied menu.

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It's for boys, but I like it.

Eric has developed a pre-shave oil, just like you find in the high-end stores and at the fancier barber shops.

It's the first step in a pampering, close shave.  The oil is used before shaving to soften the beard and prepare the skin for a close and comfortable shave without leaving an oily residue.  It's ideal for men with sensitive skin, ingrown hair, razor burn, or tough beards.

They're formulated with only natural, healthy, skin-loving oils and essential oils for scent.

Why do I like it?  Because after Eric soaks his face with a hot, wet washcloth, then uses his pre-shave oil, and then his shaving soap to shave, he's got a really smooth face and it doesn't scratch me when I try to kiss him, that's why!

He's done two scents so far, to match our current line of shaving soaps.  That means there's a Clean Cut Shaving Oil, made with patchouli, fir, lavender, and rosemary essential oils and there's a Smooth Operator Shaving Oil, made with just lavender essential oil.

You can find them on their own on the Reef Botanicals site, or as part of our special Father's Day gift basket, also on the site.  The basket's got one Clean Cut shaving soap and matching oil, one Smooth Operator shaving soap and matching oil, one Mashed In bar soap, and one sage green, very soft organic cotton washcloth for that great pre-oil soak before shaving.

The baskets are currently listed at $40, but look for a sale from June 7-15, when they'll be 25% off!

This post is part of the "I Made It" Blog Party at "Everything Etsy."

Artist Spotlight: Part Nineteen

And now for something completely different... Twiddletoes, from Atlanta, GA!

Is it states on the website that "Twiddletoes Socks specializes in handknit, artisan footwear, designed entirely by me and created by hand - no machines, no mills, and no mass production.  From unique Japanese-inspired tabi socks to my Simple Luxury line, you're guaranteed a finely crafted pair of socks that are well-fitting and comfortable, whether they're for yourself or a gift for a friend or loved one."

So how did Twiddletoes come about?  It started about six years ago when the artist had been cringing over people shoving their flipflops on over their regular socks.  This led to her knitting of tabi for the biggest offenders in her life, her dad and her husband.  This expanded when she realized there was quite a bit of interest in her tabi and she ended up taking them to craft fairs and festivals.

The luxury line is made from luxurious natural fibers, like cashmere, alpaca, and yak.  The design of Twiddletoes' tabi and other socks is completely original.

Heart and soul goes into every pair of Twiddletoes socks.  As the artist herself says on her blog, "Handmade socks, to me, are hugs for your feet.  When you slide on a pair of hand knit socks, there's a warmth there that storebought socks don't have."

Would you believe that a single pair of socks from her Simple Luxury line (which can be found in her Etsy shop), contains over 34,000 stitches and uses a little over 1/4 of a mile of yarn?!

In her spare time, ha ha, when she's not writing, gardening, playing with the dog, cooking, exercising, reading, watching movies, or engrossed in one science fiction series or another, she's doing things like knitting this great lace piece as a Mother's Day gift for her grandmother.

Plus, she's got an awesome sense of humor, and if you have one as well, you can get this very cool felted headache pill that's almost 6" long and made from her yarn scraps.  

As it says in her shop, "whether it's squeezing it to death instead of your co-worker or lobbing it at  your partner who's asking whether you picked up the dry cleaning, this felted pill might bring you a bit of relief on a stressful day."

I love it!

Mother's Day Sale!

In honor of the moms, we're making gift buying easier for you.  How?  A sale, of course!  For one week from Friday, April 30, to Thursday, May 6...

First, all individual items at Reef Botanicals are buy 3 get one free!  Simply purchase any three items on the site, and then choose a 4th item of equal or lesser value to the other three, and that one's free!  To make things easy, you just purchase the three items as you normally would, and then in the "notes" during checkout with Paypal, let us know what you'd like as your free item.

Secondly, all gift baskets are 25% off!  You can have a ready-made gift for your mom, at a great discount.  Normally $40.00 each, they're now $30.00.  You can either email us first to discuss the variety of soaps, scrubs, bath bombs, lip balms, and candles you'd like included, and then purchase through the site, or you can purchase first and then we'll email you to work out the details.

The sample basket shown has two Lemongrass & Sage soaps, a When Life Hands You Lemons sugar scrub, a lemongrass & sage candle, an Awaken Fizzy Bath Bar, and an Orange You Glad I'm Your Honey lip balm - a $45.50 value, all piled into a pretty woven basket and then wrapped in cellophane and tied with raffia, for just $30.00.

Don't miss out on these great deals!

Fizzy Bath Bars: A How-To

Before I started making them, I'd never used a bath bomb!  Can you believe it?  And that's what our Fizzy Bath Bars are, bath bombs, just in a different shape than the traditional.

Now I've determined that I can't live without them.  It's just so nice to sink into a hot tub and drop one in, have it fizz all around and release the scents into the air.  I'll stay there until the water goes cold and I turn completely into a prune.

It got me thinking, though, what about others who'd never used them?  Some of you may never have even seen them.  Or heard of them!  What do I do?  A demo!  Of course a demo.  We have our very own Reef Botanicals YouTube channel, after all.

Real Luxury

Ever go to a real spa? One of those places, I mean, where they use all the fancy salts and seaweed wraps and spend hours (and many, many of your dollars) using these really weird-sounding ingredients to pamper you? And they work! I mean, seriously, who'd think that salt could ease your aching muscles and skin conditions?  To be fair, probably not any salt does.  I wouldn't suggest taking the salt shaker off your kitchen table and dumpin the contents into your next bath, for instance.  But salt from the Dead Sea, that's a different story.

Did you know that the Dead Sea is the saltiest body of water in the world?  The salt concentration is actually so heavy that it can keep anyone afloat, even people who have trouble floating anywhere else.  No kidding.  And the salt from the Dead Sea is different from any other sea salt.  Whereas most sea salt is approximately 90% sodium, Dead Sea salt is only 10% sodium.  The rest is comprised of various beneficial, even essential, minerals including magnesium, potassium, calcium, and bromine.

The best way to reap the benefits of the salt is probably to go have a soak in the Dead Sea itself, and many do make the trip.  Not everyone can afford to take the money or time to go to that beautiful location, tucked between Israel and Jordan, though.

This is why people spend the crazy amounts of money they do at spas, using products containing Dead Sea salts and reaping the benefits here at home.

And then seaweed?  Who figured out that seaweed was beneficial to the skin too?  Don't get me wrong, I love my sushi, but sea kelp as a skin regimen?  It just looks so... seaweedy.  It's the real deal, though!  It's high in vitamin and mineral content, as well as essential fatty acids and chlorophyll for detoxification.  Plus, it's got a natural elasticity that makes it ideal in cutting-edge anti-wrinkle beauty regimens.  It confers its elasticity to the skin and hair, revitalizing both.

Last, but not least, lanolin.  Lanolin is a wax produced by sheep to keep their coats waterproof!  In cosmetics, though, it's used as a soothing skin cream and in shaving cream.  It's even used as an ointment base because it absorbs so well into the skin, carrying the needed medicines with it.  Don't worry, it's taken from the shorn wool, without any harm to the sheep.

Why all the information?  We've got a new product of course!

The first in our Luxury Line, this Deadwood Spa Bar is part soap, part spa treatment.  It is a soap base, but that's just what's holding it together.  This bar has shea butter, lanolin, sea kelp, and a high concentration of Dead Sea Salt.  It's a pretty bar, very textured, with white speckles and sage green and forest green marbling throughout.

This is not your every day soap.  In fact, we recommend that you don't use it more than 2-3 times per week.  It's a rough bar, with very little lather, but lather isn't the only way to pamper yourself.  This bar is for special occasions.  It's for that tough day when you just really need to take care of yourself.

And I'll give you a personal anecdote.  I've got a bad cold, have since Wednesday or so.  I've been miserable, and everything hurts, head to toe.  Yesterday, I used this bar in the shower, and I swear for several hours afterwards, my muscles weren't hurting anymore.  It didn't last forever, the cold eventually won over the bar, but those hours lifted my spirits unbelievably.

The cold, of course, also means that I can't smell a thing.  It's annoying.  So I can't tell you that I've personally been able to smell this bar.  I know that it's scented with cedar, sweet orange, eucalyptus, and lemongrass essential oils, but I can't know personally yet what that means.  Rest assured that Eric was the one who did this, though, so you aren't relying on my guesswork.  According to Eric, it's great.  As he puts it, it's a very complex scent, very woodsy with tones of citrus and just a hint of eucalyptus.  Sounds good to me!  I'll let you know as soon as I can smell it for myself.  Fingers crossed that it turns out to be later today.