Meet Lavender Crème

It was time.  Probably overdue, even.

We've gone so long with only one salt scrub, the Heaven Scent, that it really hasn't been fair to you.  Silly, really. Well... meet our new Lavender Crème salt scrub.

Just as good as Heaven Scent, with premium Dead Sea and Epsom salts and skin-loving olive oil, this one's scented with real Vanilla essential oil, and a dab of Lavender for good measure.

It's amazing!

So what made me think of it?  A Secret Santa exchange, actually.  My recipient said she loved vanilla bath products, especially French vanilla.  Well, as a business that uses only essential oils and no fragrance oils, we're a little restricted when it comes to that sort of thing.  We've got Vanilla essential oil, but alone it doesn't smell quite right to me.  A touch of Lavender mixed in, though, and it's just unbelievable.

Have I mentioned how much I love making up new custom scents?  I do!

Healing Tea

Not just for candles anymore!

And no, we don't actually claim it heals anything, just that it's awesome.  The name fit because that's what we called our green tea & eucalyptus scented candles, so it made sense to name our green tea and eucalyptus soap Healing Tea to match!

It really is great for your skin, though, with five kinds of oils, including skin-loving olive and almond oils, plus strongly-brewed green tea, cocoa butter, beeswax, and lanolin!  We added in the tea leaves too, for a great speckle and mild exfoliation.

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!

As Promised, One For the Girls

Shaving soap without the masculine smell! The very same recipe as our Clean Cut Shaving Soap, but scented with only lavender essential oil. This one is Smooth Operator Shaving Soap, a nod to those women who may let the men around them think they have the upper hand but know they're truly the smooth operators in the bunch.

Enjoy!

You Want Some!

Starting NOW, well... as soon as this posts, at any rate, the next ten orders on our site will include one of our NEW LIP BALMS!  Get kissable lips for Valentine's Day!

When you place your order, just tell us in the comments section which one you want.  If you can't decide and don't specify, we'll choose for you.  Each balm is selling for $5.00, so this is a very cool deal for our next ten customers.  Plus, it gives you a chance to check our our brand new stuff!

Here are your choices:

Chocolate Chip Mint...

It's full of luxurious olive oil, sweet almond oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, and vitamin E, in a beeswax base.  Even better, it's made with real dark chocolate and peppermint essential oil for a chocolate chip mint taste and smell that's irresistible!

Orange You Glad I'm Your Honey...

Sweet orange essential oil gives this balm its wonderful scent, but it's the olive oil, almond oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, honey, and vitamin E suspended in the beeswax base that will save your lips from the cold winter wind.

Eucalyptus:

Made with olive oil, almond oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, and vitamin E in beeswax, plus eucalyptus essential oil that's great for healing chapped lips and clearing your nose when you've got a cold.  Plus, it's a light sage green from the sea kelp we've added, known for its high vitamin and mineral content, antioxidant properties, and ability to confer elasticity.

and Totally Tasteless:

Our most basic balm is made solely with olive oil, grapeseed oil, cocoa butter, beeswax, and vitamin E to pamper your lips without all the extras and with no nut-based ingredients, even shea.  Do keep in mind that our equipment may have been in contact with nuts and nut products, so if you've got severe allergies be careful.

Jump on this one!

New Product... !!!

Ever heard of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate?  I hadn't.  I hadn't, but I've been using it for approximately 39 years.  It's in my shampoo, you see.  Betcha it's in your shampoo too.  Why should you care?  Here's why.  Scary, right?  But what to do?  Hm... what to do... ?

Can you guess what we did?  Made shampoo!

What's in our shampoo, you ask?  Olive and other natural oils, sodium hydroxide, water, shea butter, cocoa butter, honey, peppermint essential oil, and rosemary essential oil.  For the benefits of these ingredients, click the links!  That's it.  Eventually, we will  have other varieties, of course.  But this is the first, in Rosemary & Peppermint.  Here's what it looks like:

Yes, a bar.  A solid bar of shampoo.  Weird, I know.  Eric had used bar shampoo before; I hadn't.  I'll admit, I was a little skeptical regarding its efficacy.  So before I agreed to list it for sale, I had to test it on my very own head.

Now, if you know me, you know that's huge.  I have long hair.  I love my hair.  I do not mess around with my hair.  I used the shampoo.  See how dedicated I am to all of you?  I risked my own hair for you all!

My observations...

New Shampoo: Day One

I used the shampoo and was surprised, despite Eric's assurances, at how quickly and well it lathered. I mean, it's a bar, for Pete's sake.  But it works!  My hair felt clean.  I did use conditioner, because I wasn't brave enough to refrain.  Besides, I figure my hair needs time to adjust.  Plus, I have hair that tends toward the dry.  I'm lobbying for us to make a line of all-natural conditioner because I just don't trust my hair without it.  It's long.  And I wash it every day, at least once a day.  But the shampoo worked!  It also felt very clean post-shower, even after the commercial conditioner.  The conditioner I used was Fructis.
I hate it.  Maybe I shouldn't say that, but I do.  I bought it once when I was away and forgot my normal stuff, and use it only occasionally.  But I feel like it doesn't really do the job.  But I used it on day one of the natural shampoo trial.

And then I made a real mistake.  Either my hair needs to acclimate to the new stuff, which it does, definitely, or it really just doesn't like my styling products.  I use CHI Silk Infusion and Volume Booster and I actually like them.  I've been using them for a few years now.  Well, I put them in, as usual, and my hair rebelled.  It felt weird and fluffy, and kind of greasy, and just altogether odd.  I hated it.  All.  Day.  So... next use, no product.

New Shampoo:  Day Two

My shower went as follows:  Cafe Mocha sugar scrub, followed by our new shampoo, then the conditioner I've liked all these years, Herbal Essences.  Still not brave enough to go sans conditioner with my long, fine but thick, dry hair.

This time, I was able to really pay attention to the shampoo, smelling the rosemary and peppermint, and then the touch of honey behind those scents.  Then I washed with Cool as a Cuke soap.  Rinsed off, rinsed my hair, and let it dry.

I don't blowdry, haven't in years, since I resigned myself to the fact that I just don't have straight hair.  Oh, the hours saved by quitting that practice!

I also got smart last night.  I bought a wide-toothed comb, the kind you're supposed to use to detangle hair, as opposed to the brush I've always used, that catches and breaks my hair.  Yeah, I know, if I care so much about my hair, why'd I use that sort of brush?

Absolutely no idea.

At any rate, I combed my hair while wet, and for the first time since I stopped straightening it, didn't use any styling products.  Love it!  Soft, clean, and holding the wave.  Success!

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!