A Reminder for Valentine's Day

Our products make great gifts!

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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!

This is How They're Saying "Thank You"

This holiday season, we've gotten a ton of gift basket orders, and it turns out that most of them are actually "thank you" gifts.  A guy who wanted to thank people who cared for him when he was laid up ordered - count 'em - five gift baskets as Christmas gifts.  He wanted one Men's Basket, and four for women.  He left it up to us, just asking that each was a bit different.  So we did a Mocha Basket:

It's got a Cafe Mocha sugar scrub, a Chocolate Decadence pillar candle, Honey Chocolate, Fudge Chunk, and Coffee soaps, and a Chocolate Chip Mint lip balm.

A Fruit Basket:

With a When Life Hands you Lemons sugar scrub, a Citrus Blast bath salt, a Garden Party soap, a Lemongrass & Sage soap, and an Autumn Harvest votive.

We did a Stop & Smell the Flowers Basket.

This one's got a Lavender bath salt, a Heaven Scent salt scrub, a Lilac Votive, a Smooth Operator shaving & bath soap, and a Lavender soap.

And a Skin Loving Basket:

We did this one with a Home for the Holidays pillar candle, a Totally Tasteless lip balm, an Almond Pastry facial scrub, and Oatmeal Honey & Purity Soaps, plus a Deadwood Spa Bar.

And then there was a woman who wants to thank her partner for their business' success left the basket up to our discretion, so we did a mixed bag of a basket, based on stuff she'd like:

This one's got a Heaven Scent salt scrub, a Chocolate Chip Mint lip balm, a Healing Tea soap, a Smooth Operator shaving & bath soap, an Almond Pastry facial scrub, and a Home for the Holidays votive.

Just some ideas of various baskets we can do... really, anything we make can be combined into a gift basket.  It's really fun, actually, to figure out good combinations of things!

No Halloween?

It seems like Halloween was everywhere, every blog on the Internet, every website, everywhere... but at Reef Botanicals.

Thing is, we didn't do a seasonal soap.  Nothing really fit.  But that doesn't mean we ignored Halloween!  Mind you, I'm a face painter!  So what was I up to this weekend?

Well, you can read about it fully here, but I will tell you that I face painted on Saturday before going to Forest of Fear with Eric at Sterling Forest, wherein we looked like this...

And yes, I did my own face, with the exception of the splatter, for which I needed Eric's assistance.

Believe it or not, with our Oatmeal Honey soap and Almond Pastry Facial Scrub, I got all of that mess off and was able to spend Halloween looking like this, with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew.

Yup, I'm the clown.  More face paint, but no zombie!

Oh, and I also won two sets of these nifty Wilton Halloween sprinkles in test tubes, but not early enough to use them this year.  I did give one set to my sis.

Now that Halloween, my very favorite holiday of the year, is officially over, I can start looking forward to the "holiday season" otherwise known as shopping mania.  I personally have a lot of shopping to do this year, since I've got not only my normal gift list, but two nephews, on on each side of the family!  And the one in the photo above, my sister's son, will be turning one on December 22, right smack between Chanukah and Christmas.  That makes for a lot of gift buying!  And gift making, since I do plan to make some nifty things... and yes, I'll be blogging them, of course.

But I also have some suggestions for all of you for some easy holiday shopping.  I guess you know I'm talking about Reef Botanicals.  It's just that we've got some great gift ideas for you!

We can work with you to create a custom gift basket for anyone on your holiday shopping list, man or woman.  Our baskets are affordable, attractive, and chock full of great stuff that everyone loves, whether it's a Men's shaving gift basket or completely floral-themed.

If you want a smaller gift item, how about our new line of bath salts or the ever-loved sugar and salt scrubs?

Tell me a Home for the Holidays bath salt wouldn't be perfect for someone on your list!

For great stocking stuffers, there's our Almond Pastry facial scrub, lip balms, bath bombs, or someone's favorite scent of soap!

And we're still working on things, so there's more to come!  Keep checking here to get ideas!

Linked to:

Relaunch, Baby!

We're back and better than ever - new web host, new shopping cart, new site design!

And we're so happy that we're celebrating with a sale:

15% off anything and everything

at

Reef Botanicals

through October 5

Now's the time to stock up on your favorites, try something new, or get a jump start on that holiday shopping!

Perfect for Spring!

Garden Party soap, I mean.

I previously posted about this soap here, but we didn't yet have a photo.  This soap is a favorite, with a wonderful creamy lather and two spa-quality clays - red and yellow kaolin.  The clays are suitable for all skin types, pulling the toxins from your skin.  The bar is scented with geranium and sweet orange essential oils, for a terrific, light floral and fruity scent, perfect for the season.

How amazing would this soap be when included in a floral gift basket with a pale blue-lavender lilac candle, a Romance fizzy bath bar, and a Heaven Scent salt scrub?  This would be the perfect Mother's Day gift, but there are only two days left for our sale!

If you miss it, you might just need to get these for a birthday gift... or, y'know, yourself.

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!

What a Weekend!

And what a week!  It was great, but I'm now awfully tired and sore.

Eric spent every evening this past week making candles for our craft show this past Saturday, and I helped on the evenings I wasn't rehearsing.  We got together a good stock of Lilac, Cedar, and Ocean Surf candles for the show.  No, these are not going up on the site at this point, but if you want information about them, feel free to contact us.

Our setup has much improved since our first vending experience.  You'll remember the tiny IHOP booth from December.  It looked like this:

Hey, we worked with what we had, right?  But we've moved up in the world.  Our booth at the Minerals Resort & Spa in Vernon, NJ looked like this:

And here are the closer views.  In this photo, from right to left one are our Ocean Surf, Cedar, Lilac, and Lemongrass & Sage candles, large and small baskets of loose soaps, and a sample gift basket.

On the left branch of the booth, we had soaps on a bamboo mat and more soaps and shampoos in the baskets.

And in the middle, we had more baskets of soap, the two-tiered shelf holding bath bombs and scrubs, and on the table were lip balms!  This time we had space for tester scrubs, so people could actually see, smell, and touch.  They really seemed to appreciate the opportunity and took full advantage.

All in all, it was a great show!  It was the first ever hosted by that resort, but they definitely plan to do it again.  I heard talk of another one in October, and one possibly in December, before the holidays I guess.  Plus, they want us back for their Bluegrass Festival on July 30!  Now that sounds like fun.  Music, partying, food, and vending.  We are so there!

One of the booths at the show was from a local small boutique in Vernon, and the owner seemed interested in discussing with us the possibility of carrying some of our products there too, which would be great.  Reef Botanicals has invaded Sussex County!  Ha!

That doesn't completely explain the exhaustion, though.

That night, I went to see a play with a friend, and then on Sunday I participated in the Manhattan MS Walk with a friend, my tenth year at the event.  Six miles through Manhattan and Brooklyn for a woman who doesn't exercise nearly enough is a tough haul, but it was really fun.  Always is.  I'm so glad one of our Deadwood Spa Bars is in the shower.  My aching muscles thanked me.

Last night, of course, more rehearsal.

All of that adds up to some serious tired.  But I'm still kickin', and off to rehearsal again in just a bit!  This is going to be a great show!