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:

Father's Day Sale!

For one week, and one week only at Reef Botanicals:

Our new "Father's Day gift baskets" are 25% off, costing only $30 instead of the regular $40.  The temporary price is already reflected on the site.  Just order one and we can ship it directly to dad, or to you so you can see his reaction when you hand it to him!

This basket is packed full with:
*One Smooth Operator shaving soap, scented with lavender.
*One matching Smooth Operator shaving oil.
*One Clean Cut shaving soap, scented with patchouli, lavender, fir, and rosemary.
*One matching Clean Cut shaving oil.
*One Mashed In:  Spring Seasonal, our luxurious beer soap, made with Sam Adams beer, crushed hops, and ground barley for a wonderful scent of baking bread.
*One sage green and very soft organic cotton washcloth.

It is the ultimate in pampering for the men in your life!  Dad can enjoy a shower with our amazing beer soap, and then get down to shaving... a soak with a nice hot washcloth, some skin-loving pre-shave oil, and then the amazing lather of our luxurious shaving soaps that contain spa-quality Rhassoul clay to avoid the need for gels and glycerines.

The basket will continue to be available long after Father's Day, for the regular price of $40, so it'll be great for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, or any other gift-giving event... but get it now for Father's Day for just $30!

As if that wasn't enough, the sale continues:


Every item in the Reef Botanicals Men's Line is on sale for one week, buy two items, get one item of equal or lesser value for free.  Just purchase two items and then let us know in the paypal comments or via email what you'd like for free!.

You can choose our Smooth Operator Shaving & Bath Soap.

Or our matching Smooth Operator Shaving Oil.

If you like your shaves a little spicier, try our Clean Cut Shaving & Bath Soap.

Or our matching Clean Cut Shaving Oil.

For a terrific bath or shower experience, there's our Mashed In:  Spring Seasonal, soap made with Sam Adams, hops, and barley, and scented with just the barest touch of cedar.  This one's my favorite!

Get three of the same thing, or mix & match!

Sale ends at midnight on June 15.

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."

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!

Even more new stuff!

I know, I know, it seems like we've got something huge and new going on every day. I feel the same way, believe me! It's all just moving so fast.

We've been busy! So busy that we haven't been able to take photos, but those are coming soon, I promise. In the meantime, we've made some new things for you to check out.  They're all up on the site, even though we haven't got photos, because we wanted them to be available to you.

Just in time for Valentine's Day and the need for kissable lips, we've got - count 'em - FOUR lip balms! Each is in a quarter-ounce pot, easy to use, easy to just chuck into a purse or a pocket.

The first is for those of you who are no-frills. The ones who shun the flavors and smells and reach for that original Chapstick. Our Totally Tasteless Lip Balm is all of the healing without the bells and whistles. Moisturizing oils, cocoa butter, beeswax, and Vitamin E are all you'll find in this one. We even stayed away from the almond oil and shea butter for those of you with mild nut allergies.*

*Note: Shea is a nut, for those of you who didn't know. Eric is a nut too, but he's not an ingredient so you don't need to worry about him. Also note, our equipment is all likely to have touched nut products, so those of you who have severe nut allergies should beware. The last thing we want is for you to get hurt.

Our second balm is the Eucalyptus.  Made with an assortment of moisturizing oils, as well as both shea and cocoa butter, beeswax, and Vitamin E, it started off great.  We didn't stop there, though.  Eucalyptus essential oil is both great for healing dry, chapped lips and for helping to clear your nose when you're stuffy.  So having it on your lips, right there beneath your nose, is perfect!  Is that it?  Oh no!  This one also has sea kelp!  Not only did it give the balm a really cool sage green color, but it also is loaded with vitamins and minerals, is full of antioxidants, and has elastic properties that are used in anti-wrinkle creams.  Top shelf!

Funniest name of the night goes to our Orange You Glad I'm Your Honey Balm.  This one's got all the oils, the beeswax, the Vitamin E, and the butters... but it's also got honey!  Honey is a natural antioxidant that's also got the ability to retain moisture, so it's perfect for a lip balm.  Scented with sweet orange essential oil, this one smells amazing too.

Last, but definitely not least, is the Chocolate Chip Mint Lip Balm.  It's got all the oils, butters, Vitamin, E, and  beeswax, of course, but this one's also got... wait for it... dark chocolate!  Yes, that's real dark chocolate melted into the recipe.  Scented with peppermint essential oil, I can't think of anything but ice cream when I'm wearing it.

Is that all that's new?, you ask.  Is that what she's so hyped about?  No, that's not all.

We already had, of course, the Clean Cut Shaving & Bath Soap.  You know all about that one.  Great soap, awesome close, smooth shave, but a pretty masculine scent, what with all the fir and patchouli involved.  What about the girls?  Yeah, what about them?  Well, now we're covered too!  Our new Smooth Operator Shaving & Bath Soap, made from precisely the same recipe so you get all the benefits, is scented with 100% lavender essential oil for a more woman-friendly experience.  It doesn't leave the guys in the dust, though.  Lavender may be a flower, but it's probably the most guy-friendly flower around.  I promise, using Smooth Operator, even if you're a man, won't get you beat up on the playground.

We done yet?  Nope, not quite yet.

I've been dying to try bath bombs... or rather, our version, which are Fizzy Bath Bars.  Remember those awesome soap molds my sister and brother-in-law got us for the winter holidays?  It occurred to me that those would be perfect for Fizzy Bath Bars!  So I was really dying to try them.

In fact, I did try some a while back.  There's a reason you didn't hear about it.  It's mostly because they were not a success.  See, I'm not a patient person.  You could say, and still be accurate, that I'm a fairly impatient person, in fact.  Rather heavy-handed.  A bull in a china shop is what I might be likened to by an observer, and the observer wouldn't get an argument from me.  So when I studied up on these things and read "very little liquid," well... let's just say that the correct version of "very little liquid" and my version of "very little liquid" diverged.

I used somewhat more liquid than I should have.

If you don't know how these things work when they're working properly, it goes like this:  You run a nice, hot bath, take a very dry Fizzy Bath Bar, hop into the bath (just don't literally "hop," I don't want you hurting yourself), and drop in the nice, dry Fizzy Bath Bar, which proceeds to fizz as it reacts with the bath water.  As it fizzes and dissolves, it releases the benefits therein into your bath.  The scents from the essential oils fill the room and take their aromatherapeutic effect, any butters or other ingredients housed therein do their stuff.  That sort of thing.  It's really nice.

When it works.  The key, you might have noticed from this narrative, is that it reacts with water.  Yeah.

What happened on that particular occasion, the occasion when I first tried to make Fizzy Bath Bars, is that I used too much water in the bar itself.  I didn't notice right away, mind you, because it still looked pretty dry to me.  So I took the mixture, pressed it on into the mold, ... and then pressed it again.  And again.  Only it kept growing.  So I took some off and put it into another bar of mold.  And the third one too.  And then all three were growing... and growing... and growing.  As Eric put it, we had in our kitchen the Stay Puft Marshmallow Bars.  Finally, I gave up.  I wrestled the puffy, sticky messes out of the mold and onto a sheet of freezer paper, where they finally stopped reacting with the excess water in them and stopped growing.  By then they were indecipherable blobs with slightly crusty outsides and mushy insides.  Not what a Fizzy Bath Bar should be, to say the least.  Completely unmarketable, in fact.

We didn't waste them, though.  We had to try them anyway.  So we popped them in the bath, one after another, and they fizzed, bubbled, and dissolved.  I must say the smell from the essential oils was wonderful.  So I knew I was on the right track, just not quite there yet.

Now I'm there.  Our first Fizzzy Bath Bar is Serenity, made with a mix of lavender and rosemary essential oils, a heavenly and relaxing combination.  This bar is perfect after a long day of work when you just want the world to disappear for a little while until you can face it again.  It's also got a touch of Yellow Kaolin Clay in it, with all the benefits that carries.

You can expect to see a couple more within the next few days, also just in time for Valentine's Day.  If you need a gift or want a romantic bath with your honey, this is the way to go!

Gone Pro

So if you've been reading this blog or have poked around the website, you've seen photos of our products.  They're not bad, if I do say so myself.  I took 'em, after all.  I'm using a Fujifilm Finepix Z that Eric got me for Chanukah last year, and I love it!

It's a point-n-shoot, but it's a good one.  Plus, it's that awesome shade of blue!  My favorite color.

I've tried to get the best lighting possible for our photos so you can see true colors and what the soaps and things really look like.  Of course, the optimal way to do this would be outdoors in the morning or early evening, when the light is soft... but we live in northern NJ, and it is cold out these days, especially at those times!  Sorry, I'm dedicated, but I'm not that dedicated, even for you.

Indoors, we've got incandescent lighting with funky light fixtures that throw off odd-colored glows.  Not the best lighting when you're looking for true colors.  So I've had to resort to flash photography.  That is why you've been seeing photos like this:

Remember that little blast from the past?  That's the coffee soap.  Eh.  The stuff may be terrific at absorbing scents, perfect for chefs, and help to reduce the appearance of cellulite (no, really!), but it doesn't look really pretty in that photo, I'll admit.  And it is a pretty soap, but since those of you who are online shoppers don't have the opportunity to see and handle it in person, how would you know that?  I'll show you how!

That's how.  We have invested in a lightbox and lights, you see.  Now you can see what things look like despite not being right there handling them.  That's not the only one.  Remember our Clean Cut shaving and bath soap with the nifty fir setting?

It's not really that pale.  It really looks more like this:

That When Life Hands You Lemons sugar scrub?  This is what that should really look like:

The site, therefore, will be changing soon.  You'll get a more accurate picture of things, and hopefully enjoy viewing them more.  And we'll be able to have more fun taking the photos!

By the way, the camera we're using?  My same Fujifilm Finepix Z!  Nope, not kidding.

So for those of you who have your own eCommerce websites, and who need to sell your products, I highly recommend investing in a lightbox setup.  You can see how how much it's worth.

Shh... Don't Tell Eric

So we  have the one shaving soap, Clean Cut (which also works well as a bath soap).  It's got a pretty masculine scent.  I mean, I imagine some women will like it, but it's not my style.  I'm a fan of the fruits and flowers, more than the patchouli and fir.  As a result, a friend of mine suggested that we do a female shaving soap!  

So... for testing purposes, and without him knowing, I swiped Eric's bar of Clean Cut and used it yesterday in the shower when I was shaving.  It rocks.  No, I mean it, it's great.

We need a feminine (or unisex, for that matter) shaving soap.  Expect one on the horizon.

Know what else I like about this soap, though?  It makes Eric want to shave.

He hates to shave.  And I hate it when he's prickly.  It was always pulling teeth to get him to finally shave, even though he knew he should, if only for work.

This shaving soap, though, spurred him to ask for an old-fashioned straight razor for the holidays.  I got him one.  And now, as he put it, shaving is an event.  He loves it!  He actively likes to shave!  All because of soap!  And I didn't even have to spring for commercial shaving soap with the razor, which would've been crazy expensive!

Meanwhile, I've got a secret weapon for keeping Eric clean-shaven... just keep the stock of shaving soap replenished!

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.

One for the Boys

We have come up with our first soap for men - a shaving soap!

When I say "we," mind you, I'm speaking loosely. I really should be saying Eric, since he did this one nearly solo. He researched it and worked out the recipe, he chose the scent, and he actually made it nearly all himself.

We started to make it, you see, mixed the basic ingredients, got them into the crock pot, started to cook them and stir... and then I got the call that my sister was in labor and had been for several hours. Yes, labor.

So at a quarter to 11 the other night, I dashed off to the hospital while Eric continued to make soap. My sister had the baby at 2:47 a.m., and I stayed with her and her husband visiting until 7:30 a.m. or so. I was demolished by then, and Eric was just getting up for work as I climbed into bed for a few hours.

The soap was already in the mold and curing.

Scented spicily with fir, rosemary, lavender, and patchouli essential oils, this is also our first round soap!

It lathers like crazy from the combination of oils used, perfect for shaving.  Plus, it's made with Rhassoul Clay, which has been used for over 1400 years as a natural beauty treatment for skin and hair, and shea butter, which also makes it a wonderful bath bar.

Personally, I love that we tried round bars too.  They just look so nifty!  They were... interesting to work out, though.  Removal from the mold was a heck of a process that included lots of trial and error, freezing the soap and a hammer.  There were times we might have looked like an Abbott and Costello routine, in fact.  But the result is definitely worth it.