(Over)due for an Update

The aquaponics system is absolutely flourishing.  Mostly.  We have a couple little sprouts that are hard to photograph that we think might be brussels sprouts, but I'm not convinced those are/will do well in the rock bed.  We'll see.  Worst case, they'll go outside in the backyard veggie garden (which will be well-fenced this year so we don't give the bunnies a brussels sprout buffet, sorry, bunnies).

The beans, though.  The green beans are happy.  Ecstatic, even.  Check this out.

See all those extra leaves and tendrils starting?  Happy, I tell you.  Meanwhile, in the foreground, those are some of the leafy greens.  Spinach & mesclun, I believe.  Look how tall they're getting!  And leafy!  In fact, in some spots they're starting to get the actual lettuce-type leaves, the serrated ones.

See 'em?

The cukes are doing well too.  Not as huge as the beans, but starting to get the secondary leaves.

They're budding there in the middle of the initial leaves.  These are pickling cukes, so it'll be fun once Eric takes up making pickles.  Once we have actual cucumbers, that is.

And just a quick overhead view of all the leafy greens and tomatoes, just to show how they've proliferated.

Salad in a bed of rocks!  Oh, and in case you're wondering about the fish, they're still doing well.  Holding at 4 fish, which are eating well and getting bigger by the day.  I wouldn't expect goldfish to get that big, but they're definitely bigger than when we got them.

My, How You've Grown

Just a quick update.  Day 7 and the tallest of the broccoli and mesclun and/or spinach sprouts are 1.25 to 2" high.

I measured.

Leaves! And a Grade School Science Experiment

Remember in grammar school when we were given birdseed, paper towels, and plastic bags?  We wet the paper towels, put the seeds between two layers of them, and sealed them in the bags... and sprouts grew.

We did the same thing here the same night as we scattered the other seeds in the aquaponics tub, only with green beans & cucumbers.  Today, we opened 'em up.

They grew a ton in just 6 days and rooted right into the paper towels, which was pretty funny.  So into the rock bed they went!

Meanwhile, we noticed yesterday... leaves!  Leaves on the shoots in five days!

And today, they're just going crazy!  A ton of growth.

And if you're wondering about the fish, we're down to five, as we lost three while the system stabilized, but those five are doing well.

Getting Ready for the Cold - in June?

It's 90-zillion degrees out and humid.  But now that I'm making and selling things like scarves and hats, I've resigned myself to the concept that the retail season is different from the actual season in which these things are worn.  So... I've added the first hat, a real, knitted skullcap-style hat... to Fabric of my Mind.  It's a soft, cozy tan acrylic in small/medium, so it's good for women, teens, and tweens.  The tan is a great neutral that goes with everything, and acrylic is warm and soft, washable, and perfect for anyone who's allergic to wool or straight up vegan.

New to the HAFshop!

This soap has been available at reefbotanicals.com almost since the beginning, but it's now available at the Reef Botanicals HAFshop as well.  Plus, and perhaps more importantly, we got photos!  They've been a long time coming.  And actually, we had photos ages ago, but that was before I knew how to take a proper photo... and before the light tent and lights.  Feel free to click that link and laugh at my old attempts, but now you can see what they really look like.

With cheery, citrus-like lemongrass essential oil and bits of sage, this is definitely one of my favorites!

Veggies!

So... the cucumbers started.  (Woohoo!)

And then one of them turned into a real cucumber!

That's what it looks like today!  By next week, it'll be eaten!  It's amazing how fast it grew; I swear, last week it was one of those tiny ones in the first three photos.  We do have a bunch more tiny ones that just aren't growing as quickly.

Then today... I found tomatoes!  We have cherry tomato plants, and today, I found this.

Amusingly, I saw that one first, when right next to it, maybe an inch away, was this one that was double the size or more.

Our romaine lettuce is huge too, so soon... salad!

The Cukes Are Coming!

A Feast!

OK, so I'm exaggerating.  But totally worth it all the same.

Remember the pea?

We ate it.

I sent Eric out to pick it this past Sunday night, while I waited indoors (in my PJs) and got a plate.  For the lone peapod.

I opened the pod.

There were three peas inside, two smaller, one larger.  I ate the bigger one and let Eric have the small and medium ones.

As expected, it was delicious!

Even better?  There are several more flowers on our pea plants.  More peas are coming!

They Grow Up So Fast

That pea-looking thing?  Our first pea flower!

Oh, and as for the other plants?  This green bean is trying to grow up a tiki torch.

And the others are looking pretty good too!

We're hip!

We're happening!

If you saw page 24 of the New York Times Magazine on April 5, 2010, you know what I mean.  According to this article, soap, real, honest-to-goodness soap, rather than "cleansers" and other such modern facsimiles made with various detergents, is the way to go.

Seriously!

And the Samurai Shopper is talking about washing faces, not just bodies.  I speak truth!  Observe:

She might as well be talking about Reef Botanicals soaps!  They're olive-oil-based and primarily animal-fat-free. They've got no preservatives, which are unnecessary in olive oil soaps, and use no synthetic fragrance oils.  The Coffee, Cool as a Cuke, Fudge Chunk, Honey Chocolate, Oatmeal Honey, Purity, and Root of the Matter are actually free of all fragrance, even those from essential oils.

I use Purity on my face every day.  That's our pure Castile made from the original Spanish plan:  just olive oil, lye, and deionized water, superfatted just a bit to prevent drying.

The Samurai Shopper also notes the convenience of bar soap in travel.  No more fussing and funneling allowable portions of liquid cleansers into those tiny bottles before dealing with TSA, just throw a bar of soap into a container, and you're off.  The same benefit holds for solid bar shampoos, of course.  If you travel a lot, solid shampoos are the way to go!

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.

It's Official!

It definitely wasn't easy.

After much discussion and some debate, sleeping on it and thinking about it, Eric and I have come to a single conclusion: We just can't beat a name like Mock Turtle.  We love it!

That, my friends, is the new and official name of what was previously dubbed our "Contest Shampoo."

Our winner, who should be very proud of herself, is Tiffany Calvert.

We would like to truly thank everyone who participated and had fun with this, our first effort to give something back to you guys and to get you involved.  We had a great response, with well over 100 entries, and we appreciated over each and every one, the ones that taught us new words, the ones that made us giggle, and the ones that just plain sounded like pretty damn good ideas.

Contest Update

Our shampoo naming contest ended last night, and with well over 100 entries, we've narrowed it down to the top five.

To do so, Eric went through the emails we received and pulled all of the proposed names, without any identifiers, and printed up a copy of the list for each of us. We each narrowed the list down separately, then together, and then haggled to reach the top five. They are, in alphabetical order (and we still don't know who they belong to, since we haven't checked):

Mermaid Tresses
Mock Turtle
Scentual Morning
Sea Dew
Sun Salutation

After we've had some time away from the list, tomorrow night we'll haggle some more and announce the winner at 10 p.m. EST.

Thanks to everyone who entered! Check back tomorrow to see what we picked!

Lathery!

Our new shampoo is, anyway.

Yup, a second option for you.  And me.  We had a request for a shampoo made with chamomile, which is reputed to control dandruff.  Plus, I wanted one with less of the butters.  So we've done it!  This shampoo is made with chamomile tea, cocoa butter (no shea - or nuts of any kind, actually), various oils for a great lather, honey, sea kelp for elasticity (in your hair, not the soap) and hair health, and tea tree oil.  And it's scented with eucalyptus, for a really nice mix with the tea tree.

Yet another success!  And I'll have photos for you tomorrow.

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.

New Shampoo - Day 4

My friend Lisa called me today, from Mississippi.  She went ahead and, braver soul than I am, used our Honey Chocolate Soap as a shampoo last night!  She wanted to let me know today that her hair was clean, bouncy, shiny, and soft.  It wasn't dry and the color was still good (she hennas her hair red).  She loved it.  And she doesn't use conditioner.

This prompted me to be brave as well, and when I used our shampoo, I didn't use conditioner either, my first time ever in life not using conditioner by choice.

My hair is fine.

I don't mean the type of hair, which is fine but thick.  I mean my hair is doing well.  It's soft, and not straw-like.  Any other time I've been somewhere sans conditioner and washed my hair with commercial shampoo, my hair has been straw when I got out of the shower.

I also didn't use any styling products today.  I figured if my hair annoyed me, I was mostly home anyway and could just throw it into a ponytail.  Tomorrow, I plan to use the shampoo with no conditioner, and then my CHI Volume Booster.  I think I don't need the Silk Infusion anymore, but the Volume Booster keeps the curls better defined and separated.

So we'll see.

In the meantime, I must put in a plug for my brave friend, Lisa.  She's a great face painter and henna artist in Mississippi, so if you'e down there, make sure you contact her for your events!  And if you're not in Mississippi, visit her website anyway and pick up some cosmetic glitters or shimmer powders!  The Ultra Shimmer, Diamond Frost, or Golden Frost, housed in one of her applicator brushes is perfect for dusting your chest, arms, and neck before going out on the town.  She makes them herself, and she lives as close to chemical-free as she can, so you know they're good stuff.

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!

A Clean Endeavor

I am Larissa, doing business with my husband Eric as Reef Botanicals, making high quality natural soaps. We knew we were right for each other early on, but didn't even realize until after we married in March of 2009 that we both loved to make things from scratch.

It was only natural for us to combine our talents for art, craft, and recipe development and step into the arts of candle and soap making.

We've got four recipe varieties so far:

Fudge Chunk contains Ghirardelli cocoa powder and has a subtle chocolate scent.

The Oatmeal Honey is made with precisely those ingredients, and smells amazing! We have it in both bath bar and hand soap size.

The Honey Chocolate is similar, but made with premium crushed cacao nibs, giving it a slight chocolate smell and exfoliating properties.

And our Lemongrass & Sage soap is made with lemongrass essential oil and dried sage. It has a great lather and an amazing citrus scent that wakes me up in the morning.

All of the soaps are made with all natural ingredients, nothing synthetic. Many of our soaps are also vegetarian or vegan-friendly. Those are noted in the descriptions.


Today, we're planning a coffee soap with fresh-brewed coffee and coffee grinds for exfoliation.

Each bar comes packaged in a beautiful organza bag, tied with a ribbon. They're perfect for gifts or to spoil yourself.

We're having a blast! Feel free to visit the site, email us with questions, and place an order.