(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.

They're All the Rage

I recently got a request for infinity scarves, so I thought why not?  I've knitted up these cozy, fluffy scarves in various colors.  Each has a great color variation and great color range.  At $25 each, they're also a great less expensive option for a handmade scarf.  I made them 55" in circumference so they're nice and long to go around twice, but stay close to the neck to keep you warm.

When I was done with those, I decided to try something different too.  I had this soft, fuzzy white yarn and some shiny red yarn that I love, so I knitted them together into a loooooooooong infinity scarf (about 84" long... or around, depending on how you look at it), and came up with this scarf that looks, as Eric pointed out, like a boa.  It's so comfy!  And it's really pretty, too.

Fun, right?  They're all in the accessories section of Fabric of my Mind.  I don't know about you, but these scarves kind of cheer me up in the face of all the snow we've been having... and will apparently keep having.  Now... who wants to help me come shovel?

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!

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!

We've Gone International!

We've had our first two international orders, both from Canada.  It's really kind of exciting.

Both are face painters.  The first, award-winner Shannon Fennell, blogged her experience with our Purity, of which she purchased four bars, sight unseen.  That's commitment!  And then she blogged her thoughts here.

Of course, Shannon had to try Purity on her face painting sponges.  She photographed the results, and I think they're pretty amazing:

That's really something, isn't it?  Its effectiveness doesn't mean it's harsh, though.  Shannon and her mom both have allergies and sensitivities, and neither is experiencing difficulty with the soap.  It's just three ingredients, and we've superfatted it just a bit to ensure that it's not terribly drying.  It's gentle enough that I use it on my face ever day, and I've seen it recommended for washing babies.

Just keep it away from the eyes, of course.  This is old-fashioned soap, and old-fashioned all natural soap with no chemicals will hurt if it gets in your eyes.

At any rate, Shannon's post spurred a second order over the weekend, a face painter in Toronto.  We're officially international!

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!

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.

It's supposed to be Spring.

I could swear it is.  A few days ago, it was even Summer!  I distinctly remember 91 degrees and Sun.  In fact, I blogged it!  The high today?  61 degrees Fahrenheit.  61.  And it's cloudy.  It's OK, I'm still going to take Meg for a walk.  We have soap orders to get out, and there's no reason not to walk them down; we both need the exercise.

And this Sunday, I'm still doing the MS Walk.  It's supposed to be 56 with showers, but my friend and I will walk the six miles through lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.  It wouldn't be right not to after collecting donations.  I'd feel guilty.

Besides, I have to bring my friend some soap.  I gave her a bar of the coffee soap to try, and now she wants to buy some more.  I love that she loves it!  And that also means it doesn't aggravate her allergies, since she's got those.  I'm thinking I'm also going to bring her a bar of our brand new soap, Garden Party.  I absolutely love the stuff, and with the Red and Yellow Kaolin clays that are in it, it's great for oily skin, which she's combating.  Hey, we all have our issues.

Plus, it smells like Spring - we used geranium and sweet orange essential oils, and it's fantastic.  On a day like Sunday promises to be, I think bringing something that smells like Spring is in order.  To lift our spirits, y'know?

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.

We're Beer Snobs

Really.

And it's pretty funny on my end, considering my "start" in drinking beer.  I know most people won't believe me, but I honestly didn't drink alcohol until I was of legal age, which was the summer before my senior year of college.  Even then, I didn't really drink much.  I tried some beer at school parties.  I think Coors Light was the popular one, so you can understand why I hated beer.  Because I really despised beer, I drank only mixed drinks, and only one per semester.  Seriously, at an after-finals party each semester of my senior year, I had one single daquiri.

It wasn't until my second semester, second year of law school (Did I mention I'm also a lawyer?) that I first liked a beer.  After finals that night, my friends Lisa, Sheau-Wu and I went into the city looking for music, any music.

[Note:  Being from NJ and going to Brooklyn Law School, any time I say "the city," you can assume I mean Manhattan.]

We found a guy on the corner in The Village, handing out flyers for the Mondo Cane Blues Bar.

[It was on Thompson Street, and sadly, is no longer there.  It was my favorite place to go for a long time.]

Lisa, Sheau-Wu and I looked at each other and shrugged.  Sounded good.  The band playing that night was Slapmeat Johnson and the Titans.  Yeah, I know, I know.  But I became a huge blues fan that night, solely because of that band.  They were phenomenal.  I can't possibly convey here the talent that band had.  I also discovered that I could like beer - an ice cold Budweiser.  It just went with the atmosphere, you know?

I know what you're thinking.  Bud?  And she calls herself a beer snob?  You're right, but keep reading.

I became friends with some people who were more knowledgeable about beers.  They introduced me to non-American varieties, the kinds that most starving law students didn't bother with because they couldn't afford them.  I discovered nut brown ales, honey brown ales, cream ales.  By the time I went to Ireland in 1998, I found that my favorite beer ever was Caffrey's Irish Ale.  Sadly, like the Mondo Cane, Caffrey's no longer exists.  If you've ever tried Tetley's English Ale, it's close.  I also later discovered the lovely American microwbrew.

What's the point of this all-too-long history?

Well, I became a beer snob.  I also married a beer snob.  In fact, he brews his own beer!  Good stuff, too, I might add, very good stuff.  He does a lot of research (and I mean reading, not just drinking, so quit smirking, people).

So when we decided to make our beer soap, ...

Wait.  Did she just say beer soap?

As I was saying, when we decided to make our beer soap, we knew we had to use the good stuff.  I now present Mashed In:  Spring Seasonal.

This soap is made with the usual stuff, but with Sam Adams Noble Pils replacing the water!  Oh yes, my friends, the very, very good (Really!) Sam spring seasonal is the liquid in this soap.  Also in the soap is a bunch of crushed and fragrant hops.  For those not in the know, hops are actually flowers, so they're soft and really nice.  For exfoliation, we've ground up some Pale Two Row Malted Barley, and that's in there too.

This is now my favorite of our soaps, hands down.  Yeah, it's part of our "Men's Line," but I'm not kidding.  It's my favorite.  Scented with just a touch of cedarwood essential oil, it smells like sweet grain, almost like baking bread, but without the yeast.  Who doesn't like the smell of baking bread?  Hands?  Anyone?  Yeah, didn't think so.

Check it out.  It's a limited run, so you've got a limited time.  Now, that doesn't mean we won't continue to have awesome beer soaps.  It just  means that our beer soaps will be seasonal!  Each season, we'll use a different beer base.  Neat, huh?

Why "Mashed In"?

Says Eric:  "Mashing in" is the process in beer brewing where the grains and water (called liquor when brewing) are combined at a specific temperature to extract the sugars from the grain.  In extracting the sugars, a sweet liquid called wort (pronounced "wert") is created, which is then fermented to produce beer.  The process isn't so different from combining our ingredients at a specific temperature to create soap, so we thought "Mashed In" would be the perfect name for this unique soap.

Meanwhile, don't forget about that Shampoo-Naming Contest!

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!

A Re-Introduction

I already told you about our Fizzy Bath Bars, but here's the visual!

Awaken is made with sea kelp in the mix for green specks and some wonderful properties it has.  It's scented with lemongrass, sweet orange, and eucalyptus essential oils, and is amazing for getting your mind going!

Romance is a pretty pink bath bar, containing cocoa butter and scented with geranium, clove, and lavender essential oils that combine to smell like roses!  It's still all natural - the pink comes from the bit of cocoa powder we've included, as well as some amazing freeze-dried powdered raspberry!  Yes, really!

And last, but not least, Serenity contains yellow kaolin clay for a nice creamy color and the wonderful properties of the clay.  It's scented with lavender and rosemary, for a heavenly relaxing scent that fills the whole room and turns your bath into a haven.

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!

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.

Not for Guitarists!

Eric has been using solely our soaps and sugar scrubs, and noticed tonight that all the callouses on his hands are gone. As he was "lamenting" their loss, he commented, "I'm glad I'm not a guitarist." They need their callouses, y'see.

Tonight, I finished the batch of Cafe Mocha Scrub for the Halloween in December event this Sunday evening.  It's... it's... OK, I'll say it, it's great.  It smells of the brown sugar, coffee, cocoa, and spices from which it's made.  Eric says that he plans to use it every morning because the spiced coffee scent helps him wake up.  And there's nothing like waking up to the smell of fresh coffee, is there?

I couldn't stop there, though.  Oh, no!  We now also have a batch of When Life Hands You Lemons Scrub.  This one is my personal favorite, because I just love citrus.  I'm in heaven with the scent of light homemade lemonade to wake me up in the morning.  And yes, I squeezed the lemon juice myself!

The jars and tags make them look so gorgeous too.

Right?

So you figure then we went to bed, yes?  No!  No, because we wanted candles.  We already made a few Chocolate Decadence candles for the gift baskets we'll be bringing to Halloween in December, one as a prize for the silent auction and two for sale.  These candles are mottled mahogany brown and scented with Fudge Brownie and Vanilla Hazelnut.  Yum!

And we already had our Thanksgiving Harvest candles, in a deep mottled orange-red, with an apple spice scent...

... and our Healing Tea candles, in a mottled sage green, scented with green tea and eucalyptus.

Well, tonight we poured Winter Wonderland candles, which will be a beautiful light blue, mottled with snowflakes.  Because, y'know, there won't be enough snow this weekend!  Ha!  Of course, this weekend at Halloween in December only, the candles will be dubbed "I'm Dreaming of a White Halloween" candles.  It's only fitting.

Photos will follow tomorrow!