I got a batch of soap done and I'm champing at the bit for more, more, MORE! To do, that is. I'm so bored if I'm sitting for more than 10 minutes at a time and I'm really getting antsy to make some cool stuff for the Etsy shop, so, here's a little preview of what's to come ~

I have a bag of raw almonds that I will be grinding up to put in a face scrub with chia seeds, organic oat bran, and some sort of scent -- probably German chamomile. Something yummy for sweet faces. But I only have these wee amber glass jars that I had initially purchased for kyphi to package the scrub, so I'm going to offer 'samplers' of this face scrub. If it works out, then I'll buy larger jars and make more. I also want to make a nice wintery hand balm with orris, patchouli, chocolate, vanilla, cedarwood, maybe a pinch of spice, something warm and sweet and loveable. Also in a dinky sampler size to sort of get a feel for my future options here.



The newest soap, Honied Tobacco, is really, really nice. I catch myself sniffing my hands after handling the tester bar, breathing in its sweet warm leathery tones. It gelled up pretty quickly, not usually how I like to process soap, creating this wonderful 'slip' -- and for being a fairly fresh soap, it's not drying whatsoever. I found this super sweet, delicious (because I eat it too) coconut cream that I had to scoop out of the container with a spoon to put into the soap, so there is that extra bit of hydration-moisturing power going on. Oh, and I put in a lot of honey, which is why it gelled so quickly. Honey is a soap heater.



I did some exploring yesterday. Went to SLO (San Luis Obispo, CA) and walked downtown where, apparently, everything is happening. There's a store there that specializes in socks. Just socks. A sock store in Fresno wouldn't have made it a month. But here, socks are in. Socks are cool. Rockin'. Also went down a bit to Pismo Beach to the IGA California Fresh (an independent grocery store) that's sort of a hybrid of Whole Foods and a farmer's market, without the uber high price range. We found some cool stuff ~ a great deli, decent selection of fruits and vegetables, a whole wall of tea, a wine galley, organic, grass-fed, no-GMO, no antibiotic anything you can think of, but the 'catch of the day' was meeting Alexia Rogue Wacks, an herbalist who had a small booth set up inside the store, hawking her organic herbal skincare. Nice lady, that Ally, and her products, if the small sampling I took is any indication of their quality, are top drawer. She came all the way from Tucson, AZ to talk to people about what she's doing, her products and how they're produced. She employs "individuals with cognitive and developmentally delaying disabilities" to package her products at Achieve Builds Confidence in Tucson, AZ, YEI in Prescott, AZ, Y.E.S. The Arc in Cottonwood, and at Achievement House in San Luis Obispo, CA. Her company name is Living Blessed, and I think she is. You should go check her out. She's doing good stuff.

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