Can you say Plush?

My oh my I think I'm IN LOVE!!

Had just too much fun making these Bath Bomb Cupcakes with Frosting - so yummy looking and smelling it's hard to remember .... they are Da Bomb and NOT for munching!

Several of my attempts at bath bomb making didn't turn out so well; it's been a love/hate relationship with the bomb winning by frustrating me and making me want to QUIT!!  But I didn't throw in the towel or up my hands, I endeavored to persevere and I'm shore happy dat I did ... WooT!

From this dismal first attempt ...

Ooops!!

To my next give it a go ...

Double Ooops!

To 3rd times da charm ...

Awww  ....

Double Awww ....

To Perfection!!

Appleberry Spice Apple Blossom with Hibiscus Flower Powder bottom

Red Currant Frosting in girlie girl pink with pastel colored sugar crystals

Acorns, Apples & Aged Oak bottom

Red Currant Frosting in girlie girl pink with body safe fine Neon Purple Glitter

Thank you .... Thank you very much (think Elvis)!!



Making "great" bath bombs isn't newsworthy except to the maker; ya just want everyone to know that "hey lookie I did it ... I did it!!!" and for  everyone to be just as excited as you are ... and you are excited, right? Right??

Let's get to the Plush ... Bath Bombs are called "bombs" because they explode with lots of fun fizzy stuff in your bath tub, kinda like a gigantic Alka Seltzer.  BBs are packed with pretty simple to intricate stuffs:



Baking Soda

Citric Acid

Essential or Fragrant Oils

Witch Hazel (to hold them together)

Squashed down - I mean mashed until your fingers hurt down - into a mold, wait a few minutes, pop out and ta-da ... Bath Bomb.

You can put a bazillion different intricate stuffs into your BBs, herbs and botanicals, spices, colorants, sprinkles, glitter, making them so pretty you just wanna look and not get wet.  They can be any shape mold you can mash them into; but heed my advice don't put them into anything like metal or hard plastic cuz you can't pop them out.  Been there done that.

The Plush part comes from the frosting - oh my!!  I mean just look at that frosting!!

Thick, rich creamy just like any edible cupcake and except for the SLSA (get to that in a minute) you could eat this!

Meringue Powder
Powdered Sugar
Creme of Tartar
Color
Fragrance

Whip and then use a frosting bag and tip to swirl on your pretty frosting - add some extra splash with body safe glitter or colorful sugar sprinkles, edible cupcake candies, shoot the toppings list is as endless as the inside list.

So, back to that SLSA. What is it?
Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate. Loads and loads of bubble making product found in a plethora of bath and body products. It is also a name that most people typically confuse with a couple of other somewhat similar sounding ingredients, SLS - Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and SLES - Sodium Laureth Sulfate.  Read about them here:

http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/sodium-lauryl-sulfate.html

And here:

http://www.jasoncosmetics.com/sodium_lauryl_sulfate.html

Research more on your own time, just Google their names. 

Back to SLSA ..

http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient_details.php?ingredient_id=252

Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate is derived from coconut and palm oils; a safe skin friendly surfactant (foaming agent) for both skin and hair. This mild plant derived surfactant creates a rich, luxurious lather that effectively removes suface oil, dirt and bacteria, without stripping or drying sensitive skin. Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate is also hydrophillic, This meas it is attracted to water, which enables it to dissolve more readily in water. thus providing superior rinseablility.

*********************************************************

At Bliss Body & Bath, I decided to go with SLSA as the milder, gentler of the surfactants.

In the end, we are all entitled to make our own choices.  I just know that my products are wonderful for your skin, smell amazing and provide you with less expensive homemade beauty products made in small quantity alternatives to the expensive, mass produced machine made abundant ingredient beauty products that are downright scary.



Wanna purchase? Sure ya do ... go to:

www.etsy.com/shop/blissbodyandbath

www.facebook.com/blissbodyandbath

www.facebook.com/taledagiallanza

Send me a convo and say 'hey read your Blog ..." you just might get a discount!!!!! Woot!!

Wanna chat it up, leave comments, offer feedback, follow me nicely ... okie dokie!

Just keep it fun, keep it positive, keep it simple!

Natural & Natural Beauty ~ What do they mean?

The word, "natural", is ubiquitous; everywhere all the time. You can't escape it. In referencing the products you use ON your skin, that is the focal point of my first blog.

The beauty industry starts teaching us as little kids that being beautiful comes in a jar, package, tube, bottle that is squirted, sprayed, brushed, patted, smeared, dotted, lined, blown and plastered to your body. Without the above, the industry inferes that you aren't beautiful and kids being impressionable, believe it as gospel; hey the lives of models and super stars is "glamorous" isn't it? They have money, they are richer than imagination can conceive, so the way they look even though it costs mega amounts of money and is applied by a professional make-up artist every day sometimes multiple times per day, is the definition of BEAUTIFUL. Right?

Well it certainly isn't natural! Strip down a female movie star to just her skin and she's just like you and me; uneven skin tone, thin short lashes, pale pink normal sized lips, freckles, zits, blemishes, dark circles under eyes, forested eyebrows, dull skin, wrinkles, lines and sagging skin. That's the definition of natural. Right?

Somewhere between Kim Kardasian and the above "natural" image, there is a truly beautiful natural middle way - the homemade small production  natural beauty products way.

It's all in the definition:
The Free Online Dictionary defines natural as:
1. Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl

6. Not altered, treated, or disguised: natural coloring; natural produce

Ezine Articles defines natural beauty as:

Looking great without enhancements

Ah Ha!!  Enhancements ... now that's a word!  One that is a personal perception or opinion. I mean seriously, Ms Kardashian uses enhancements, but so do I (lip gloss, mascara, kohl liner pencil - done). 

This Ezine Article goes on to state, and I quote:

"So what about those enhancers? Are they only made from nature? This is usually the case. Many natural products are priced beyond the capability of some people's finances. Therefore, many people wanting natural products get what they can at the best price and fill in the gaps as best as possible with other products."

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/745523

I beg to differ:  Those of us world wide who are single person or small business homemade body product creators, do everything we can to offer EVERYONE affordable natural beauty products that go so far as to be organic vegan and so pure you can eat them, or at least darn near!  Articles like this one in Ezine tend to put off someone seeking a more natural or all natural regime of beauty "enhancements" because they feel "if I'm gonna pay a lot of money PLUS shipping for a face cream, I might as well just go to the store and buy a name brand machine manufactured cream even though 98% of the ingredients I can't pronounce ...."  And they will. Ergo the muli-billion dollar beauty industry that has nothing to do with what me and thousands of other homemade body product crafters do.  We can't compete with that and we don't try to; but we provide what that industry can't or won't: ultra pure uber awesome wholesomely natural beauty products that come in jars, packages, tubes, bottles that are squirted, sprayed, brushed, patted, smeared, dotted, lined, blown and plastered to your body.

Just like with mass produced products, homemade products have one thing in common: labels. You have to read the labels.  If you compare a mass produced product label with a homemade product label, I betcha you can pronounce 98% of the homemade product ingredients!  Just so you know, we are goverened by the FDA also; our labels must conform to stringent criteria in order to be "legal" right down to the exact placement of everything that goes on the front name label.  It gets pretty tediuous I don't know of many home crafters who LOVE making labels!!

Here's an example of a label for one of my new products, Body Pudding, Black Raspberry Vanilla pictured below:

Distilled water, sunflower oil, soya oil, vegetable glycerin, stearic acid, cetyl alcohol, emulsifying wax, palmitic acid, tocopherol (vitamin E), potassium sorbate, meadowfoam oil, jojoba oil, yogurt, aloe vera, vitamin C, citric acid, Germall Plus, Black Raspberry Vanilla Fragrance Oil

And here are the ingredients for Olay Luscious Embrace Hand & Body Lotion:

WATER, GLYCERIN, PETROLATUM, ISOPROPYL ISOSTEARATE, CAPRYLIC/CAPRIC TRIGLYCERIDE, ORCHIS MORIO FLOWER EXTRACT, SIMMONDSIA CHINENSIS (JOJOBA) BUTTER, DIMETHICONE, FRAGRANCE, STEARYL ALCOHOL, CETYL ALCOHOL, POLYETHYLENE, SODIUM ACRYLATES COPOLYMER, ALUMINUM STARCH OCTENYLSUCCINATE, BEHENYL ALCOHOL, BENZYL ALCOHOL, TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, ETHYLPARABEN, METHYLPARABEN, DIMETHICONOL, PROPYLPARABEN, CETEARYL GLUCOSIDE, STEARIC ACID, CETEARYL ALCOHOL, PEG-100 STEARATE, DISODIUM EDTA, SODIUM HYDROXIDE, RED 33, GREEN 3

If you ever want to know what a particular ingredient is, look here:

http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/index.php

Just type in the ingredient in the Search Box and hit GO ...

Everything we do, everything we buy, all the supplies and ingredients, the botanicals, herbs, butters, oils, essential oils AND fragrance oils, organic colorants (typically from powdered foods, spices, herbs) every aspect of research, every single creation is done with - hopefully - meticulous care and knowledge. I know it's also done by me with singular Pride and Love and Joy. Not to mention the books I've read, the trails and failures, and online research as well as discussing everything with my peers.  It is a daily love affair.

Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing what we do for the amount of money it costs us to do it, with the hopes and prayers of our creations being sought out and found, purchased and enjoyed by You ....

Natural Enhancements ~ Body Pudding for Ultra Thirsty Skin

 

Wanna purchase? Sure ya do ... go to:

www.etsy.com/blissbodyandbath

Send me a convo and say 'hey read your Blog ..." you just might get a discount!!!!! Woot!!

Wanna chat it up, leave comments, offer feedback, follow me nicely ... okie dokie!

Just keep it fun, keep it positive, keep it simple!