Summer Pleasures

Summer is our favorite season.  It's a season of vacations, time with family and friends, theme parks and grilling great foods, all while being able to wear bright clothes and the summer staple... flip flops.  (Love those!)

What do you love about summer?  What's on your To-Do list before summer ends?  Up next on our list...  to take beautiful summer pics for our scrapbook so we can remember them fondly during the upcoming winter months when it's really cold in NJ!

Congrats Pookalita!

Congratulations to Dawn Fitch (aka Pookalita), the creator of the natural bath & body brand, Pooka Pure & Simple, on her first retail store!  We can only imagine how exciting this is for her and the Pooka family.  Dawn and company are working hard to deliver the best, she's a wonderful person and a fellow Indie.  We're so very happy for Pooka! 

I stopped by today and snapped a few pics to share with our friends.  The official grand opening is September 10th.  If you're in the NJ area, please stop by. It's going to be awesome! (You have to smell her Pomegranate Kiwi Body Polish... it's amazing!) 

   Pooka Pure & Simple

   15. S. Essex Street, Orange, NJ

    Handcrafted soaps made by NJ's own, The Soap Coach!

    Goodies await in every corner.

    Products that moisturize and pamper!

    Luxurious body oils and whipped body creams.

   Simply beautiful!

    The Demo Station

    Yum Yum Candles  :-)

Christmas in July

'Tis the season for retailers and manufacturers to really start getting in gear for the holidays.  It's only July but it's time to get ready for the Christmas shopping season so holiday gift items are on the brain.

We have 2 great new candle scents we plan to offer.  They're a little different than your traditional holiday scents like pumpkin and gingerbread, but we like them a lot and think our customers will too.

Gift baskets will be available and we think may offer shea butter soap again this year too.  (They were a hit last year!)

Here's a sneak peak of a gift candle in the final stages of being designed.  We call them Bling Candles.  They'll be available in votive sets and 8 oz. sizes with a few colored ribbon options.  What do you think?  We like them!

Yum Yum Candle in Essence Magazine!

We're super excited about being featured in the August 2011 issue of Essence Magazine!!  Our "Love" Gift Candle is featured among products from other great companies we know and admire in the article Fab Finds $15 or Less.

I'm loving it! A LUSH Curly Wurly Shampoo Review

LUSH Curly Wurly Shampoo

Who doesn't love LUSH?  Their yummy concoctions for bath & body can make even the most uninterested shopper perk up with intrigue.

This past weekend I stopped by my local LUSH shop for a conditioner for my thick, naturally curly hair.  I ended up purchasing their Curly Wurly shampoo and boy am I glad I did!  It's just the thing for my dense and moisture-loving locks.

The first thing I noticed was it's texture.  It's thick, creamy, a little oily and contains bits and pieces of what appear to be coconut flesh.  It looks handmade and minimally processed.  As a crafter of handmade goodies for home & body products myself I have a great appreciation for handmade products.  I know that those made well, are simply fabulous!   I sometimes think people view handmade products as inferior... and well, a poorly skilled crafter likely makes inferior products but I know the reverse is also true.....a skilled crafter makes products that are SUPERIOR, surpassing the quality of those mass manufactured using machinery.  Needless to say, in the case of Curly Wurly, it's handmade appeal made it a winner for me in the appearance category.

Next, I observed its scent.  Two words: LOVE IT.  It smells like fresh coconut and vanilla with a trace of fruit oils to me.  Its scent was another winner for me.

Finally, I looked at its ingredients.  Woweee, what a list of nourishing ingredients!  Containing creamed coconut and coconut oil, papaya, cocoa butter, jojoba oil, shea butter, avocado butter and even fresh free range eggs among other ingredients, I became excited about the product so I decided to purchase it and try it out.

I honestly don't have much luck with shampoos.  Most of them strip my hair and leave it dry and tangled so I was a little nervous about how my hair would turn out.  My nerves increased while shampooing as I realized those tiny little pieces of coconut could get "lost" in my thick curly hair, making it impossible to fully rinse the product from my hair.  Much to my delight (and relief) the product wasn't too hard to rinse out.  I wasn't left with head full of coconut shreds... just maybe 2 or 3.  Not bad!!

Here's a close-up of the shampoo:

While rinsing my hair I immediately noticed how moisturized my hair felt.  My tiny corkscrew curls seemed to "pop" more too.  They seemed to clump together nicely, forming larger, more manageable ringlets and spirals.  (With hair as thick as mine, that's a desirable result.)

I didn't have to use a lot of product either.  Just two little scoops (one per each section of my hair which I washed in two sections) were enough to yield a nice, rich lather.   (The picture above was taken after use.)  I know I'll be able to get many uses out of the 7.7 oz jar which was approximately $22.  Another win!

Kudos to LUSH for creating such a wonderful product for those of us with very thick, curly hair.  I'm loving Curly Wurly and have added it to my short list of staple hair products.

Green Beauty Products Anyone?

Am I the only person who loves Shine from Yahoo?  I absolutely love browsing their content. The articles are always simple and informative reads... great for someone like me that stays on the go.

Today's great find on Shine: "The Latest in Earth-Friendly Beauty Products -- (That Don't Suck)".  As eco-friendly company, we wanted to share this article with you.  Read more about the featured green products here: http://yhoo.it/fQ2UMd.  We love that they're budget-friendly too. 
WIN WIN!

The top 2 featured products include:

#1: The Body Shop Shower Gels for Earth Lovers, $12




AND

#2: SheaMoisture Organic Red Bush & Sage Congestion Relief Bath, $9.99

Found: Good Exists!

Turn on the news, read the paper, or browse the web and you’re bound to find reports of crime, misfortune, or scandal.  It seems like every day, something bad is happening somewhere.  In fact lots of bad things to seem to be happening everyday somewhere.  It can be really scary at times and leave you wondering "Is there any good in the world?"

Good news travels... but unfortunately bad news travels faster.  Bad news travels like lightening... good news seems to travel as slow as a snail but it exists. It's worth seeking out from time to time as a reminder of its existence too.  It's like "food for the soul".  It can help encourage, motivate, inspire, rejuvenate... it can help restore faith in the belief that not everything in this world is bad or evil.

We searched online and found plenty of good news; some we want to share with you here.  Read one or two of the stories and consider sharing. The bad news is that good news will only travel if we share it.  The good news is... good exists!


WHDH-TV - Homeless man returns wallet, gets donations: http://t.co/zvFIvqi


CBS Detroit - Bystander Foot Chase Nabs Detroit Wallet Thief: http://t.co/GzpAsyD

Greektown (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Huffington Post - Stranger Saves Man's Life Through Internet Organ Donation: http://bit.ly/aoC93n

Associated Press

ABC - West Phila. concert raises money for fire victims:
http://bit.ly/ez76WV

Video courtesy of ABC