Botanicals for Beauty July 2013 update

I now have 4 ounce ovals with a nice sprayer for my new body sprays.  I have also placed an order for a 10 ml pocket mist sprayer for the perfumes as well as a very nice 2 ounce jar both of which are on back order.  Here are images of the samples I received.

4 oz. body spray

The body sprays will be available in 10 different fragrances:  Eucalyptus spearmint, sweet pea, champaka, Japanese cherry blossom, cool water (type), coconut paradise, Dragon's blood, Amber Romance, mango papaya and Hawaiian Lei.

new 10 ml perfume blends

I have created 4 new perfume blends (sweet sensations, floral spice, exotic mist and feminine mystique) and of course my existing blends will also be available in this 10 ml fine mist pocket sprayer. 

2 oz facial cream

This 2 oz facial cream (please note the exact net weight may not end up at 2 oz that is an approximation) will be very special as it will contain a special ingredient known as ucuuba butter (used for many skin issues such as rashes, eczema, dry skin and acne).  Until the weather becomes a bit cooler and I don't have to worry about the temperature melting and possibly having other detrimental affects on this product I will wait to order it, so it will most likely not be available until late September.

My new website plus sachets, reed diffusers and hopefully a men's cologne (finding a bottle I consider appropriate is a challenge) will also be available before Christmas.  Opps and I almost forgot that I am also working on putting together some new larger size gift sets with matching fragrances of course.  So start visiting Botanicals for beauty in about 2 weeks and every now and then there after to see when the new items become available.

June 2013 Botanicalsforbeauty Update

I am now working on my second week of physical therapy due to the surgery that was performed on my thumb (because of the damage done by arthritis).  It is a gradual process of stretching the tendon so I can once again use my thumb.  However, I still have arthritis in the other 4 fingers plus in the other hand and that will have to be addressed at some point in time as well.  For now as long as I can keep the use of my hands to a bare minimum and wear copper bracelets that my friend Judy A. made for me I can at least take care of myself while my boyfriend is at work.

My time is being spent learning to use Dragon on various sites and to accomplish various goals, plus doing a little planning and research.  I am working hard to find a blend of essential oils that will counteract my fatigue, the only treatment that I have ever found to be fully effective in making me feel fully vital and energetic was a homeopathic doctor that I can no longer find and unfortunately I had to quit treatment early because I lost my job and could no longer afford to pay.  There are some others but whether or not they use the same equipment and techniques and have the same "remedies" I wouldn't know.  I am determined to get better, but like many others who are suffering, money can be the obstacle that stands in the way of trying something that may or may not work.

I already have my eyes on the lookout for items and gift set packaging to purchase for the Christmas season. I am debating on whether or not to offer a men's cologne and a women's spray perfume using grape alcohol as a base.  Grape alcohol is not easy to find so that could present a challenge with stocking the items.  I am also considering adding African black soap as an item that can be custom made to order.  There are one or two other surprises that I am considering that I think I will hold back on for a little while.  Just wanted to let everyone know that I have not disappeared.

I will return to my Tuesday funnies starting this Tuesday.  

Laura
www.botanicalsforbeauty.com

New sampler packaging has finally arrived

My smallest sampler offerings will be these two white scroll pillow boxes.  The smaller one will only hold a few small items.  There will be one offer with one butter sample and your choice of either 2 perfumes or 2 lip gloss samples.  Of course you could also choose one of each if you would prefer.  Since the sample sizes are so small there will be a choice of several without any price difference (a few essential will be excluded).  I will also have a second option available for those who would prefer a scrub rather than a butter.  A third option for a bath oil rather than a scrub of butter will also be offered.  I will make the choice of which of the scrubs, butters or oils will be included unless you the customer contacts me and lets me know which option you prefer (all options will be listed).

The larger of the two boxes will hold one scrub, one butter, two bath oils, 2 perfumes and 2 lip glosses. 

Here the boxes look like they are filled with candy

The price will be $7 for the small one and $15 for the large one.  The difference between the cost of smaller jars and bottles really isn't much and the same is true for the labels and the labor as well.  The most expensive container of the small ones is the perfume vials and of course there is very little difference in the price between the large and the small boxes.

I also purchased the above treasure boxes for those who wold like to throw a bath and beauty or aromatherapy party.  This box will hold many more goodies and I haven't decided which options I am going to offer yet.  You can bet I will come up with some really fabulous ideas and that some of them will come from you my friends.

I also decided I wanted to offer a few nice fabric bags.  So I choose the one above in both the pink and the red colors.  I will have to see which products will fit into these bags and I think I will offer them as an optional gift bag available with certain purchases.

HAPPY FRIDAY everyone.

Botanical for Beauty Perfumes

Today I am writing about my "all natural perfumes".  At this time I have perfumes in both roll on and solid styles.  The roll on perfumes are simply essential oils in a base of golden jojoba oil.  The solid perfumes are in a base of olive oil, illipe butter (which is a very hard butter) and a bit of candelilla wax (an all vegetable wax).  This wax is perfect in one way because it has a very high "melting point" it won't melt in the summer heat, however that also means that I have to work with it very quickly as it can solidifies more quickly than the butters that I work with.  I also use this wax for my lip balms.


You will find that most essential oil perfumes are in a base of alcohol regardless of whether they are a roll on or a spray.  For those who prefer to have a light feel on their skin than either of my current roll on or solid perfumes I will be creating a light weight spray perfume in the future.  However, I have discussed this subject with my mentor and she said the best base to use would be either a hydrosol or grape alcohol.  Grape alcohol is difficult to find and as a result when you do find it, it is very expensive.  I found a gallon on the web and it costs $495.00, plus the USPS will not ship alcohol and it can only be shipped via ground.  Hydrosols are the by product (water left over) from the steam distillation process that is done to extract essential oils.

You may read that a hydrosol is the same as a hydrolat, flower waters, floral waters or distillates.  However, this can be confused with floral waters that are actually water with essential oils added and that is definitely not the same.

My perfumes are currently both single notes and a few blends plus some fragrance oils to give a bit of variety to customers who might want it.  I will also be introducing more blends over time.  I am aware that the current trend has been to have 10 or more scents all blended into one, however this is not how perfumery works.  Perfumery has 3 notes.  A top note, a middle note and a bottom note.  The bottom note is the "anchor" so to speak.  You can always add a "tad" of something truly special to your blend in addition to these 3 notes.  But the majority of the blend will be 3 scents, why you may ask?  Well the truth is too many different scents only confuses your nose and professional perfume formulaters call those "muddy" scents.

I currently have 3 blended perfumes.  One was at the request of a group of my friends who wanted a spicy scent and they even suggested which spices to me, so here it is "Exotic Spice".

This one seems to attract a great deal of interest "Romantic Whispers"

I love to hear your thoughts, but be nice.  What's your favorite scents.  Do you love exotic flowers, exotic fruits, do you have a favorite fragrance oil?  I would love to look at feed back and comments.

Comparing Botancialforbeauty

The purpose of this blog post is to point out the difference between some other beauty web sites and botanicalsforbeauty.  I will not be mentioning the names of any particular company in this post.  You can always do the same research I am doing here and come up with your own conclusions and of course everyone will have their own preferences.  Plus that is what real capitalism is all about (having lots of choices).

I have found some that claim to have ingredients like fresh bananas and fresh avocado and without any preservatives being listed.  How is that possible?  To the best of my knowledge all kinds of little microbes just love vegetable matter.  If you have the answer please feel free to post it in a comment.  I would love to know more about that subject.

You might also see ingredients like limonene (a substance commonly found in the rinds of lemons) and linalool (a naturally occurring substance found in many flower and spice plants)   Just Google them, as they may not be as scary as you think.  It may not be clear whether the ingredient is the synthetic or an extraction, but it is more likely to be the synthetic as synthetics are more widely and cheaply available.  Some of the companies I researched don't sell whipped butters.


Sometimes you will find the first listed ingredient (meaning the predominant ingredient or the ingredient their is the most of) to be water.  The ingredients listed toward the end are usually the preservatives and if the product contains water it is an absolute must that a preservative be added.  This also applies to any product that is to be used in the shower or has the potential for water to end up in the product (such as scrubs).

Some of these big name and very popular and expensive beauty companies sell their products at a cost of $20 per ounce and upwards.  Because some of their products work so well for so many of their customers they happily pay those kind of prices.  I found one product, that was a pure oil selling for $27.00 an ounce.  Plus yes some of them use paraben preservatives which is controversial according to some people, but then others say that the percentage by weight is only 1% (too low to be of any harm).

I didn't find a whipped shea or body butter on either one of the two most popular beauty web sites I know of.  So next I Googled whipped shea.  The prices ranges I found were rather wide but then of course the jar sizes were not all the same and neither were the ingredients listed (2 of them didn't have an ingredients list at all).  All of the information I was able to glean in my 1.5 hour research time is below.


whipped shea/vanilla mandarin 8 oz - 39.15 ($4.89/oz)
believe it or not couldn't find an ingredients list

Whipped shea/rainforest spice 2 oz. $6.49 ($3.24/oz)
unrefined shea was the first on the list but they also added rice bran, cocoa butter, sunflower seed oil, fractionated coconut oil, sweet almond oil, vegetable glycerin, ceteraryl alcohol and a vegetable based emulsifier, wheat germ oil, corn starch, vitamin E and lastly essential oils.


Lavender Essential oil whipped shea 3.2  oz. $12.99 now  $9.99 (regular $4.06/oz) sale $3.12/oz
no ingredients list, claim is that it is 100% lavender essential oil whipped shea butter but from the research I have done 20% oil really needs to be added in order to be able to really whip the butter.

Unscented whipped shea - 4 oz $17.99 ($4.50/oz)
also available as pomegranate, sweet vanilla and lavender.  1st ingred. unrefined shea, rice bran oil, fractionated coconut oil, vegetable glycerin, ceteraryl alcohol, a sugar based emulsifier, cocoa seed butter, sweet almond oil, corn starch, Vitamin E panthenol (a form of vitamin B5 used as a moisturizer which can be of plant or animal origin).

Whipped shea/lemongrass 1.2 oz. $8.00 (6.67/oz)
organic raw and unrefined shea, organic coconut oil, cornstarch, lemongrass essential oil


Botanicalsforbeauty's current price is $5.25 for 1.5 oz.  (will be going up to $6.75 this summer)
My ingredients:  Fair trade (Burkina Faso) shea butter, apricot kernel oil, Vitamin E
That's a current price of $3.50/oz that will be going up to $4.50/oz this summer 
PLEASE REMEMBER my shea has no fillers, no thickners, no water, no emulsifiers and I will soon be listing a few choices of fragrance oils and a few essential oils as well.

More sample options and how about a party?

I have now finished my research on doing sample bags for bath and beauty parties.  You can also do an Aromatherapy party if you would like.

This shows some of my products but the packaging and labels have changed on many of them

I haven't taken the time yet to price these party and sampler bags out yet, but then I need to know what people would like in them.  It's very difficult to charge the same for everything as the costs of essential oils varies wildly.  Some flowers like Jasmine, rose and geranium bourbon are very expensive and then others like neroli and ylang ylang are in the middle price range.  

I could very well charge the same price for all butters, all scrubs,  but when it comes to items like perfumes and bath oils that would be more difficult.  

Scrubs, butters or balms would go into the small one

Plus how many samples should go into a party bag?  Every time any one makes a purchase $0.30 or more plus a percentage goes to the payment processor so I want these sample bags to work for both my business and any potential customers.  Any and all IDEAS would be fabulous.  Of course it is difficult could get even a group of 20 people to agree on anything.  I Found that out when I was planning my wedding and asked the guests I invited what their favorite alcohol drink was.  Of course they were very nice and said I will settle for beer and wine.  They all knew neither myself nor my fiance were rich.

The liquids like bath oils would be in these bottles

I would also like to give people options as to how much and how much variety they would like to have.  Maybe a minimum price with a discount for more samples would be a good idea.

 

Perfumes and aromatherapy oils would go into those

I am not so sure which I should use if anyone wishes to sample items like the lip glosses, supple nails,. my cuticle moisturizer or my facial oils.  I am wondering if people are willing to use a q-tip to try these items in the vials.  Because none of my products is watered down, you really don't need much for a sample size.

lASTLY, what should I do when I ship this?  No bag, nice bag, give you a choice, just a plain box?  Thanks for reading and giving me some good ideas.

Making all natural skin care products

Actually making great beauty products using all natural ingredients is fairly easy.  The hardest part is finding the right containers and creating the labels, there is some research you will have to do as well.  You may find some people jeering at you as those who have studied chemistry are taught that synthesized products are chemically the same as nature's.  I argued that with my first chemistry teacher and I will tell you why.  Through out history when ever man has made a discovery he had a tendency to believe he discovered everything there was to discover and now knew it all.

Any doctor that is honest with you, will tell you that he can not guarantee the outcome of any treatment because there is "what usually happens" and then there are the people who always seem to end up being the exceptions.  When the human genome project was finished we found out that genes are more complex than we thought and they seem to work together and diseases can be a result of more than one gene.

Okay now I digressed from my topic.  The whole point is that I didn't believe everything I was taught was the absolute and complete truth for two reasons.  One is that nature is so complex and the other thing is who knows if we can detect everything in an atom or not.  It turns out that physicist have found out that what was believed to be empty space really was not.  It was just that we couldn't detect what is between the electrons, neutrons and protons.  They call those things really funny names like quarks and leptons and then there is the matter of anti matter.  Yep that's a pun. Oh and than dark matter is also being studied.

Okay so now you have an idea of why I have my point of view.  So now onto how simple it is to moisturize you skin, visibly reduce wrinkles and possibly create a mood with a perfume.

First you need to decide which oils or butters you would like to use.  If you want to make lip balms in stick form you will need a bit of wax as well.  You can find recipes and suggestions everywhere all over the internet.  The amazing part of all of this is the controversy.  I will admit some people do go too far when making promises.  But remember what I said about absolutes and the intricate differences between one human being and another (even when related).

Basically for butters you will most likely need to heat them up gently, then carefully measure any oils you want to combine with the butter, oils are best weighed rather than measured (some oils need to soak for a bit in a warm water bath).  Also some oils are delicate and shouldn't be added to melted butter that is piping hot.  Most sites that sell these types of items will tell you the minimum and maximum percentage that should be used.  If you are using essential oils, please be very careful.  Some are extremely sensitive to heat and the percentage should never be more than 3% for a healthy person (excluding children and the elderly).

If you want to add essential oils into your personally crafted product, then here is what you need to know.  First off essential oils are generally sold in mls, 30 mls is equal to one ounce and 20 drops is equal to 1 ml.  This gives you a basis for calculating how much you should add.

So how I calculate that is if I am making 4 oz of butter and oil mixture, then I can look at it two ways.  I can multiply 4 oz times 30 mls per ounce and multiply that times 0.03 (3 percent) and that will give me the number of mls.  Or I can take the 4 oz and multiply that by 0.03 and then multiply the result by 30.  Either way it should come out the same.  If you end up with an odd amount, then that is where you would use the information that there is 20 drops in one ml.  So a 1/2 ml would be 10 drops.  Oh and those drops are assuming that you are using a reducer that usually comes with essential oils (unless you purchase a really huge quantity).  If you don't get a reduce then purchase some 15 ml bottles with reducers, not sure who all sells them but I know that Wyndmere does.

When you read some books on aromatherapy you can get easily confused because different books say different oils do different things.  The truth is that some essential oils are multi taskers and very complex molecules.  Some of the molecules and their behaviors have now been identified.  Some of so complex that they can not be generalized into a specific functional group's behavior.

The toughest is the mood and mental/emotional oils.  What relaxes one person can actually have an opposite affect on someone else.  I tried a euphoric bath oil blend and it almost put me to sleep.  My daughter drinks coffee and gets really tired because she has ADD or is it ADHD, which ever.  So that gives you a taste of what you can do and how complex it all can be.  Just want to share one other little fact.  My boyfriend has an aunt who swears that the only thing that has ever helped her chapped lips was Vaseline (which is a petroleum product).

Pumpkin butter and some new items

A friend asked me if I had anything that was good for dandruff, well technically I can't say that anything is good for dandruff because believe it or not the FDA considers dandruff to be a medical issue.  So I replied that I would do some research and get back to her with something that was effective for dry and itchy skin and good for the hair as well.

It turned out that both pumpkin butter and camellia seed oil are great ingredients for hair care products, and a bonus too is that camellia seed oil is also great for hardening the nails, can be used as a makeup remover plus it is reputed to refine mature skin, nourish the complexion and is easily absorbed as well so there will not be a greasy feel.  It revitalizes and rejuvenates both the hair and the skin,  Pumpkin butter is great as an all day lasting moisturizer which also softens the skin for an incredible feel.  It is also soft and very spreadable so a very little goes a long way.  I have also read claims about how great it is when making pomades or hair conditioners.

My Facebook group has inspired me in more than one way to do research for new and interesting products.  Beyond the hair care I am looking into lip glosses with flavors, pot pourri, possibly sachets and/or bath teas.  Plus they asked if I had any roll on perfumes that had a spicy rather than floral scent.  So we came up with the name of Exotic Spice for a roll on perfume that contains the essential oils of cinnamon, ginger and cardamom.

There are so many flavors out there that it would cost me a fortune to purchase one ounce of each and every one of them, so I will be doing a poll soon and I hope I see enough votes that I can whittle the list down a bit.  I only visited two sites that had flavors for lip gloss and I picked out 60 flavors that I thought might be interesting, so that means there were many more than 60 choices.

botanicalsforbeauty - all natural and all vegan bath and beauty products at reasonable prices - high quality and satisfaction guaranteed.

Here are some examples of flavors that I thought people might like:

black cherry
butter scotch
blueberry
bubble gum
coconut 
island delight
margarita
vanilla orchid
chai tea
peppermint
root beer
dill pickle
nutmeg and caramel
cappuccino
mango peach
lemon drop
champagne
pizza (they do just about everything)