Better is the Enemy of Good Enough - Shave Soap Drama

Ok, so I've been bad about keeping up with my blog. I went back to school and got my degree in Aerospace Engineering. Legitimate enough?

Now that we have that aside, I have been experimenting. I have no one to share with, and I don't think anybody reads my blog anyways, so I'm going to diary it up.

Shave Soap: I've been working on this recipe for a few years now. I really liked my last batch. It had great lather, glide, performance, moisturizing after feel, and was not irritating on my husband's sensitive skin. The one thing that I didn't like was that it had a lot of ingredients that were synthetic. This isn't really a problem for me, because the ingredients themselves were extremely gentle and quite a few were ECOCERT (the certification body that developed standards for "natural" and "organic" cosmetics) and derived from natural ingredients. Now before my 1 or 2 readers gets upset with me, understand that large cosmetics companies have spent a lot of money to gain a certain level of performance from their ingredients. I also believe in performance. A product that you spend your hard earned money on should perform the way it was intended. How a company gets to that point is through a trade study. Am I willing to sacrifice performance for all natural ingredients? It depends. All natural ingredients won't make soap. I need lye, which is made synthetically in a lab; however, the oils I use are all natural. BAM - Compromise. The problem is that the public at large has a general distrust of difficult to pronounce words. Hey, even the human body is comprised of elements which all have a chemical formula. I understand the concern though. Hey, I didn't know what tocopherols were either at one point. I get it. So I went back to the drawing board, because I just knew that I could make it better.

Better is the Enemy of Good Enough: That's what my former team lead told me once when I said I could make something I was working on better. Pfft. So that's what's delayed my progress from listing the shave soap in my shop. I thought I had the recipe down, and I went ahead and listed the shave soap. Then I remembered... I know how to make cream soap. Doh!!!! I looked at the shave soap I bought from St. James of London. The combination of ingredients amounted to - wait for it - cream soap. Doh!!!! I deactivated my listings. If you've never had your man try St. James of London shaving soap, then you are missing out. OMG. It's great stuff. I didn't want to just copy their ingredients, so I made my cream soap with a few different ingredients. My husband loved it. He said it lathered better than the St. James of London and it didn't cause any irritation. Woo Hoo!!

Not bad, right? The picture above shows my original listing for shave soap.

This one is my Cream Shave Soap. It turned out much whiter and had a pearlesque sheen to it. And the lather, oh, the LATHER. Hubby was impressed with my genius. I guess that's what really counts. I'm working on the labels and will have it uploaded onto my Etsy site soon.

Final Thoughts: So I don't want this blog to just be me selling stuff. I want to share new products that I make, but I also would like to share bath and beauty recipes, product reviews, give aways, explain ingredients, and share some of my experiments. More to come, because THIS time I'll be good and actually blog :)

Beautiful New Handmade Soaps

Euphoric is a duplication of Aveda's Euphoria. It is an essential oil blend of the following fragrant notes: jasmine, rose, and sandalwood. It's a very sexy, floral, and feminine scent that you just can't help breathing in once you get it in your hands

http://stores.gourmetsoapsandsundries.com/-strse-6/natural-handmade-soap-vegan/Detail.bok


Plumeria in summer shades of yellow and red swirls.

http://stores.gourmetsoapsandsundries.com/-strse-2/soap-natural-handmade-plumeria/Detail.bok

These are links to my new shop. All new customers to the website will enjoy a 20% off of your first order!

20% Off Storewide Sale

I need to move the soaps out to make room for new soaps! All items are 20% off for which you will be refunded via paypal.

On another happy note, my husband is installing new larger shelves in my soap room, so I will be able to make even more soap. I am thinking about having my first BOGO sale at that time as well to commemorate the occassion (actually it's just an excuse to make more soap).

So if you are a soap addict like me, or if you have never tried handmade soap and are just curious, stop by my Etsy shop to have a looksy. I must admit that my family has been hogging all of the new body butters that I have been making, but I promise to hide a few and list them all in the shop ;0)

www.gourmetsoaps.etsy.com

I will never shop at Walmart again.

I bought a $30 PC game from them 2 days ago for my son's birthday. We don't have a lot of money, and that was all we could afford to give him, besides a small birthday party. The game didn't work. The only thing that it would show was a pink screen. I removed the program & tried to reload 2 more times only to get the same result. The only reason I bought this game was because they didn't have Age of Empires III, so I thought I would get my money back & then order the game Johnny wanted from Walmart's online store. They refused to give me a refund because of..get this...copyright laws. They said that they would be breaking the law if they gave me a refund, and if I didn't like it then I needed to write my governor. Wha? I waited for 1.5 hours for that? I had 3 Walmart employees surrounding me & telling me that I was trying to get them to break the law by giving me a refund. Long story short, I don't like being bullied & I did get my money back. And after I get Johnny's game, I'm never shopping at walmart ever again.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-606.html

U.C.C. - ARTICLE 2 - SALES
..PART 6. BREACH, REPUDIATION AND EXCUSE

§ 2-606. What Constitutes Acceptance of Goods.
(1) Acceptance of goods occurs when the buyer

•(a) after a reasonable opportunity to inspect the goods signifies to the seller that the goods are conforming or that he will take or retain them in spite of their non-conformity; or
•(b) fails to make an effective rejection (subsection (1) of Section 2-602), but such acceptance does not occur until the buyer has had a reasonable opportunity to inspect them; or
•(c) does any act inconsistent with the seller's ownership; but if such act is wrongful as against the seller it is an acceptance only if ratified by him.
(2) Acceptance of a part of any commercial unit is acceptance of that entire unit.

What this means in laymans (from http://www.badsoftware.com/):
1. You have the right to inspect the product before you accept it.This is UCC Section 2-606(1)(a).

2. To inspect a program, you have to be able to put it on a computer and run it. You need enough inspection time to can see how the program works, and to have a reasonable opportunity to notice obvious bugs.

3. If it is impractical for you to inspect a product before you take it home or to the office, then you have the right to inspect the product there. This is UCC Section 2-606(1)(b).

4. You have the right to a product that works the way that the seller (publisher or retailer) said that it would. The publisher’s and seller’s statements are found in advertisements, on the box, in the user manual and on-line help, on the publisher’s web site, and in your oral discussion with the publisher’s or store’s staff.

5. If the product doesn’t conform to the contract, you can refuse to accept it (your refusal is a rejection). This is UCC section 2-601. The product fails to conform to the contract if it doesn’t meet the publisher's and seller’s promises, or if it has other defects. Any defect, no matter how minor, is good reason for you to reject the product.

6. You don’t have much time to inspect the product. If you haven’t rejected the product within a reasonable time after taking it home, the law says that you’ve accepted it. This is in 2-606(1)(b) and 2-602(1). You probably have a few days and you might be able to justify needing a few weeks or, for a very complex program, a few months.

*If you do return a software product for a refund, make sure to erase it from your computer, and don’t keep any copies of it. It would be completely unfair—and a violation of the Copyright Act—to buy a program, make a copy, take the original back for a refund, and then keep and use the copy.

The Copyright Act is what Walmart is trying to use to scare people into thinking they are at their mercy. I agree that it is against the law to pirate intellectual property; however, I cannot be penalized for an act that I have not commited. I do not forfeit my rights as a consumer in the United States of America to Walmart or any other entity, because I tore a plastic wrapper off of a game. And if I wrote my Governor, perhaps I would be told that I was protected by Alabama State Law as well:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uniform/ucc.html

So there.

Summer Lovin' Sale

♥♥♥SUMMER LOVIN' SALE JULY 2 - JULY 12♥♥♥
Heart my shop and receive 20% off everything storewide, including reduced priced items. Just add a heart to the notes to sellers (press alt & 3 simultaneously). I'll be adding my Body Butters as I get their images uploaded.

♥*¨)
¸.·´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*´¨)
(¸.·´ (¸*´¨(♥ Thank You!
(¸.·´ (¸.·´♥

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GourmetSoaps

My Neapolitan Treasury

I've always loved making treasuries on Etsy, and I've saved pictures of all of them. This Neapolitan Treasury is my favorite so far. It looks so yummy. I love all of the colors. The contrasting colors make the soft browns, pinks, and whites really pop out. I hope everyone likes my treasury, but what would really be helpful would be if folks went to the treasury & commented.


http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=99505

Pretty please?

Mango Mandarin & Pina Colada Mandarin Sugar Scrubs

I have 2 new sugar scrubs that are to DIE FOR! With summer almost here, I thought that I would go a little tropical. Of course, my first scrub is the Mango Mandarin. I love mandarin oranges, but I am CRAZY about mangoes! If I could, I would buy a mango tree & eat mangoes every day. Unfortunately, I'm allergic. How allergic? Let's just say I couldn't see, and my face look like I went a few rounds with 'ol Mike. Well, if I can't eat them (or touch them, jeez) then I reserve the right to smell like them by whatever means necessary. I made this a two tone scrub, red and yellow. This scrub smells so good, and my mother approves so you know it has to be awesome!

Now here's another awesome scrub. Pina Colada meets mandarin oranges. Yummy!! If I could blend it right now & sip in by a pool....well...I would. The thing that makes these sugar scrubs so wonderful, besides the great tropical scents, is what's inside these little jars. I have added olive oil, shea butter, grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, and vitamin E to make your skin feel smooth and soft. I used candelilla wax instead of beeswax, so that this scrub is entirely vegan. And the number 1 thing that makes this scrub stand out above the rest is that the whole thing, oils and sugar, is emulsified WITHOUT water! Big deal? Not if you've ordered sugar scrub w/ water in it. It dissolves the sugar, and it turns the whole thing into a slimy mess. When a scrub is emulsified, the wonderful skin loving oils do not separate from the sugar. You are able to exfoliate without trouble. And when you are ready to rinse the scrub away, the water turns it into a cream that locks moisture in. You should totally try it! Did I mention that my mother loves it? Well, she's allergic to mangoes too :)