Bathing In Luxury (tm) - Lather Me Up, Baby (tm)

Bath & Beauty Fest - August 31

2007-08-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Pie Lip Lube - woo hoo!

2006-10-30T22:06:00.000-08:00

m m m!

Pumpkin Pie Lip-Lube-In-A-TubeTM

Damn near edible but I prefer scented lip lube without the sugary-ness so it's unsweetened (can be sweetened upon request). Perfect size for your purse, pocket or desk.

My luscious blend of beeswax (vegan option available), vegetable oils & vitamin E (organic, not synthetic) and flavor. A touch of palm oil for a natural orange color. Ordinarily formulated as a gloss/balm hybrid to give a bit of shine, but I can also do NO shine for the dudes (although they seem to take their sig others' lube all the time anyway) or for women who just prefer a non-shiny harder balm, in a handy twist-up tube. If you prefer a more liquid consistency, check out my glosses with lip brush [yeah, Stila, bite me]

Neato finds and lists

2006-09-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

OK, this is a great feature is now live on etsy. The man behind the work is a genius (and yes, like everyone else I have a crush on him and will my name my first-born "Jared" even if it's a girl). Alas, like fruitflies, they have a limited (and short - 48 hour) lifetime, after which they will *poof*:

click here for my latest picks.

Holiday 4-somes

2006-09-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

Sexy 4-ways

Enough said, check them out.

Do you have a fear of committing to anything?

2006-07-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

I am one of those hopeless people who loves sampling products. Or maybe it's just a fear of commitment.

Surely there are others like me? Want to try some soaps or other bath & beauty products without committing to one thing?

Try this sampler.

Tubes to Glide Over & Lube Your Lips :: Tubes May Make The Girls Jump You, In A Good Way

2006-07-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

I like lip glosses but I sometimes find them - well - too glossy. I like the nourishment of a lip balm, but well, I often find them, er, a bit too waxy. Well, what is a girl to do? Of course, make her own gloss-balm hybrid, conveniently packaged into a twist-up tube so you can carry your lip lube in your bag or in your desk.

My own blend of beeswax (vegan option available upon request), vegetable oils & vitamin E (organic, not synthetic) and flavor. It's firm in texture without being waxy and just . . . glides.

Lest you think this is just for girls, dudes like them as well. One of my recent buyers told me her hubby took her Mojito lip lube - I suppose that's a good sign. Except she doesn't have her mojito any more . . .

The other 2 tubes in this 4-some are 2 tubes of solid perfumes. Yeah, take those wherever you go or just stick one in your desk or gym locker (that might be a good thing).

Click here or on the pic to get more info - I'm raising prices on everything August 1, so get them now at this phenom price. I mean, you can't even see a matinee movie for $6 - far better to smell good and have soft, luscious lips, don't you think? RO for list of scents and flavors.

:: IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS - a wonderful blend of coconut & pineapple

:: Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries - for some reason this reminds me off Tess Of The D'Urbevilles and Godiva

:: Chocolate Banana - childhood nostalgia if you're like me and had these at fairs

:: Banana & Coconut - inspired by one of my fav Vietnamese desserts - deep-fried banana and coconut ice cream

:: mmm Mango - (sweetened) yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmy! imo, the next best thing to the nectar mangos I've had in the Caribbean. Ya, mon!

:: COFFEE - for those who wish coffee tasted just like it smells ~ for those of us who would like to break a caffeine habit . . .

:: CHAI TEA SPICE BLEND - smells just like the chai tea I like - can we say cassia, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg? yum.

:: Rose - weird, I know, but did anyone else notice a lot of high-end cosmetics smell of rose? Hoity-toity without the accompanying price tag or snooty wanna-be models behind the counter

:: Chardonnay Grapes - I think it smells like sweet grapes + something not quite defineable

:: Pineapple

:: Lime &amp; Pineapple

:: Lime & Coconut

:: Lime

:: Clove

:: Orange & Clove

:: Cinnamon

:: Cinnamon & Clove

:: MOCHA

:: Coconut & Chocolate - some times you feel like a nut, some times you don't . . . (*music playing*)

Solid scents - lots more but here are my favs:
Bay Rum
A sexy masculine scent. No need to be more articulate than that. The men who use it love it, others love the scent on their men. I don't know if this is pheromone in a tube (not that kind of tube) but it sure smells like it.

Luscious Lavender
I am not a big fan of straight lavender, but I've done a little mixing with some other essential oils and I love the resulting scent in this soap - I've converted a number of "non-lavender" types with this scent. A blend of essential oils, yielding lavender with a hint of sweet woodsiness & a breath of citrus.

Stroke Me
OK, so I'm being slightly tongue-in-cheek. But this scent made me think warm, velvety and strokable. Warm scents of musk, amber, sandalwood and a touch of vanilla, contains fragrance. I don't particularly like any of those scents alone but this blend ROCKS. Unisex.

Rave review from the chicks at WickedlyChic!

2006-07-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

OK, so this is a bit late - but my gift box of 7 items got a great review from the wickedly chic chicks!!! I love it when other people like and, better yet, write about my goodies. NO wonder monkey is smiling :)

It's A Beached Whale. It's a Soap. It's a Bath Fizzy.

2006-07-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

I sometimes get these grand ideas making soaps. Well, this was one of my more *brilliant* ones. I thought "how cool would it be to have a fizzy with a soap that floats off" - and coincidentally, I ran across a plastic toy whale I had. BIG MISTAKE.

After a few attempts, I ended up with an OOPs. The "water" didn't wrap around the beach. So, it's on sale and I've abandoned future projects. So much for venturing into Cutedom.

One beached whale, coming out of the turquoise soap ocean onto a blue jojoba bead speckled beach which actually is a fizzie. My idea was to make these to drop into the bath for scent, the fizzy - well, fizzies - soap releases and the toy for the little one to play with while mom/dad/other adult uses the released soap. See pic 2 for the "oops" part - the sea kind of missed part of the beach. Too much PITA to make, so this is the one. Scented lavender (essential oil). There is tad of added cocoa butter so please exercise caution as it may make the tub a tad slippery. Toy not recommended for kids under age 3.

Chai Tea Lip Gloss With Wand Applicator

2006-05-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

Now that summer temps are approaching rapidly, I'm switching over to self-contained lip-glosses. I'm having a go with these new wand applicators and I love my unsweetened Chai Tea Spice Blend lip gloss. This is the closest thing I tested which resembled my chai tea.

YUM :: YUM :: YUM

You can get it here. If you're a Stila slut but don't want to pay their lip glaze prices, I also offer it with that fancy clickety-click lip brush applicator, without the 'tude of those wanna-be models behind the counter.

On SALE through May 1 - Oatmeal Milk & Honey

2006-04-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

This is the scent which made me realize I outgrew at least some of my allergies. The scent is a wonderfully honeyed oatmeal. It reminds me of cookies -- without the calories. I added extra oil to this soap to leave the skin soft after a shower and added a little ground oats for texture as well as physical exfoliation.

These are 3 handcut and beveled soaps made from food grade vegetable oils & a little beeswax for added hardness & conditioning using the cold-process (CP) method. The CP method is a variant of the lye+lard method my grandma used when my Dad's family probably were at their poorest. Fast forward to modern times, precision chemistry and I make small batches of gentle soap in a precise way. Not the stuff grandma used to make.

Anyway, it's on sale for May 1 only. Click on the picture to see more details.

How to get 10% off

2006-04-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

For purchase made and paid from now through the end of August, Pacific time - take 10% off your non-sale purchase (product price, excludes s/h/i) at www.bathinginluxury.com by taking the following steps:

(1) go to www.etsy.com to register (only email & password required to reg)

(2) type soap for Referrer Username

(3) login to your etsy account and click on www.bathinginluxury.com and click on "add seller to favorites" on the right side

(4) make your puchase and in the comments, please include "I saved you as a fav"

(5) I'll then send you a paypal invoice adjusted by 10%

I'm a scent junkie!

2006-04-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

I started out making soaps and other bath and body products because I have what has been called "sensitive skin." This has been the story for nearly all of my life and as far back as I can remember, including not being able to wear my dark green socks for my Girl Scout uniform *gasp*. Sacrilege. I got special dispensation for not wearing the socks, which frankly, were the least hideous part of the GS uniform. I still am convinced they were designed primarily as a repellant, lest the virtuous girls get any unwanted attention from boys.

Ahem. Back to the topic.

My first soaps and products were ALL unscented - pure olive oil products. I tested the scent waters a few years ago, decided essential oils might be the way to go. That went OK, so I got a hold of a few handmade soap bars using fragrances which sounded sooooo appealing. Went into the shower, expecting to have hives/rash afterwards, but it was all OK. So, now, I have been on a rampage with my soaps, having a great time blending my own creations. I am my own primary guinea pig although friends and family help me with testing. I am not a big floral scent fan, so my Mom is my primary tester for flowery scents and for color - my Mom is charming but she can be blunt too and often *encourages* me towards her and her cronies' [ahem, I mean friends' ;) ] favorite scents.

Here's a pic of one some of my delic lip stuff - mmm Mango:

NO stinky Moms allowed!

2006-04-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

6 months of non-stinky mom!

(if the pics below don't load, refresh the page)

Stumped for a gift for Mom? How about a 6-month subscription for a handmade soap and lip balm club? Every month, for 6 months, the recipient will get a full-sized handmade bar of soap (or 2 smaller ones) and a lip balm. Click here for more details on the subscription and how to purchase.

:: Why use handmade soaps?

Glycerin is produced during "saponification" – the process in which fatty acids are converted into soap. Glycerin is a humectant – it attracts moisture – and is removed during most commercial soap-making processes, reserved for use in more expensive products such as lotions or cosmetics. Well, I don't believe in that, so all of the glyecerin is kept in the bars of soap I produce which are made from food-grade oils. This results in a gentle soap which retains many additional constituents which are nourishing. Unfortunately, we in the US have been conditioned to regard high-lather capability with "good" soap but lathering often results in a harsh soap and lab-created chemicals such as lauryl sulfate (detergents) are added to many commercially-produced products (which the FDA does not allow to be labelled as soap) to provide such "super-lather." My soap formulations attempt to strike a balance between creating a nice, satisfying discernable lather and providing a gentle skin-pampering soap. Cruelty-free, no animal testing (except by me and those I know) & biodegradable.