A Belated Pay Day Deal

Friday 31 May 2013

So much for blogging here once a week...Well, I am trying to remedy that. I've been experimenting with dried herbs recently and I might put together a few blog posts on things you can do with chamomile, lavender, and thyme, if I find time.

But for now! Here's your Pay Day Deal for the month. Yes, it's late. It should have been last weekend, but I was at the seaside with a spaniel and a dachshund, so it's this weekend instead. Between today and Monday 3rd June, Pin-Up is on offer at a 20% discount!

This is my ultimate girly fragrance, blending cherry, strawberry, rose, parma violet, vanilla and baby powder for a sweet, uplifting scent. It's proven to be one of my most popular perfumes so far, so now's your chance to grab it cheap and see what all the fuss is about.

Alchemy Report: Bank Holiday Edition

Monday 6 May 2013

I really need to try to blog here more often. Once a week shouldn't be too much effort, given how much nonsense I talk in the average day. Anyway! I have been busy in the kitchen today. I have a ton of new fragrance oils, essential oils, and absolutes waiting for my attention and a long, long list of blends I wanted to try out. Some are second or third attempts at older blends, some are custom requests, and some are brand new ideas.

I'm trying a slightly different blending method at the moment. Normally when I make a new perfume oil, I mix together the requisite number of EOs/FOs/absolutes in a 10ml bottle, add carrier oil, and leave it to age. If it comes out how I wanted, this is fine, but if it doesn't, I have to scrap the blend completely and start over. Today I decided to leave out the carrier oil and just mix the EOs/FOs/absolutes in smaller quantities than usual. This gives me plenty of scope to tweak the formulas if I'm not happy with them, and since some of the absolutes I'm using now are really expensive, this is a more logical way forward. More often than not, the way a blend smells when you first make it and the way it smells a week later is very different, so having to completely scrap a mixture and start again can be quite wasteful.

So what have I made today? Loads of stuff! A friend had requested some pregnancy-safe perfumes, so I have a couple of pure EO blends aging for her, one for relaxing and one for mood-lifting. I've been on a real foodie FO kick lately, which has resulted in blends including carrot cake and hot chocolate, toasted marshmallow and candy floss, and white tea and lemon pastry. And as summer approaches, I'm looking for those perfect tropical perfumes - pomegranate, passion fruit, pikaki, dragon's blood, cananga and coconut all got an airing today. And then there are the maverick mixes, like beeswax and cocoa absolute with honeycomb and a duo of musks. Are they all going to be good enough to get into Common Brimstone's catalogue? Dunno yet, but I have high hopes!

The other thing on my to-do list today was hand cream. I stopped buying commercial hand creams a while ago, but hadn't got round to trying out a homemade replacement. Then the warmer weather (finally) kicked in over here in the UK, the air conditioning at work sprung into life, and suddenly my hands are dry and I dislike this immensely. So! I found a recipe that I already had all the ingredients for and gave it a go.


First step - ingredients. This is a nice, simple blend of beeswax, mango butter, coconut oil, and essential oils. I used:

4 tablespoons of beeswax
2 tablespoons of mango butter
8 tablespoons of coconut oil
5 drops of lavender EO and 5 drops of lemon EO

This looked like a ridiculous amount of stuff in my little saucepan, but once it was all melted down, there was just the right amount to nicely fill an old travel sweets tin. Like so:


Then it's just a matter of waiting for the mixture to set. Because I have a total inability not to shake and poke things like this when they're meant to be setting, I made the hand cream before starting on my perfume-making, which distracted me long enough let the cream set. Like so:


Ta-da! Homemade lavender and lemon hand cream. Totally easy, totally free of unnatural content, and totally lovely on my hands! I'm taking this to work to combat the air-con. I can't get over how easy it is to make your own beauty products like this. Now I'm used to doing it, I can't imagine ever going back to commercial products. There really is no comparison, and it's so fun and satisfying to make your own. I have another travel sweets tin to use, too...Might have to make another tin of cream for at home!