Introducing Mal and Coby

I've been lucky enough to be friends and writing buddies with Anne Lyle for a few years now, and indeed was a beta-reader for a very early draft of her historical fantasy The Alchemist of Souls ("historical fantasy gets dirty.") If you haven't read Anne's books yet, but you yearn for tales of political intrigue, swashbuckling swordsmen, and a very unique take on the Elizabethan era, I recommend you start now.

In the mean time, you could try a couple of perfumes inspired by two of the characters from the series. Earlier this year, Anne and I decided we'd have some fun creating fragrances for Mal Catelyn and Coby Hendricks, and after much hard work and sniffing, I'm delighted to unveil the finished products to you.

Maliverny


Imagine a dusty bar in a London touched with strange magicks and filled with wonderous, dangerous travellers from the New World. Imagine you're a swordsman tossed into peril and political intrigue against your will...You're starting to imagine Mal Catelyn's world...Maliverny is a tribute to the Elizabethan era, blending together precious woods, incenses, and spices from the New World. A base of sandalwood and frankincense is topped with warm black pepper and cinnamon. A hint of tobacco ties it all together.

Hendricks

Imagine fleeing your homeland and living in disguise amongst men who cannot know your secrets...Imagine finding yourself thrust into a world of magical and political machinations - and the man you want most believes you're a boy...You're starting to imagine Coby Hendricks' world. A beguilingly unisex blend of herbs and fruits, Hendricks starts with clean, clear notes of juniper and coriander, spiked with exotic cassia and light touches of lemon and bergamot. Winding through it all is just a distant whiff of gunpowder.

To celebrate the launch of these two lovely (and surprisingly Christmassy) scents, Anne is running a competition to win some samples on her blog. Take a look, leave a comment, and be in with a chance of trying Mal and Coby for yourself. And be sure to check out the books while you're there - you can read the first three chapters of The Merchant of Dreams and The Alchemist of Souls for free!

"Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind."

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 Mary Ellen Chase

One of the things I believe about perfume is that a scent should tell a story and evoke a mood. So the title quote seems perfect for introducing my winter/Christmas perfume range. I wanted perfumes that evoked a true feeling of winter - icy rivers, frost-rimed trees, open fires, and the hushed excitement of Christmas Eve. But I also wanted to create perfumes you'd want to wear all year round, not just when the nights grow longer and the air turns cold. Perfumes you can indulge in whether it's the height of summer or the depths of midwinter. I hope I've done that, but of course, you guys will be judge. Want a look at what I've come up with? Of course you do!

Chalet Girl

I've always fancied a ski-in holiday. Well, to be accurate, I've always fancied being snuggled up in a chalet in the Alps, watching other people ski while I indulge in hot chocolate by an open fire. With that in mind, I created Chalet Girl - a decadent blend of milk chocolate, hot cocoa, toasted marshmallow, Christmassy candy canes and a dash crisp of peppermint. It's my dream winter holiday, without that pesky exercise business!

Comfort and Joy

My favourite Christmas carol has always been God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - I find it warm, uplifting and joyous. And that's the mood I've created with this seasonal perfume. Starting with the tang of frost-crusted fruit and melting luxuriously into notes of hot buttered rum and creme brulee, this perfume finishes with the solemn and soothing notes of pure frankincense, myrrh, and earthy white amber. 

Frau Holle

Frau Holle, or Mother Hulda, is the star of a German fairy tale where kindness and hard work is rewarded and laziness and greed is punished. So a fairly typical fairy tale...Frau Holle herself was most likely an ancient pagan goddess who became a folkloric figure as Christianity spread through Europe. I've put a seasonal twist on Frau Holle, taking the green notes of holly, ivy, and pine and blending them with the gentle floral scents of rose and carnation. A hint of tart cranberry finishes off this wonderful woman's winter scent. 

La Befana

In Italian folklore, La Befana was an old lady who delivered presents to children on Epiphany Eve. Good children were given honey, dates, and figs, whilst bad children had to make do with a lump of coal. In honour of La Befana, I've created a sweet, warm blend of honeyed figs and red and black cherries, on a bed of hazelnuts and acorns with a dash of sugar. Not a lump of coal in sight.

Special Snowflake

Be unique! Just like everyone else...No, but thanks to the magic of personal skin chemistry, every perfume oil really is unique, different on every different person. And this perfume is particularly playful in that respect. Mixing old lace with white chocolate, adding pale floral notes of wisteria and plumeria, and finishing off with juicy plums and just a suggestion of mint, Special Snowflake is delicate, ever-changing, and very special!

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The Holly King

The Holly King is a folkloric figure who rules the seasons of autumn and winter. I've chosen the same same base, green notes of ivy, holly and pine that you'll find in Frau Holle, but given them a rich masculine bent with deep chestnut, sharp red currant and resinous, creamy peru balsam. This is one for the boys, but women who like a bolder fragrance will love it too.

Of course, you can get sample-sized vials of all six to help you decide which one is the perfect winter scent for you, and don't forget - all these perfumes will be part of my Handmade Monday 20% off sale tomorrow!

Handmade Monday, Black Friday, Happy Days

Handmade Monday is fast approaching! I talked a little last week about why I think it's a great cause to support and a great time to do some shopping; this week I'm going to tell you my plans for the day, and for Black Friday on November 29th.

Handmade Monday

I'll be offering 20% off everything in store at my Etsy and Zibbet shops on 25th November. That's 20% off perfume oils, samples, sample sets, and solid perfumes. That's pretty huge, right?!

I'll also be launching my Christmas/seasonal perfumes - Holly King, Frau Holle, Chalet Girl, Comfort and Joy, Special Snowflake, and La Befana in time for Handmade Monday, so they'll be included in this offer. Stay tuned to the blog this Sunday for a preview of each scent!

Black Friday

I won't be running a sale on Black Friday, but in order to clear some stock I will be adding a "Discontinued" section to my Etsy shop. This will feature a selection of fragrances that just haven't proven popular since their introduction. It'll be the last chance to grab them before they disappear from my catalogue completely, and they will (of course) be discounted in price. So if you see one of your favourites there, snatch it up, because when it's gone, it's gone forever!

These will be my last sales/offers for 2013, and my cut-off dates for Christmas shipping are fast approaching (see here for details), so next week will be the perfect time to treat yourself or someone else to some Common Brimstone perfume. Enjoy!

Handmade Monday - 25th November

If you follow my Facebook page, you'll have seen me share this image already, but I haven't talked much about Handmade Monday, what it is, or why I want to be involved. Simply put, Handmade Monday is the handmade alternative to Black Friday, a day to buy handmade, artisan products and show your support for small businesses, artists, and crafters of all kinds.

Now, I know 25th November is a busy time for plenty of you in the US, with Thanksgiving right around the corner. And I know there are plenty of reasons why Black Friday is awesome - massive discounts are always awesome, after all. I also know that there are good reasons to buy commercial and mass-produced products - convenience, cost, availability, etc. So I want to give you some good reasons to support Handmade Monday and take a little time on the 25th to shop handmade instead of mass-produced.

1. You get something unique. Especially if you buy perfumes! Every person's body chemistry is unique and therefore the way a perfume reacts with every person is completely different. So nobody else in the world is going to smell like you do, even if they're wearing the same artisan scent.

2. You get to support starving artists. Well, okay, hopefully none of us are actually starving. But personally I love buying something know that the profits are going straight to the creator and not getting lost in a chain of bureaucracy. And buying direct from a committed, passionate artist is a great experience, guaranteed to give you something made with real love and care.

3. You know what you're getting. One of the biggest motivators for me in buying handmade bath and beauty products (as well as making my own) is knowing exactly what I'm putting in and on my body. Simple, natural ingredients packed full of skin-friendly bonuses. No man-made chemicals. I really believe that when it comes to my body, Nature knows best. And by buying handmade, you can be sure you're treating yourself right.

4. You can get a head start on your Christmas shopping. I'm going to be offering some great deals all day on Handmade Monday, and I know I won't be the only one (check the Facebook page and the #handmademonday hashtag on Twitter and Facebook to see what other people are doing), so if you're looking for one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts, this is a great starting point.

In the run-up to Handmade Monday, I'll be sharing links to some of the many shops taking part, so if you're keen to share the handcrafted love, keep an eye on my Facebook and Twitter pages to see what's on offer!

"Winter is Coming"

Claire Louise

George RR Martin

Well, who else was I going to quote for this time of year? My! I have been a neglectful blogger lately. In my defense, I spent most of October being ill so I'm giving myself a pass on that. Still, no excuses now; time to get back to business.

Last time I did a proper blog, I said I was going to talk about some of the inspirations for my Christmas/Winter perfumes. Since those are now in development and will be in the shop very soon, I think that's still a good thing to talk about. In the same way that Autumn really got my creative juices flowing this year, the winter season triggered a great rush of inspiration and excitement. There are so many varied and amazing myths and bits of folklore tied to the solstice, it was hard to settle on just a handful of ideas and not try to make a perfume for every single one. How can you resist the lure of Inti Raymi or Wren Day? 

Well, I had to save some inspiration for next year, so I settled on five scents that take inspiration from five very different, seasonal sources. I'm not going to give them all away here (surprises are fun!), but here's a tiny sneak peek at what's in store...

The Holly King. Traditionally seen as ruler of one half of the year, with the Oak King ruling the other, the Holly King is a neopagan figure who gains strength at the Autumn Equinox and is at his height by Midwinter. A perfect starting point for a good, wintery cologne. My Holly King will contain notes of holly (of course), smooth peru balsam and warm chestnut among other things.

La Befana. This old lady is a charming piece of Italian folklore, visiting children on the Feast of Epiphany to deliver gifts of honey, figs, and dates (unless they were bad children. Then they get coal). I've started with figs and honey, but added a few twists...

Chalet Girl. Well, this one doesn't come from any folklore, but rather from my own fantasy Christmas...a

Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee

ski lodge in the Alps, a mug of cocoa, crisp white snow outside my cosy cabin...Let's just ignore that I've never been ski-ing in my life and would almost certainly break both my ankles the second I tried to do it.

I've also got two new solid perfumes to add to the Autumn/Winter collection and, fingers crossed, they'll be with you in the next week or so! Look out for Nog Nuts and Sticky Toffee Tea.

And of course I'm working on a million other new blends as well, so you can look out for The Expert Dreamer, Waters of Lethe, Capua, and many more over the next few months as we head into 2014. And this seems as good a point as any to check the to-do list...

Perfume Stuff

Brainstorm essential oils-only line - I now have enough ideas to start working with; I just don't seem to have the time! Hopefully over the next couple of weekends, I'll get the preliminary blends for the new line ready.

Brainstorm Spring/Summer solid perfumes - I'm now officially sick of getting up in the dark and coming home from work in the dark, so I'm all about Spring/Summer solids and have more ideas than I can possibly make use of! 

Make-over packaging - Hmm...Still a work-in-progress, but I feel like I'll never be 100% satisfied so I may have to relax a little bit! I am planning to get 10ml roll-on bottles in stock as soon as possible; hopefully before Christmas but no promises at this point!

Other Stuff
Learning anatomy for my aromatherapy course! Science was never my strong point at school, but I think I've just about nailed the fact that we have skeletons and they hold us up, so I feel like I'm learning. A bit.

Flash Sale this week!

Visit my Etsy shop this week for 10% off all 5ml perfumes between 29th-31st October, with all profits going to the British Heart Foundation. So you can treat yourself to something beautiful and feel good about doing it! Happy Halloween!

"To me, the smell of fresh made coffee is one of the greatest inventions."

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Hugh Jackman

I remember reading in a book, many, many years ago, that a home didn't smell like a home unless there was coffee brewing and bacon sizzling. I happen to agree, despite not being a coffee-drinker myself. But there is something so homely and comforting about that smell. My fiance loves unusual-flavoured coffees like banoffee pie and maple sugar, so when he's making himself a pot, I tend to forget I don't like the taste and find myself drooling over that amazing smell.

And that is why you'll find scents like Emily Deer, Noir, and Caramel Macchiato in my shop. That rich, deep coffee smell is one of my favourites in perfumery. And yet, I've not been entirely satisfied with the coffee fragrance oil I've been using up til this point. Oh sure, it's an incredibly tasty, accurate scent, but it lacks the depth and complexity you get from a real coffee essential oil. So when I was finally able to invest in some coffee CO2 extract, I was very excited. This stuff. Let me tell you. This stuff. It smells just like arabica coffee beans - roasted, rich, and exactly what I wanted when I created my coffee perfume oils. I can't wait for you guys to try it!

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be re-working Emily Deer and Noir with this CO2 extract. The original blends will remain available, but expect the new versions to replace the originals in November. So if you're a huge fan of either scent, I advise you to A) stock up now! and B) try a sample of the new versions once they're available. I think you'll be happily surprised at the difference.

Now, onto this week's to-do list!

Perfume Stuff

Finalise Autumn/Winter solid perfumes - they're here! They're here! The solid perfumes are now live in my Etsy shop. I still need to get them up on Folksy and Zibbet, and that will happen asap.

Brainstorm essential oils-only line - my "ideas list" is growing steadily and I'll probably start working on some preliminary blending in the next few weeks. Very excited about creating this new line.

Brainstorm Spring/Summer solid perfumes - as I've been off work sick this week, I've had lots of time to look at pictures of cherry blossoms and hummingbirds, so expect to see those themes pop up in the Spring/Summer colleciton.

Make-over packaging - still a work-in-progress, but I've got a vision that's coming together. I've had some lovely and constructive feedback from one awesome customer that's been very useful, so thank you, that lady!

Christmas scents - next week I'll be blogging about some of the myths and folklore I've been looking into for my Christmas/solstice scents.

Other Stuff

I had a book released this week! I don't want to use my perfume blog to promote my writing, so I shan't go into details, but the promotional aspect of that has taken up a lot of time. Now that's done and dusted and my baby is out in the world, I'm going to put some time into my aromatherapy course and see if I can get the first module done this month.

I sent out a newsletter yesterday featuring an exclusive newsletter-subscribers-only coupon code. What, you hadn't subscribed? Never mind! Sign up for the next one!

"Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is."

SweetCrisis

Elbert Hubbard

One of the things I like to do on my writerly blog is keep a to-do list. I fell out of the habit for a while, but now I've started again, I'm going to keep one here as well. It's a great way for me to keep track of everything I'm doing in my various walks of life and (hopefully) it gives you guys an insight into what's going on, what's coming up, and why some things may be taking a back seat to others. As indicated above, I'm not just a perfumier; I'm also a starving writer and full-time PA (and a cat-servant and snake-keeper). To-do lists are pretty much essential to me if I'm going to do anything other than sleep all day.

So, without further to-do (sorry), here's this week's list.

Perfume Stuff

Finalise Halloween perfumes - done! And they're available for sale too!

Finalise Autumn/Winter solid perfumes - the scents are ready; I just need to make some up and take photos. Hoping to get that done this week. I was aiming to have them in stock in September, but between family weddings, book edits, and perfume orders, I just ran out of time!

Brainstorm essential oils-only line - this is on the back-burner as I'm not planning to launch the line until 2014. But then again, 2014 isn't that far away anymore...

Brainstorm Spring/Summer solid perfumes - already started. It's not as fun as brainstorming the Autumn/Winter range was yet, but that's probably because Spring feels so far away right now.

Make-over packaging - I've sent some new sample-sized vials to willing guinea pigs to make sure they travel well/don't leak/don't smash in transit. If the feedback is good, I'll be switching from wandcaps to roll-on sample vials this month. The next thing I want to do is get 10ml rollette bottles in stock, hopefully before Christmas.

Christmas scents - now that the Halloween scents are out, it's time to start thinking about the next seasonal batch. I'm doing a ton of research into Christmas and solstice traditions from around the world and throughout history to find some really unique twists on the theme. Stay tuned!

Other Stuff

Last weekend I signed up for a distance-learning aromatherapy course. It's one of those "go at your

Praisaeng

own pace" things, which is great in light of everything else I have to do! I'm really excited about starting and getting some formal training in a subject I've been fascinated by for such a long time. I'm also keen to see how it informs my perfume-making adventures in the future. It may also pave the way for an escape from the Dreaded Day Job *crosses crossables*

So that's the state of things right now. I am planning to send out a newsletter shortly and will aim to make those a quarterly event. If you haven't signed up, you can do so here for news, events, and cute baby animal pictures!

"Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon"

Silver - Walter de la Mare

Is it too early to be thinking about 2014? I always feel that once you hit September, the rest of the year is as good as done. Autumn rolls quickly into Winter and Winter lasts forever. Sure, there's Christmas, but Christmas is more about anticipation than anything else for me, and once Christmas Day is over everything feels a little sad and worn out. So between Halloween and Spring there seems to be this vast stretch of "blargh." And you've got to fill it with something, so it may as well be something creative and fantastical, right? Right.

So, early or not, I am thinking about 2014. And one of the first things I want to do in 2014 is release a line of essential oil/absolute only perfumes. I love the scope and craziness that fragrance oils gives me (gunpowder perfume, anyone?), but the challenge of working with just essential oils and absolutes is very alluring. Not that there's any less variety, certainly. I recently acquired a butter CO2 extract, for example - completely natural and completely ridiculous. But there's no denying I have to think harder with EO-only scents. Oh, I want make something that smells like cake? Put down that red velvet fragrance and step away from the buttercream!

Phiseksit

Right now I'm gathering ideas for the new line and I'm finding my attention being drawn in a very particular direction. Namely, skywards. All my ideas so far have been inspired by cosmic phenomena and heavenly bodies. Black holes, the Northern lights, solar flares, eclipses...They're all playing on my mind. Maybe it's because when you're thinking all-natural, it makes sense to take inspiration from Nature (sadly, red velvet cake is not a naturally-occurring phenomenon).

Whatever the reason, I think my first batch of all-naturals are going to be cosmically-inclined, and that's an excuse to look at pretty pictures of Saturn's moons and think up whimsical names like Black Hole Waltz and Enceladus. And of course, there's the mythological aspect of moon and planet names to throw in the inspiration bank.

What I'm most looking forward to with this range is taking some of my rarer and lesser-used oils and giving them a whirl. I have plans for a rose/mint blend that I have high hopes for. I have a few attars and absolutes that I've yet to try (not to mention a wishlist a mile long of new ones to buy...) and I'm looking forward to playing around and seeing what I can come up with. When I first started making perfumes, I only used essential oils and there are plenty of experiments (both successful and disastrous) that I'm eager to re-visit now I have more experience (I will make that patchouli-clary sage mix work, dammit).

At the moment I really am in the early stages of planning this range, but I do like the idea of themed ranges,

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exploring a variety of different subjects. If I'm happy with this first line (and if you guys are too!), you can look forward to all-natural perfumes inspired by mythical creatures, historical figures, and a whole host of other natural sources.

But for now, I'm sticking with space. Moonlight, red dwarfs, supernovas, and dark matter. Any excuse to watch Professor Brian Cox documentaries, basically *cough*

"Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not."

I love a good B-movie. The lurid Technicolour, the hammy acting, the questionable dialogue...It's perfectly silly entertainment and the perfect inspiration for Common Brimstone's first Halloween. All year long I've been wracking my brain for themes and ideas for Halloween perfumes and B-movies is It, my friends. I picked five classics and I made 'em into perfumes, and come October 1st, you'll be able to make them your own.

There's a special reason why I've wanted to do something big and fancy for Halloween. Of course there's the obvious reason - Halloween is fun and full of folklore, magic, and creativity - three of my favourite things! And since I'm apparently too old for Trick or Treating anymore, I have to get involved somewhere. The less obvious reason is a bit more personal.

Last October my dad passed away very unexpectedly of heart failure. One of the reasons I opened

Common Brimstone is February this year is because that's his birthday and I wanted to do something positive to mark the occasion, rather than dwell on what I'd lost. I'd like to do the same in October.

So here's the deal. Five limited edition B-movie scents, available between 1st-31st October. They will be a tiny bit pricier than my regular catalogue because I will be donating all the profits to the British Heart Foundation in my dad's memory.

I am always extremely reluctant to tell people where to spend their money - that's really none of my business. But if you have been considering buying perfume from me, I would love it if you made it one of my B-movie perfumes this October. Not only will you get getting a limited edition never-to-be-seen-again one of a kind scent, but you'll be contributing to a great cause that's close to my heart.

Oh, what's that? You want to hear more about these fabulous fragrances? Well, if you follow me on Tumblr (and if not, why not?!), you'll have seen the research I was doing not that long ago (and by "research" I mean "looking at pretty pictures") and might have some ideas. If not, let me give you a sneak peek...

The Raven - black as night with an edge of old feathers

The Black Cat - sultry and alluring

Zombies on Broadway - a surprisingly exotic concoction

The Wasp Woman - sweet, but not without her sting!

The Devil's Daughter - sensual and dark

Excited? I am.

"Imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering." - Brenda Ueland

Timeless Photography

So my brother got married this Saturday just gone (congratulations to them!) and on Monday I took a day off my day-job to catch up on the perfume orders that got backlogged due to wedding prep. And then I started on a project I've been excited about since I decided to open Common Brimstone in the first place.

Solid perfumes!

I've been obsessed with perfumes for well over a decade now, but the moment I moved from "I like wearing this stuff" to "I want to make this stuff!" was when I found this post on Crunchy Betty's website. It was a pretty major revelation to me that making perfume might be that easy - I'd viewed it as this arcane alchemical process that was far beyond my reach. But no. Turns out it's really as easy as beeswax and oils. So I rushed to the internet and bought a few bars of beeswax, some lip balm tins and four or five bottles of essential oil (I remember saying those four or five bottles would give me plenty of scope and variety...Now I have well over 200 bottles of fragrance and essential oils and I can't help looking back at Past Me and smiling fondly at my naivety).

And I made so many solid perfumes. So many. So many I ended up giving a lot away because I ran out of storage room. I was driving my fiance mad by turning the kitchen into a wax-and-oil smeared mess every night of the week. I loved it. It was like witchcraft. Just add a few drops of rose to a few drops of lime and vetiver, and voila. Magic. And once I got the confidence to start making perfumes and found that other people liked what I was making, moving onto perfume oils was inevitable. And here we are.

So why didn't I launch the shop with solid perfumes? Mostly because I felt oils would be more popular and offered me more room to experiment with blends. My experience with solid perfumes is that you can really only use up to four different oils before you lose the clarity of the scent - any more and the fragrance gets a little muddy. So I didn't want to just offer solid versions of my perfume oils. I didn't want to start adding solid perfumes to my catalogue until I was sure I was making the best ones I possibly could.

num_skyman

And that brings me to this Monday when I finally had time to do what I wanted: create a seasonal range of solid perfumes, inspired by the autumn and winter. I talked last week about how inspiring I find this time of year: all those gorgeous colours, all that homely comfort food...It all seemed like the perfect starting point for a collection of warm, cosy, simple scents in solid form.

I've been gathering ideas for months and it was really satisfying to start working on those blends. Right now I've got ten very different blends aging away in my dark box, and this weekend I'll do some final tinkering before I make them into actual solid perfumes for testing. Fingers crossed, that means you'll be able to buy my Autumn/Winter range at Etsy and Folksy by the end of September. And then I can start thinking about the Spring/Summer range!

So what will you be getting that you can't get with my perfume oils? Well, there's no risk of leaks or broken bottles for one thing. I love the portability of solid perfumes and tend to have one tucked away everywhere for emergencies - in my bag and in my desk at work especially (that's also where I keep my emergency tea stash). I'll be using vegan-friendly soy wax, blended with creamy shea butter and the same skin-loving sweet almond oil I use in my perfume oils. And if you want some hints at the kind of scents I'll be offering, how does Caramel Macchiato sound? Or Winter Sun? Or Autumn Rose, Haunted Heart, or Fireflies?

My babies!

Yeah, I think they sound good too ^_^

"“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it...

...and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” - George Eliot

There is something about the summer's end and the beginning of the autumn that puts me in a more creative mood. I think it's because the mental image I have of autumn is so beautiful and romantic, I can't help but feel inspired. In my head, autumn looks like this:

Ebgeni Dinev

But in reality, in Cambridge at least, autumn is really like this:

Pakorn

You can see it's not really the same, but every year I keep hoping I'll miraculously get a gorgeous New England autumn and pumpkin-flavoured treats will magically appear everywhere.

Anyway. In the mean time, I'm working on some beautiful autumnal fragrances to try to evoke the mood, if not the weather, I expect at this time of year. I've already got some lush, warm perfumes in the shop that are perfect for the change of seasons, like Abhaile, Habondia, and Oshun, and once my latest batch of fragrance oils arrives you can expect to hear me rave excitedly about sticky toffee and buttered pecan scents. Nothing says "autumn" to me more than good foodie and cosy spice blends when it comes to perfume. And pumpkin, of course. There has to be pumpkin. And mulberry. And blackcurrant. Possibly all together.

Arvind Balaraman

And there will be solid perfumes too! I've been wanting to add solid perfumes to the shop since I opened, but it's taken me a while to decide exactly what I want to do and how. I'll talk more about those next week (yes, I am aiming to blog more often, so may as well set the deadline now), but my launch range will be created with autumn and winter in mind, so look out for dark, delicious, intriguing and unusual (and vegan-friendly!) solid perfumes in the very near future.

The other awesome thing about this time of year is Halloween, of course. Again, my mental image of Halloween is never quite matched by the reality - we've had no trick-or-treaters for two years! :( - but I can at least watch terrible b-movies 24-hours a day if I want to.

And I can make terrible b-movie perfumes! (Well, they won't be terrible. They'll be amazing! But they'll be inspired by terrible b-movies). Again, this is something I'll talk about a bit more closer to October. In the mean time, here's something to give you an idea of what's in store...

I'm now on Folksy too!

As an experiment in expanding my horizons, I've started listing at Folksy, a UK-based seller very similar to Etsy. I haven't put all my stock up there yet, but will be adding slowly and surely. Etsy is definitely my main focus, but I love the idea of a UK-based platform so I'm going to give it a try until the end of the year and see what happens.

Things To Do With Green Tea (other than the obvious thing)

Image courtesy of zirconicusso at FreeDigitalImages.net

So I'm a bit of a tea junkie, a fact that became apparent at the day job when our purchasing officer came to give me a package and found the eight million (approx) packets of loose leaf tea I keep in my desk. Discussion ensued and the next day he presented me with two giant bags of Japanese green tea. I feel it's important to state that Japanese green tea is the really, really good stuff and honestly doesn't compare to your old Twinings tea bag nonsense. It's got a great, deep, toasty flavour to it, it tastes delicious, and I now have a lot of it. I'm keeping the genmaicha at work to share with the purchasing officer, but I took the other bag of regular green tea home to add to my small (approx) collection of loose leaf tea there.

And then I realised I had a lot of green tea and decided to see what else I could do with it apart from drink it, and the internet provided many an idea. Green tea is rich in antioxidants and can (maybe) help reduce wrinkles and signs of aging, as well as helping with sun damage. As I never go out into direct sunlight on general principles, that last one isn't really a problem for me, but I assume other people do sometimes venture outdoors before dark...

1. Freeze it.

This came courtesy of the amazing Crunchy Betty. Brew a strong cup of green tea and make ice cubes from it. They're anti-inflammatory so they work great as quick spot/blemish treatments. I've taken to keeping a tray in the freezer at all times and the ice cubes really do work if you use them a couple of times a day on clean skin. You can also do this with chamomile tea apparently, but I haven't tried that yet.

2. Make toner/cleanser with it.

I found this article and figured using loose leaf tea would be just as good (if not better) than using tea bags. I don't use commercial creams or cleansers, so rather than mixing green tea with a shop-bought cream, I've been making a mixture with lemon juice and storing it in the fridge. It keeps for about a week, and I've been swiping it over my face every evening after I take my make-up off. The lemon juice acts as a mild exfoliant and can help reduce acne/scarring as it's antibacterial.

3. Make a face mask with it.

There are a ton of ideas for natural face masks all over the internet, depending what you're looking for. My current favourite ingredients are kaolin clay, cocoa powder (another anti-oxidant), lavender, and oatmeal. But I recently got a whole bunch of other dried herbs that are supposed to be great for your skin, so I've been mixing and matching a lot. I ground up a few spoonfuls of green tea leaves with some thyme, lavender and kaolin clay and have been using it once a week. In addition to smelling amazing, it leaves your skin all soft and lush. I also made up a batch with green tea, oatmeal and cocoa at Christmas for my sister-in-law, and she loves it (although my brother is less keen because apparently she blocked their sink with it somehow? Not sure I need to be involved with that debate however).

4. Make a body scrub with it.

I love making sugar scrubs with shea butter - they're exfoliating, moisturising, and you can make them smell like chocolate. Plus there's the added bonus of leaving a slippery residue all over the shower, creating an adventure for the next person to use it. Shea butter can be messy to work with though, so green tea leaves make a quick and clean alternative - simply mix them up in an oil of your choice and scrub away! I tend to use either grapeseed or fractionated coconut oil, but in an emergency olive oil is as good as anything. You could throw in a bit of coffee or sugar too for added scrubby powers.

5. Rinse your hair with it.

Another one you can also do with chamomile tea. Brew a pot, pour it into an appropriate container, wash your hair as normal, then rinse with the tea. Bonus! Add essential oils for extra care. I tend to add rosemary if I do this, and there's a good list here of oils for different hair types. This gives extra shine or, in the case of chamomile tea, extra blondeness.

If you're using green tea bags, keep 'em after you've steeped 'em - the cool bags can be rubbed over your face as a toner or under your eyes to get rid of dark circles.

And for the record, actually just drinking green tea can have health benefits, allowing you to feel extra smug about the whole thing and not at all secretly wishing it was hot chocolate.

Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at FreeDigitalImages.net

Flash Sale this weekend!

I'm having a Flash Sale at the perfume shop this Saturday, 22nd June (assuming I can get the app to work...)! Everything at Common Brimstone will be 20% off for one day only. That's all 5ml vials, all sample sets, and all individual samples. Everything!

I'm so, so happy with how well my little venture has been going since February and since so many people here and else where on t'internet have Tweeted and liked and Facebooked to spread the word, I figure it'll be nice to say thank you ^_^

The Great Honey Badger Giveaway

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you'll know I'm road testing potential new perfumes for the shop this week. Today it's Honey Badger, a blend of beeswax and cocoa absolute with a teensy bit of dark chocolate, a dash of honeycomb, and a base of white and black musk. I LOVE IT. The dark chocolate and beeswax notes pop out first, and it melts down to a sweet honey-musk finish that's not too saccharine. I want you all to try it, so...how about a giveaway?

 Just "like" or comment on this post and I'll draw a winner on Wednesday 19th June. The winner gets a 5ml bottle of this exclusive, yet-to-be-released scent. Easy!

And hey, spread the word, because if I hit 50 or more likes on my Facebook page in this time, I'll do something else fabulous for you all!

3 Days of Silence

I can't believe it's only been two days since this story broke. I think Edward Snowden has raised a lot of questions and worries, and for a lot of people confirmed a lot of theories and fears. I'm really not politically savvy enough to drill down into all the ramifications of the NSA leaks, so I won't even try. You can definitely find out plenty without me. But what has that got to do with 3 Days of Silence?

So yesterday I saw Crunchy Betty post about this on Facebook, and the idea of going on a digital detox for a few days was appealing, but fleeting. And then she blogged about it today and the idea really took hold. Not just as an impromptu protest against all this surveillance and 1984 paranoia, but as a break from the constant influx of internets in my life. The first thing I do every morning is check my emails on my phone. I catch up on Twitter and Facebook while I'm drying my hair. I read the news or ebooks on my phone on the bus to work. At work I'm constantly online, answering emails, researching, and doing things I'm not really supposed to be doing from a work computer. At home in the evenings I'm chatting on Facebook, browsing the Etsy forums, gaming, and generally immersing myself in the web.

That's, you know, a lot of time at a computer. And I started thinking of all the things I keep saying I have no time for, that I definitely would have time for if I had a couple of days computer-free. And all the things I used to do before I had internet access and how I filled my days before Twitter and Cracked.com. And I think now especially, when I'm feeling low and struggling with my sense of self, disconnecting from the digital world and spending some time outside of cyberspace might be really nice and useful.

So I'm going to do a "lite" version of this, since June 24th is a work day for me and I don't think my boss would be too pleased if I just ignored all digital communication for a day. But June 22nd and 23rd are my Silent Days. No phone except for emergencies, no internet, no TV. I'm going to read and make perfumes and scribble in notebooks. I'm going to see what I can make out of dried hyssop and green tea leaves. I'm going to dig out my rune stones and Tarot cards and re-learn some things. And if  it comes down to it, I'm going to poke my cat for entertainment.

He's usually pretty good value for money.

A Belated Pay Day Deal

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

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!

Your Pay Day Deal this month...

...is The Lotus Eaters. Inspired by the beguiling, brief references made in Homers Odyessy. The Lotus Eaters were a race living on an island off the coast of North Africa, who lived on the fruits and flowers of the lotus. Eating these exotic blooms caused people to fall into a deep, blissful sleep.

My interpretation isn't narcotic, but it is dreamy - pure lotus absolute blended with sandalwood essential oil and a rainforest fragrance, topped with tropical mangoes. And between now and Monday 29th April, it's available at a 20% discount! So why not treat yourself to a touch of paradise? 

The holiday is over...

...which is good news for you guys, because the shop is re-opened and I've added five new scents to the catalogue. Wander over to check out Oshun, Rose Jam, Hedgerow Tea, Beatrice, and Fox Maiden. And I've decided to keep Selkie as a permanent addition to the shop, so don't worry if you didn't get a chance to pick it up as part of the St Patrick's Day limited editions!

The next Pay Day Deal weekend will be 26th - 29th April and I'll be adding the next batch of new scents in early May. I'll also be putting together my first newsletter, so remember to sign up if you want news, coupon codes, and freebies!