Grab a pay day deal!

I'm offering one of my 5ml perfume oils at a 20% discount between now and Monday 4th March because it's pay day week and that means you should treat yourself to something fancy.

Godfrey's Cordial is a Victoriana-inspired scent mixing honey, vanilla, cinnamon and clove. It might not cure what ails you, but it'll definitely make you smell better! This is already proving to be one of my most popular scents, so why not get involved and try it out?

I'll be offering discounted oils every pay day weekend, so keep an eye out for future bargains!

Common Brimstone is OPEN!!!

I've taken advantage of being sick (even unto death) to finalise my Etsy shop and open it up. I'm delighted and not a little nervous to present to you Common Brimstone.

My launch range is live and I'll be adding new fragrances as often as I can. I will also be adding solid perfumes in the next few months, so stay tuned for news on that too.

As a writer, I am a feedback junkie, so welcome any comments or questions you may have. You can chat with me here, via Etsy's convo system, on Twitter at @CommonBrimstone, or on Facebook.

Now, I urge you all to go see what I have to offer and enjoy! :D

Shea Butter Sugar Scrub Sunday

So I was browsing Etsy recently and found a really nice shop selling really scrummy-sounding sugar scrubs. I was thisclose to treating myself when I remembered I had pretty much all the ingredients to make my own and decided that would be much more fun and rewarding. It didn't take long to find a good, simple recipe online and I already have so much more shea butter than I could ever get through otherwise, so I decided to give it a go this afternoon.



This is the recipe I used (found here):

1/2 cup of shea butter
1/3 cup of carrier oil (I used grapeseed oil)
1/8 teaspoon of vitamin E oil (this is optional but I have some so I stuck it in)
1 teaspoon corn flour (this stops the butter being quite so greasy)
Essential/fragrance oil
1 cup sugar

I mixed my oils first. I used a blend of fragrance and essential oils, going for mango, peach, raspberry, strawberry, ginger, and cinnamon (I'm in love with peach and mango as a combination at the moment. My house constantly smells of it). 

Next I measured out my other ingredients. My landlord's teacups may never fully recover.

But that's okay, because you should see what we've done to the rest of the house. Next step was whipping the shea butter. As I've mentioned probably many times before here, I have nerve damage in my right arm from untreated/badly treated RSI, so hand-whipping the shea butter was really hard work! I made it easier on myself by doing the whipping on a hob set to a low temp so the butter melted a bit as I went.

This really didn't look like a lot of butter to me, so I threw in a bit more halfway through. I easily ended up with enough mixture for a big-sized jar. Anyway, once I had the butter mixed to a creamy consistency, I started to add in the grapeseed oil, blending in a bit at a time. Once that was all in, I mixed in the vitamin E, corn flour, and fragrance/essential oil blend and stirred it all together. The recipe then said to add the sugar in a bit at a time, but I was feeling frisky so I just dumped a cup in and went for it.

And that was it! This is the (slightly blurry) finished product:

Ta-da! The scent isn't quite as strong as I hoped; next time I'll probably double the quantities. But otherwise it looks and feels beautiful! The only downside was cleaning up, as shea butter just got everywhere. Everywhere. My entire kitchen is really nicely moisturised now, I suppose. 

In an effort to use more shea butter, I also made myself a couple of new lip balms: one in absinthe and caramel, one in lavender and pumpkin. The absinthe/caramel one is gorgeous! I want to eat it. I added in a drop of aniseed EO to spice up the absinthe oil and it's all tingly and awesome. And now I'm off for a bath to test my scrub!

Alchemy Report

So it's 2013! We survived an apocalyptic year, apparently. I'm aiming to open shop on Etsy in February and I've almost finalised my launch range. I do have a few more potential additions now, as I just spent two hours making everything from anime-inspired to Lovecraft-inspired perfume oils. I only stopped because I ran out of room in the kitchen. A few of my favourites from today's session:

Rei - inspired by the character from Neon Genesis Evangelion, my favourite anime series. This is a sweet, ethereal blend of cherry blossom, white musk, gardenia, and magnolia. Really pretty.

Dunwich - from the Lovecraft story, "The Dunwich Horror," this is a surprisingly madness-free mix of hay, allspice, honey, cedarwood and oakmoss.

Noir - a revamped version of the Ethan Banning oil I made and scrapped a while back, this is sandalwood with notes of nectarine and apricot, with hints of coffee and whisky. It's pretty much exactly how I first imagined it now.

Shinji - another NGE mix, this is a unisex blend of lemongrass, green tea, grapefruit, musk, and kudzu. I wasn't sure I'd like this - I'm not keen on lemongrass but I aim to experiment with all my oils even if I initially think I don't like them. This is definitely a favourite from today - fruity and unusual.

I'll probably be back in the kitchen tomorrow; I've still got a Hobbit-themed perfume in mind, as well as more Lovecraft and a couple of voudun-inspired mixes. Unngh. I love being off work!

Dear Tuesday

Let's make a deal. I will make my way through you without complaining about how tired and fed up I am, and in return you will let me spend the evening making perfumes. Nothing will happen to prevent this, because I will be a good girl and work hard and be efficient and smile when required. You will not throw any more bad news at me. I will not get home and decide I'm too tired to do anything except mope on the sofa. I have IDEAS! and you and I will work together to see them actually happen. I have Hellraiser and Ginger Snaps and anime and Hobbit perfumes in my head and I want to actually spend the night in the kitchen making them. I don't want to do a ton of housework. I don't want to have to go to Tesco. I don't want even want to write, mostly because I already did a fair bit of writing this morning that I'm happy with. I want to turn the kitchen into an alchemy den and make stuff smell pretty.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable. I've done a fairly remarkable job of being efficient, pleasant, and on the ball at work since Dad passed away, and at home I've managed not to be a complete wreck too most of the time. I think I've earned this. In short, I want to spend the evening enjoying myself. So please try not to throw anything nasty or difficult at me. No incorrect invoices. No missing patient files. No annoying phone calls. No trauma. No drama. We can do this, Tuesday.

Sincerely,
Me

Look what I got!

Expect the launch of Common Brimstone Fragrances early in the New Year! ^_^

A long-awaited alchemy report

So there has been radio silence for a while, but as it's looking pretty likely I'll be able to open shop early in the New Year, I think I should get back in the saddle. Also, I have been making lots of pretty things! I won't talk about all of them (need to keep some element of mystery going), so here's a quick rundown of my favourites:

Win: Mat Zemlya - patchouli, lime, ylang ylang, honey, sweet orange. Patchouli for me is one of those oils that works brilliantly when you use it right and fails miserably when you use it wrong (I won't discuss my patchouli/clary sage mix *weeps*). This perfume is one that works brilliantly. Patchouli and citrus are made to go together, and ylang ylang can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. I think patchouli lovers will really enjoy this.

Pin-Up - parma violet, vanilla, strawberry, rose, cherry, baby powder. This is such a cheeky, girly mix. The baby powder has the potential to be a bit overwhelming, but I love it. It's really fun and sweet.

Godfrey's Cordial - poppy, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, clove - inspired by the Victorian era "cure-all." I'm a big fan of honey (both actual honey and honey fragrance oil), and I love this scent. It's warm and cosy. I can't imagine it cures any illnesses, but it might lift your mood.

Several brave volunteers will be testing these (and others) in the near future before I decide on my shop's opening range. Yay!

Fail: I really wanted to make an aquatic/flower blend with my new oils, and had a lovely idea for a mix of clove, sea notes, and tuberose topped with frangipani. Sadly a mislabelled bottle meant I got vanilla instead of frangipani. The end result was nice, but not as light or floral as I wanted, so I scrapped it. Back to the drawing board on that one. I also ended up binning a couple of other blends that didn't quite work out as planned. Some may be reformulated; others will be consigned to history.

Coming up: Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have millions and millions of new mixing bottles and I can get cracking on some other ideas I've had brewing. I'm getting all excited about the Hobbit film next month, so expect one or two Hobbity-scents to appear. Given the encroaching cold weather, I want to make some deep, warm scents using hot buttered rum and pumpkin fragrances. And thanks to my current obsession with the Hellraiser films, I want to make some Cenobite-inspired solid perfumes. Think lots of leather, vanilla, and spice. Om.