Heads Up!

I'm going to be on holiday between 29th March and 8th Aprill. The shop will be closed on these dates. All orders placed on or before 28th March will be dispatched, but after that you won't be able to place orders until I come back. When I do get back, I'll be launching 5 new scents, so keep an eye out!

Pintrest!

I started a Pintrest account for my perfumey adventures. Follow me and see what's out, what's coming, and what's getting my creative juices flowing.

http://pinterest.com/commonbrimstone/

Alchemy Report

I've had so many ideas for new perfumes lately and no time to experiment. Today was different. Today I have Created. I don't know how many will end up in the shop - some will probably need reformulating, two were custom orders, and two were second attempts at concepts I've had floating around my head for a while. I like to leave everything to age for about a week before testing them on myself and then deciding if they're keepers. But I'm excited about all of them! Some of my favourites from today's session:

Beatrice - Inspired by Dante Aligheri's love and muse, this is an Italian-themed floral and fruit blend. Clementine, bergamot, honeysuckle, orchid, lily, and peach. I wanted something light and feminine for spring - I think this will fit the bill.

Sweet 'Sinthe - I am obsessed with absinthe perfumes. This is weird for me because I don't like absinthe as a drink and, before I started perfume-making, I hated scents like aniseed and fennel. Now I'm some crazy addict. Sweet 'Sinthe is a mix of absinthe, aniseed, clementine, caramel, and a hint of peppermint. This actually brought Kyle running to the kitchen to see what I was making - apparently the caramel note is very alluring!

Hedgerow Tea - I'm not sure how well this one has worked, but I really wanted something with lots of berries, so this is a mix of Earl Grey tea, cranberry, mulberry, blackberry, and a hint of allspice. If it comes out as well as I'd like, this will be a new personal favourite for sure.

There are loads more, but I don't want to give too much away...Keep an eye out for new scents appearing in the shop in early April though!

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!