Greetings Fiends!

Beautiful things for spring! Reappearing is, Pipevine Swallowtail - Aromatic basil and bitter tomato leaf in an ephemeral haze of neroli and tangerine. It is a beautiful creme coloured soap, shot through with burnt lavender, and polished with the smokey blue and grey of the namesake butterfly. This year, we’ve done this up in our signature light Whipped! creme, and a beautiful, orange-saturated, Smooch! body scrub. And in our new glass votive container, a cheerful spring-green Burn!.

Returning favourite Sidewalk evokes my favourite childhood memories with Hot concrete drenched in sunshowers. Summer melons, limeades and fresh-cut grass. It is a smooth soap, done up in cool pools of blue. The equally-blue Smooch! features silken clays and jojoba beads, and is ideal to layer with our Whipped! creme. Always much-loved, the Sidewalk Burn! appears this year in our new glass containers.

Returning soon, our well-received Cucumber & Chamomile toner! We hoped to include it with this release, but encountered some component delays and hope to release it later this season.

Our Staff Pick Smack! for April is Summersweet - A chic selection of Bluegrass, Raspberry Plum, Georgia Peach and light Vanilla Bean! Bookended by our Thai Twist Smack! which exploits that coconut-lemongrass schtick that was so popular a couple of seasons ago. And for good reason - it’s delishus. Ours puts our Coconut Milk, Lemon Meringue, and new Bluegrass single notes to good use, for a creamy/crisp spa moment.

A note about some technical difficulties… PayPal has been sending me notices for ages now that they will be down for maintenance on April 19th. This is, of course, planned for the middle of our April release. While PayPal works on their upgrades, I anticipate timed-out payment attempts, duplicate orders, and no end of fail. So, we will be taking the PayPal method offline entirely during April 19th (midnight to midnight, central time). Feel free to use PayPal for your order for the rest of today, and again on Friday (the 20th). Credit card payment methods will be available as usual!

Enjoy, you guys!

Happy Birthday to me! Today is all cake and candles, soap and sun, and unadulterated awesome. Celebrate with me, and take 31% offa your order subtotal! Use coupon code BIGDEAL during checkout.

Today only, the above code will expire at midnight. Enjoy!

Greetings!

When I first learned that dear friend Delilah S. Dawson was looking forward to her literary debut, I was thrilled, excited, and eager to read any adventure she’d dreamed up. When she asked if I’d be interested in devising scents to embody her characters? Flattered, nervous, stoked! Fortunately, she’s provided such a richly detailed cast that there was no danger of running short on inspiration!

  Wicked As They Come is an imaginative adventure through a blood-tinged, clock-work powered alter-verse and we found it riveting, intriguing and completely inspiring…
Have you ever heard of a Bludman? They’re rather like you and me - only more fabulous, immortal, and mostly indestructible. (They’re also very good kissers.)
Delilah S. Dawson’s darkly tempting debut drops her unsuspecting heroine into a strange faraway land for a romantic adventure that’s part paranormal, part steampunk … and completely irresistible.
“When Tish Everett forces open the ruby locket she finds at an estate sale, she has no idea that a deliciously rakish Bludman has cast a spell just for her. She wakes up in a surreal world, where Criminy Stain, the dashing proprietor of a magical traveling circus, curiously awaits. At Criminy’s electric touch, Tish glimpses a tantalizing future, but she also foresees her ultimate doom. Before she can decide whether to risk her fate with the charming daredevil, the locket disappears, and with it, her only chance to return home. Tish and Criminy battle roaring sea monsters and thundering bludmares, vengeful ghosts and crooked Coppers in a treacherous race to recover the necklace from the evil Blud-hating Magistrate. But if they succeed, will Tish forsake her fanged suitor and return to her normal life, or will she take a chance on an unpredictable but dangerous destiny with the Bludman she’s coming to love?”

We offer three fragrances conjured by these characters - a Magician, a Fortune Teller, a Mermaid…

Criminy is Wicked as they come. Wild vines and open spaces, green things, deep red wine and the sweet bite of brambleberries. . And we’ve done the Magician up in a trickily marbled red-on-black Soap and an evocative Extrait - 6 mls, stoppered in a glass phial.

Letitia is all done up in Blood, blood, blood. Warm red rose and dragon’s blood, neroli and blood orange, a brief glance of magnolia and a clawed shred of cinnamon.. A poignant, warm, 7ml Extrait and a petal-silken Soap in shades of red.

Tabitha is a slightly malicious blend of Fins, frills, and fangs. Saltwater and sweetwater, mermaid bubbles and a bergamot bite. Done up in our classic Soap, and a terribly wearable Extrait.

Product tableaus devised by the creative genius at The Ultramind. Thank you, we have never been more stunned by your eye for detail!

Criminy, Letitia and Tabitha are available for a limited run in our new Wicked As They Come category, but you’ll have to wait until the 27th to get lost in Delilah’s BLUDverse! (Just go ahead and pre-order a copy - trust me.

And returning, belated, for some setbacks and confusion… Retrograde Extrait. Seamless layers of incense and earth - amber, oppopanax, sandalwood, egyptian musk, old oakmoss - sweetened with tonka and black vanilla. Clarifying Bulgarian lavender, a black haze of orchid, osmanthus and narcissus and a jolt of raw black pepper and clary sage. This one will be available through April 4th.

Enjoy!

So, it’s my birthday. Again. This year I’m celebrating with three of my favourites…!

First, my favourite cake! Birth Rite is Layer cake. Lightly spiced with cinnamon and ginger, frosted with berries, and grounded with a resinous skin-scent - precious amber, sweet myrrh, tonka bean and peppercorn. The juxtaposition of spices with resins and juicy berries… quintessential. Why mess with a good thing?

Birth Rite is featured in our classic polka-dot Soap, and our perfectly-formuated Whipped. The best ever layered Smooch!. We don’t do these often, but it’s a lovely concoction of what amounts to 3 different scrubs in one jar. A scrubby layer loaded with resins, another with spice, and a (terribly pink) crushed-berry topping.

This perennial favourite also comes in a very-wearable Extrait. To complement the scent, we offer the Birth Rite Lite Smack! (Layers of Incense, Buttercream Cupcake and Spicetrade, topped with a scoop of Berry Patch.). And a room scent? Try our Birth Rite Burn! votive.

Returning this year, my signature scent, Supervillainess, is “Dry woods, worn-in leather, bittersweet cacao and arabica, succulent blackberry and lime, and a salty thread of cilantro.” The standout in this collection is our Extrait. The scent originated in this format, as an almost completely “natural” blend. That is, it features only two synthetic components, and has far more dimension as a result. Because of the high-concentration of absolutes in this blend, Supervillainess Extrait uses perfumer’s alcohol as a medium (versus our usual blend of vegetable oils). It’s available in a 2ml stoppered phial.

The body products employ a few more synthetic components, but complement the perfume perfectly. A gorgeous purple-on-cocoa marbled Soap, our classic dewy Whipped!, and a beautiful aubergine Smooch! True to our luxury philosophy, the Smooch! is loaded with real pulverised blackberry, and a generous helping of aromatic coffee grounds.

We suggest a complementary Smack! featuring “Equal parts worn Suede, sweet Chocolate Mousse, the bright heat of Spice Trade, and an eye-opening jolt of Espresso.” It is subtle, by comparison to the other products, but provides a lovely base to layer fragrance upon.

Birth Rite and Supervillainess are currently available in our Limited Edition category.

And two terribly yummy, limited run items… Prompted by the fabulous feedback for our Nilotica Whipped!, we’ve decided to expand on the sweet, cream cheese-frosting fragrance! A deluxe-sized Whipped! in our standard, feather-light formula, and a gluttonous Smooch!. This Smooch! is composed of our usual blend of butters and pure confectioner’s sugar. It is literally like bathing in frosting (please, do not test-taste). This Smooch! is what we could qualify as a “body conditioner” - that is, it has minimal exfoliating power.

Thanks for helping me celebrate - this one should be sweet all ‘round!

Greetings, fiends!

Just a few new things for February! We were inspired by Discount Chocolate Day, and came up with a pair of offbeat sweets…

Chocolate Crinkle is Chocolate on chocolate cookie, sweetened with tobacco and dragon’s blood, and spiked with tomato leaf. Appearing in a creamy, cocoa-soaked Soap, we love this one for its depth and bizarre sweetness!

And Ginger Jumble Crunchy sugar cookie, drenched in earth and myrrh, with a sharp bite of lemony ginger. Our signature silky Soap, lightly brushed with cinnamon, this one has a fun bright ginger topnote. We found it absolutely cheerful during this dreary winter!

Another recent release went criminally underpublicised, only putting in an appearance in our blog… We mentioned last month that we were thrilled to begin incorporating Nilotica, the incredible East African Shea Butter we’ve started sourcing through Bead For Life. We asked what product you’d like to see this incredible Shea spotlight-ed in, and the answer was overwhelmingly “body creme.” Nilotica Whipped! is our best-selling Whipped! formula with just a couple of minor alterations… First, all those lovely light oils and butters are completely replaced by this decadent shea butter, creating a slightly more dense, even more conditioning creme for these cold, drying months. Second, we’ve used a touch of healing Oat protein (rather than our usual wheat) making this absolutely gluten free. For now, Nilotica Whipped! is featured in a sweet, cream cheese drizzle scent, and a generous 7 oz jar. Feel good about an indulgence, feel better in your skin. And thank you, so much, for supporting our ongoing efforts to make our dollars matter.

This month’s Staff Pick Smack is a two-parter, featuring two of our brand new Smack! single notes… First, let’s try Lavender Berry Smack! Please forgive the unimaginative name, this one was only inspired by light and sweet and a beautiful true Lavender essential oil. “Two blue scoops of Lavender Sachet, accented with a single scoop of Vanilla Bean, and a single Raspberry Plum.”

And sure, we’re having a mild winter, but warm summer dusks are entirely too far away. Sneak a preview with Porchswing Smack!, “Two cool scoops of Black Tea, one juicy Georgia Peach, and a single dollop of Coconut Milk.”. It’s a tall, cool glass of iced tea with plenty of sweetness.

Stay warm, you guys!