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Author Archives: Georgia's Pampering

Late night ponderings

As I laid in bed trying to sleep I had a pretty awesome revelation. I’m too serious for my own good. Lol. I’ve always been more inclined to be intense and thoughtful (as if that’s surprising considering how many rounds of pondering I’ve posted here lol), but I seriously need to relax and enjoy the moment.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to have products on hand, to keep learning everything that can help others, and do whatever is on my lists. I seem to have forgotten, along the way, that this isn’t what I live on. My business is something to keep me from going bonkers and feeling trapped by my disability, not to make my living. Buh me! I lost sight of the fact that I love learning and making my fun projects, planning, yes – my lists and spreadsheets *grin*, and the delight of the amazing scents that come like Christmas gifts.

A very wise friend that knows me all too well and has for most of my life wrote a text some time back that has always stuck in my mind. I tend to get hurt when others don’t feel the same about something I am passionate about. That was a hard reality to admit to and I realize why it is so true. I am so serious about whatever passion I get wrapped up in that it becomes part of my identity. When someone else doesn’t feel the same it’s more like saying that I gained a few pounds or laughed at my cane. *shaking head* I seriously wish I’d had this realization some time ago. Lol. If I just enjoy the fact that I have the ability to do something that I love and concentrate on my illness, then it doesn’t matter what happens or what others think.

Plus, I don’t need to push so much to handle this as a real business. The same wise friend wrote just the other day that people don’t expect me to be like Bath & Body. They don’t expect things to be the same and don’t expect to get the product when they order it. In the few days since that has bounced around in my mind and took a huge weight off of my shoulders. I fought so hard to prove myself as a medical billing consultant, proving that I may be young but that I really know my stuff, and proving to doctors that I could make their business earn more money. Unconsciously I transferred a lot of that need to prove myself to this business and stacking myself up against Bath & Body. My stuff is different and doesn’t need to be compared to others.

My items are all made for people to enjoy. Every ingredient thought over for quite some time, done carefully and passionately with a hope to help others in some way, and handmade. That sure beats a machine that fills a bottle and a sales person that is impartial about the items on their shelves. Each item is like a poem – crafted with a love for each word, finding beauty in the flow, and images that the words creates. It is my passion and I can seriously love each thing that I do, but I don’t need to take the business aspect so seriously.

It’s such a relief to have shifted my point of view. *big smile* It’s an odd stream of thoughts, but really a concept that I’ve needed to apply to life for quite some time. I need to take care of my family, go to the doctors, take my medicines…I don’t need to schedule tasks to be done at a certain time or certain day, and definitely don’t need to feel like I’m letting people down when I can’t do things. I’m very open about being sick and think that those that are upset by my limitations are out of my life now anyways, so that only the awesome people that understand me are still surrounding me. It’s hard to let down those that care about you, not your business or hobby.

*big cheesy grin* So, the list changes a bit. It’s filled with things I am excited to make, things to learn about and keep me happy, while hopefully helping others, which makes me even happier, and so a circle of happiness should take the place of the horrid disappointment that I’ve had with myself. What an awesome way to start a new day.

For now I’m going to settle in with a fun paranormal romp and heating pad until I can sleep. I think it’ll be some sound sleep when I get there 🙂 I wish the same peace and happiness for you.

Mechanic Soap V2

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Any opinions on which shape/size is preferable? The guest rounds are handy and fairly cheap, since they’re smaller, but I personally like a big bar when I use a “purpose” soap to accomplish something other than pampering. Any opinions? 🙂 Thank you in advance for any comments!

Mechanic Soap V2 follow up

Larry tested the new version of mechanic soap and it works wonderfully! *happy dance* It removed the Goodyear plant muck, which is so hard to do, and works a little better than my sugar scrub. The exfoliants worked well without being too harsh, he said his skin was still moist, and he liked the texture. Awesome! I’m so happy about it. For once he liked the scent and said it should definitely be one of my items. He didn’t notice a mess in the bottom of the tub, either, which was one of my biggest concerns. My second helper had some issues pouring the soaps, but I have a new recipe completed and will make a nice round of soaps soon to replace the experimental batch. Oh yeah ^5

A quick couple of questions

During my Pinterest trolling I ran across some homemade cleansers. I’m seriously thinking about making some to use at home, since I’ll have less likelihood to react with my chemical sensitivities, but I’m debating if that would be a decent small tangent to add to my line…? Any thoughts on this? Also, would you prefer less of a strong scent of good antibacterial EOs with some FO more dominant, like making your kitchen smell like baked goods, or prefer strictly EOs?

Mmmm Andes

Hi, my name is Georgia, and I am addicted to lists and planning. Lol. I just can’t help myself. Somehow creating a list soothes me. I will be honest and admit that sometimes I delete lists just so that I can remake them.

In light of this addiction I have tons of physical and virtual lists of things I want to do and make in my “lab” as my own version of a mad scientist. I added a new inspiration to my list that I’m so excited about that I just have to share.

I can’t wait to get some umph and create some mint chocolate bars of soap. I want to make some green and brown layered soaps to mimic an Andes mint. I make mint cocoa massage and body oils, so I have a great equation for the FOs all ready. I like mixing the visual and scent aspects of soap, as you can tell from my surprise soaps and what not, and I’m hoping that I can pull these off. I’ve been thinking over how to redo my dessert cake soaps for having on hand, since they don’t store well, so I’ll make them when I get orders, and have a different variation on hand. Well, thinking of making chocolate and strawberry layered soap, to follow the scent profile of the dessert cake soaps, I quickly went to some of my favorite desserts and got so excited when I could just see in my mind these gorgeous soaps. A luscious dark brown and a brilliant green layer. Instead of a sandwich I may leave it at two layers if I totally suck, but I’ve done other layered soaps that turned out wonderfully, so I think I just need to decide what is more visually striking to me.

I admit that I haven’t made the bath cookies yet. *sigh* I’m still so excited about them and have been listing options (see, even lists for each idea lol) for what to sprinkle on them to help them look neat. I’m afraid that if I don’t add some herbal topping that they’ll look like over baked sugar cookies or dried play doh. Lol. I’ve been debating what will be nice in bath water, instead of just making it pretty. I sketched a cookie with anise on it, but thought that it would seriously suck to have to clean that out of the tub. I’ve always been so careful to think about my exciting ideas from a user point of view, hence finding my bath tea bags and things like that. So, I’m thinking about experimenting with the new fine iridescent white sparkles to act like sugar. I’m going to roll them in the glitter, like a peanut butter cookie, and bake, and hopefully they’ll resemble a pretty version of sugar. I want something a little more eye catching than just using sugar. If a customer doesn’t rinse the tub could they get ants after using, because of the sugary water residue? *grin* See why I also have a list of devil’s advocate arguments. Lol. I could always use bath salts, but the girly part of me really wants to try out the glitter. *shaking head at self with a laugh* I think sparkly bath cookies would be an adorable addition to the girl combos and would be so adorable to little girly girls. *smile* If the slightly goth and morbid me thinks this glitter is adorable and gets all dorky about it, I figure I have a good chance that little girls will like it too. Lol.

Anyway, that’s a bit of my musings and a small confession that isn’t really a secret to anyone that knows me. *grin* (Btw, don’t you dare tease me about this Dude – you know who you are. *grin*) I have a list of ideas, a few of what to take for events, a ton of to-dos (bless the iPhone 4 reminders app), my previously admitted ones, scent names, and what spreadsheets I want to make. (Yeah, yeah. I all ready admitted that I’m a nerd that loves a spreadsheet, so shush.) In the meantime I’m writing ideas of what to post on Pinterest now that I’ve been invited. I seriously need to quit trolling and replying to questions on other people’s pins regarding EOs and what not. *grin* Have a great day. If you’re on Pinterest today, don’t be surprised to run across georgiasbath trolling. It’s another confessed behavioral quirk 😉

Mawahahaha

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Someways this is exactly how I feel when having to figure up the ratios and cruddy math equations just to make something that smells nice or helps 😉 lol

GoPayment

I ran my first payment via GoPayment, my new credit card processor. I absolutely love that I was able to enter all of my product codes, descriptions, and costs into it, so when I create an order I can just tap on the items. It tallies them up and then you either swipe the card or go to the keyed page. There is definitely a down side to it though. A carryover habit from being a billing consultant is to write “via text” or “via phone”. Well, when I went to “write” that on the screen it seriously looked like a kindergartener had written it. Rofl. I bet customers will get a laugh when they have to sign, although I think we’re all pretty used to electronic signatures turning out wonky. I definitely didn’t expect careful print words to look so bad though! *grin* I was able to text the receipt immediately and love that feature. I never could get the email receipt function to work properly. My customer didn’t want it, but it was a perfect opportunity to familiarize myself. It kept saying that I had entered an invalid email. Um, all three of those were mine, Intuit! I know my own email addresses. Lol. I’ll have to check on that next time. In the meantime I’m tickled that there are extra fraud protection steps with this processor, than Paypal did. This requires the security code and it took more steps to do a keyed card. PayPal was certainly user friendly, but in that I felt it was disturbingly easy to do a keyed transaction. This app sure makes me feel a lot better about working to protect my customers. I was even able to zero out the sales tax, since I added it into my prices to make it easier for everyone, which is a really nice feature in my opinion. Overall, I definitely will be recommending this processor to any and all. 🙂 Now if I could only fall asleep or get the umph to go make some bath cookies….*grin* Happy Sunday!

Baby wipes

Yesterday my helpers (two helpers now!) were in the mood to work and learn, so I was able to get several things done with their help.

I utilized the tween energy to make some goat’s milk lotion, since she could stir almost nonstop without it bothering her. I experimented with my new Coffee Bean FO, which definitely needs a lot of experimentation to find the right ratio! Anyway, a ml was so eye-watering that I added three versions of vanilla to mellow it out a bit. It still needs a lot of help, but anyway…My new helper enthusiastically loved it, while my nose was wrinkled and I turned the fan on to get the stink out of the room, so that experiment became her gift for helping, and she will be the tester for the Coffee Bean. (Did you know that some Tweens drink coffee before school?! I couldn’t believe how young the coffee drinkers are getting. Whoa, I’m out of touch.)

Anyway, I needed to make a batch of lavender GM samples and had her follow my recipe (a great chance to teach about measuring liquids, reading mililiters, reading recipes, and observing thorough cleanliness), and I commented about being glad to be done with the lavender items, since I can’t stand lavender. My helper took a sniff and suddenly I almost saw a light bulb come on over her head. “It smells like baby wipes!” Hm, that’s not really what I aim for when making products. Lol. She made a few comments about how neat it was to be able to make stuff smell like things from the store (which, admittedly, it is, but please not something associated with butts *sassy wink*) and we did a little lesson about the importance of chemistry, the difference of FOs and EOs, and how to read/apply ratios. I was still mulling over baby wipes when I noticed her over by the mechanic soaps.

Apparently Tweens still retain the childhood curiosity that makes them want to poke stuff. Lol. Thankfully she understood the importance of not touching or disturbing the sellable items, but that tester bar would have been crying from being poked and prodded so much if it was alive. *grin* The poor bar has wrinkles, fingerprints, and bits of soap dripping UP the mold. I had to keep reminding her to wash, because she was over there playing in it as it set anytime I turned, and rubbed it in like lotion. It was rather funny and I think it was intriguing to watch a liquid solidify in person. Actually seeing the process, “like making an ice cube”, seemed to make her day. I do think that I’ll avoid soap making with the girls over though, since I haven’t developed the eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head thing yet. *grin*

By the way, a great way to get a tween to handle processes carefully is to say that you could go to jail for not following the instructions. I doubt that it was so much about me going to jail, but more of not being able to be around the product making anymore, but I’ll take what works. Lol. It really worked for stressing the importance of every quarter mililiter being exact and I don’t feel guilty at all. It gave me a smile to hear “we can’t have you going to jail” after the baby wipes kick to the ego. *grin* I’ll take what I can get 😉

Lava soap has nothing on me

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*grin* I couldn’t resist spouting off. I decided to alter my mechanic’s soap a bit after some reading and exploring textures. My original mechanic’s soap focused on the pumice, just like the traditional soap. I played a bit with the recipe for Christmas gifts and took it a step further this time. Now I have finely ground oatmeal, the pumice, finely ground apricot seed, and now milled flax seed. It definitely made an odd looking slurry, although my helpers thought it was “so weirdly cool”. It has a grainy texture from the pumice and then a real sloughing ability due to the other additives. I can’t wait to see how it works against Goodyear residue. Usually that’s my big test for male items. Lol. My scrubs sell decently for men strictly because I can honestly attest that it is (hopefully was *crossing fingers*) the only product to ever remove the Goodyear residue on my husband’s hands and arms. No commercial item has ever worked well. I had a heck of a happy dance when he tested the scrub and was in awe as he showed me the results. I’m really hoping that testing of this version works as well. I’m also thinking about using this recipe with my luffa slices to make an extreme exfoliation combo. Top it off with my new Twilight Woods for Men FO and I might have a new best seller. (Dude, it smells soooo sexy *dreamy sigh*) Anyway, I couldn’t wait to share. They’re not pretty, but hopefully they work wonderfully. I know that I was happy to use some goat’s milk lotion after handling it, since I definitely got an exfoliation lol. Sweet dreams!

A little funk

I managed to get myself up and made a batch each of goat’s milk V2 and V3. Interestingly enough the silky emulsifying wax (V3) melted and incorporated much better and quicker than the pot of V2. That was admittedly a little surprising, since the first batch of V3 I ever made had odd little bulbs of wax that didn’t fully melt and incorporate. Granted that it looked really freaking cool in a colored bottle of lotion (think small tapioca pearls kind of look in a gorgeous lavender lotion).

Anyway, I made two batches of samples and then some 4 oz bottles to have on hand for the citywide garage sale next week (or the one after). I decided that I should make Soda Shoppe in V3 for those that love the scent, but don’t want the thick feeling of the V2 that I have on hand. Of course I was tickled making that and having a little to “test”. *wink*

I decided to do some unscented, dreamsicle, and spa; all best sellers except unscented. They smelled so good and made a tremendous mess. Lol. When I started cleaning up I had little blobs of lotion left behind and I hated to wash it out, so I figured I’d utilize the extras as I was washing the equipment up.

I really didn’t think about the funk from rubbing in dabs of these scents all over. Add some lavender, which I can’t stand the smell of anyway, and I’m a walking sensory what-not-to-wear example. *cracking up* I still like the spa on my elbow and it works well with most of the scents. The dreamsicle and root beer float make a horrible scent when mixed, I must admit.

I really need to think through these things. Lol. I need to make another batch of sample lotions and maybe some bubble wash. I’m not sure what I’ll have my helpers do other than attach lotion labels tomorrow. I planned on making bath cookies with them, which I think will be a super fun new product, but discovered that I’m out of cornstarch, so I’m back to the drawing board. I might let them help me pour Acne Bee Gone Soaps or Mechanic soaps, since they enjoyed the fact that they really had a hand in making the last batch of soaps. Whatever we do, I’m not wearing more than one scent, that’s for sure!!