What's New and Why I Haven't Updated

I've been trying to write this off and on for awhile, but it's hard for me to write. However, it has effected my business, and where it's going, so I would like to write about it. Last year I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I had been experiencing a lot of pain off and on for about a year before the diagnosis. I'm not sure if it is really fibromyalgia or something else, but for lack of a better diagnosis, that's what it is. I am receiving treatment for it, which has helped, but I still have many days where I'm exhausted or in too much pain to do much. I have various other ailments, so work hasn't always been easy.

So basically I haven't been always up to making perfumes and such. I've gotten to be rather droppy and spilly, so mixing something up can be messy and wasteful. And you really don't want to spill those expensive essential oils, which are the ones I adore the most.

Going forward, I will be focusing on perfume making, and phasing out the bath and body products. Most of the products for sale now are perfumes, with the other products already phased out. I will be working on some new perfumes on days I feel up to blending, and I will be bringing back the solid single notes.

I will begin selling some perfumery materials, including essential oils, floral waxes, and absolutes. I am also thinking of adding perfume bottles, pipettes, etc. I want people to enjoy these materials, and I feel this is a good way to share them with those who might not be interested in the scents I make. I currently do offer several single notes diluted in fractionated coconut oil through my Etsy store, including 12 different natural rose oils.

I do intend to continue making bath and body products for myself, and I hope to blog about my various experiments. I have all sorts of crazy ingredients on hand in small amounts that I've wanted to test, but haven't gotten around to yet, so I hope to work on those soon. I will also continue my alphabetical essential oil profiles, with nutmeg next.

On my Ivre de Fleurs website, I have started adding a few different product categories. One is vintage, since I started collecting small perfume pendants and lockets with the hopes of using them for my products. I have decided not to do that, so I will be adding some of these to that website. I have also started adding a few jewelry pieces and some housewares I have made. Jewelry making has been a hobby of mine off and on throughout my life, and I most recently started it up again last summer after several years of avoiding it. I've found that jewelry making is something I can handle on all but my worst days. If I drop a bead, I don't have to throw it out (I do have to find it though, which can be tricky). And if working on something is hurting my arms, I can generally put it aside and come back to it as desired. It has made the last year bearable by providing me with a creative outlet on days that I couldn't bring myself to work on the perfumes swirling through my mind.

Product Development and New Brand

I've got a new brand in the works. I want Ivre de Fleurs to be about fragrance, so I'll be creating a new brand for all the other things. And by "all the other things," I'm currently thinking of pretty much everything, but of course, one thing at a time. I'll be announcing the new brand once I have more ready for it. So far it has a name and not much else. Except for some ingredients for me to experiment with. Plant sterols, anyone?

I will keep lip balms, hair oils, and a few other things where fragrance is a key part of the product for Ivre de Fleurs. I'm doing some stability testing for a new lip balm formula to make sure it doesn't turn grainy over time. Grainy lip balm is safe to use, but having a nice smooth one to put on is much better. I am also testing a new hair oil blend with new packaging.

I'm testing perfume bottles out as well!

I also contacted a school about what classes I would need to meet their admission requirements. That was terrifying for me, since it was the first step towards going back to school. And I must say, community colleges are bargains- why don't we all just do 2 years at those before moving on the expensive schools? I think living is all about reminding myself of all the mistakes I made when I was younger. Like going to an overpriced school for four years. And yes, most schools are overpriced. I really wish my alumni association would send me checks, rather than begging me to write one.

Intoxication- Walking Under the Influence (of Jasmine)

I haven't enjoyed moving to Mountain View, but when I'm walking here and there, I can at least enjoy the abundance of flowers here. For a few moments, the fragrance takes me away from where I am. Long stretches of jasmine, large and fragrant roses, and the blossoming trees stop me in my tracks, and all is right and beautiful. I move on sadly, looking forward to the next moment when the scent of flowers fills the air.

I spent several years trying to figure out what to do with my life. I knew I wanted to start my own business at some point, but it took awhile to figure it out. When I started studying perfumery, I knew that I wanted to work with these captivating materials. I feel intoxicated after spending a day in a room full of essential oils, absolutes, and other aromatics. Sometimes it will make me giddy, excited, and just happier. Other times it's so intense and I need to step out for fresh air.

When I started Ivre de Fleurs, I knew I wanted to focus on natural fragrance. Knowing that not everyone likes or wears perfumes, I decided to include bath and body products, like lip balms, hair oils, etc. These would let me share the fragrances with a wider group of people, and allow me to work with different mediums as well.

As time went by and I developed the brand, my mind was pulled this way and that. The products I made and the direction of my brand have led me to a point where I look at what I have, and I'm not excited by it. I've barely blogged the past few months, and without Instagram, I would have barely done anything with social media. I'm not a real fan of social media - I'm more of a keep to myself kind of person - but I keep hearing how important it is for business.

I've spent the time experimenting and studying the past few months, and also figuring out where I want my brand to head. Along the way I pondered so many possibilities, each tempting, but they would take away from what I really want to do. And that is create beautiful and strange fragrances. I'm going to refocus my creative energies on scent creation. I'm going to make lip balms, hair oils, and a few other products, but for now at least, I won't be making soap.

Ivre de Fleurs translates to "drunk with flowers," but so far I've aimed for a more restrained, quiet brand. I hope to breathe life into it with the passion I feel for the materials, and the wild beauty I strive to capture.

"In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo."

-T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

KPFA Show

Here's a picture of my booth from the KPFA Crafts Show. There was a lovely panoramic view of the Bay behind me with Oakland and San Francisco connected by the bridge. It was an awesome show- some many other great artists and craftsmen were there, and the location was rather nice. I didn't like the sweltering heat and blinding light on Sunday, but I still enjoyed it overall. For those who are thinking about going next year, the location is pretty nice and has plenty of free parking. There were often dogs walking around outside (which I could easily see from my booth). Plus an animal shelter had puppies and kittens that were up for adoption by the entrance. It was very nice taking a kitten break.

Selling at the KPFA Crafts Show.

An IP primer for those who don't know what IP means

First, IP is short for intellectual property. This covers patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade dress. The work of your brain, or more often, the work of someone else's brain.

Last night while looking at something on Etsy, someone used "TM" following two terms. I had my suspicions that the USPTO was unaware of these of trademarks, and a quick search revealed they were not. You cannot tack TM on to something and comfort yourself that now no one else can use that word, term, etc. First, TM means you've applied for a trademark, but you don't have it yet. The USPTO can be slow, and if there are any issues, you can be using that TM for a long time. Once you have that trademark though, you can use a little R, for registered. Yay!

If you really want a trademark, and you're the first to use it for the product or service you're providing, go and apply for it sooner rather than later. It's not cheap, but it's cheaper than dealing with any mess that might come about later from delaying it. If you can't afford an attorney, you can apply for one on your own or find a service that helps you file for trademarks.

If you want a patent, you should get a lawyer. If it's something you worked on while at your job, that patent is going to your employer. There are utility patents and design patents, and possibly a few other types I never looked into. I've done a lot of research on patents, but I don't know much on getting one, except that ridiculous patents do make it through the system, and the patent office does make mistakes. To all first year attorneys, that includes acknowledging receipt of documents they never received. Shocking, I know. Fan yourselves and sniff your smelling salts and get over it.

I could go on forever about patents and the patent office (mostly on what I find frustrating about them), but I won't. If you think you have something that deserves a patent, find a patent attorney that can you help you with it. By the way, there are two types of patent attorneys- a patent prosecutor will help you get that patent, and a patent litigator will help you if you're suing or being sued over a patent. I know the patent prosecutor term doesn't seem to make sense, but that's what you need to look for when you want to get a patent.

Copyrights. I don't have much to say about getting them, since it's something I haven't researched. But I must say the same Etsy seller abusing the "TM" also featured copyrighted images on her products, and I'm guessing they weren't licensed. There are out of copyright works and also open content. Even if you don't get in trouble, it's still wrong to steal the work of others.

In the Works and Such

I was really hoping to write more once I no longer had my day job, but I just haven't felt like writing as much as I should. I've had so much other stuff to do, and still more I can do, that I haven't made blogging a priority.

I've been working on some new perfumes, and quite a bit of soap. I'll be coming out with fall/Halloween soaps hopefully in the beginning of October. It can take so long for soap to cure, and since I've gone palm free and soy free, I'm finding it trickier to make a hard bar. I don't think the hydrogenated soy helped much anyway, but even with sodium lactate, I've found some batches hard to remove from the molds. I'll also be working on winter/Christmas soaps soon. As much as I love fall, I truly love winter. The scents, the colors- everything is perfect and beautiful. I really want to capture the freshness of newly fallen snow. It's too bad I'm not likely to see any this year, and haven't seen good snow in a long time. Last year I did see a few patches of old snow in Ohio, but that's not exciting.

I'll be writing more about the perfumes as I post them for sale. I've been having lots of fun with fragrance lately, and I'm even delving into home fragrance! Home fragrance is tricky though- essential oils don't seem to want to blast you in the face the way some people might want them to, so it's taking some time.

No More Day Job!

This past Monday I gave notice at work, with an end date of 8/15. I was honestly nervous beforehand, because I like my co-workers and didn't want to make their jobs harder by leaving. Plus leaving them makes me sad. On the other hand, I'm excited that I finally get to devote my time to turning Ivre de Fleurs into the company that I want it to be. Trying to balance a full time job and a business was draining me, and I couldn't give my best to either one.

I had considered at one point going to back to school to get my Master's in Library Science. This was a truly horrible idea- I hate formal education, even though I tend to do well in school. Without that degree, I had no way of getting promoted at my current work place (which is ridiculous, since I was clearly up to the job). Even with the degree, there was no guarantee of promotion, since it depends on the firm's needs. So then I would have a some-what expensive degree (I estimated about $25,000) that could help me get a job in libraries, except that librarian positions are being cut left and right everywhere.

I can't imagine spending my life doing mostly menial work, with bursts of real research here and there. And there is no beauty in a law firm (at least not the one I worked at). For so long I've been walking down drab hallways filled with every shade of blah. Soon I'll be dedicating my time to making life more beautiful, one drop of jasmine at a time.

I hope everyone gets a chance to pursue their dream job at some point. I feel really lucky that I'm able to do so, since I know that the difficulties of life make it impossible for others. If you have the chance though, take it.

Learning about Lotions Part 1- Preservatives

I've started researching preservatives and other lotion ingredients, and soon I will start experimenting with making lotions again. I don't know if I'll sell lotions- it depends on how the experiments work out. I'll be writing about the various elements of lotions as I go. These are general thoughts, not in depth information on any one item. I find researching lotion making very exciting, and I want to share that knowledge with people who might not know what goes into making lotions. I think it's important to know what is going into the products you use, why they're there, and how they work.

I have made lotions and creams in the past, but I haven't made any to sell. If I were to sell any, I couldn't market my brand as preservative free, because there's no way I'm selling a lotion without something to keep it safe. Recently I've started to feel like calling Ivre de Fleurs a preservative brand is causing me to be a part of the scaremongering against preservatives, and I don't want that. I want to make products as naturally as I can, but I also don't want to be limited to using only ingredients that the average person can pronounce.

I'm starting with some natural preservatives in my experiments. It sounds like they don't work well for the most part, but maybe I can get them to work somehow. The ones I'm trying now are various fermentations and extracts, and some offer additional benefits beyond preserving. If they don't work, I'll start looking into other preservatives. A broad-spectrum preservative system is important to keep your water-based products free from bacteria, yeast, mold, and fungus out there. I've got a little kit to test for preservative efficacy, so I should be able to determine some things quickly, but then you have to make sure it works over time (no separating, no mold or fungus, no other nasty things). If I have a good recipe, I'd need to send it off for challenge testing, to make sure it's verified safe.

Parabens are one of the preservatives that you hear most often about, and usually not in a good way. Parabens are actually really good at preserving products, they are used at very small percentages, and I'm not convinced they'll lead me to a long and painful death. While a lot of people don't bother to check the labels of their beauty products, those that do often don't want parabens in them, so I'll be skipping them.

By the way, honeysuckle extract has a molecule that acts like a paraben. I've only read a little into it, and I'm not sure if it's effective as parabens are, but if you are avoiding parabens, you might want to add honeysuckle extract to your list of ingredients to avoid. Grapefruit seed extract might also have parabens in it- the parabens are being used to preserve the extract, and are then helping to preserve the final product. It seems like there's a lot of controversy on grapefruit seed extract, so I don't want to go there.

Formaldehyde donors are another type of preservative, but I haven't read too much into them yet. I have no plans to use them, but I'd still like to read up on them some more.

There are a few preservatives that can be listed as "parfum" or "fragrance" on a label. If a product claims to be preservative free but lists fragrance, they may or may not be using that fragrance to preserve the product. I've read of two- one that has a rosy scent, and another that's more vanilla/almond. I'm slightly confused as to why fragrance would be preferable to preservatives, but I guess it depends on why you're avoiding an ingredient.

Book Review- Delivering Happiness

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Tony Hsieh, New York, NY: Business Plus, 2012. ISBN: 978-0446576222 (paperback) 978-0446563048 (hard cover)

First off, the hard cover is cheaper is you buy the book used, but if you like your books all shiny and new, I gave the ISBN for the paperback as well, since that's cheaper than the new hard cover copies. I love used books, but generally like finding them in used book stores, where you can see them before buying them. Plus, it's more of a treasure hunt that way.

I borrowed this book from my firm's library- libraries are also great places to borrow books- they let you take them for free, as long as you promise to give them back in a timely manner. It was written by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. If you've never ordered from Zappos, they really are pretty great. The prices are a bit high, but they don't compete on price.

This book would be a good read for a wide audience, whether they are interested interested in business or not. Hsieh goes into some personal stuff and writes about his previous company before going into how he became involved in Zappos. It gets a little weird at times with the Zappos stuff, kind of cultish, but there is still plenty of good stuff to take away from the book.

While I already knew about the importance of customer service and passion for what you do, it made me think more about company culture. It also seemed like Hsieh's investments and efforts for Zappos were a real gamble, that fortunately paid off for him. I'm thinking a lot of his decisions wouldn't work for other companies, but his ideas on keeping employees happy and making sure they're a good fit for the company are good.

I'm not business expert, and this book certainly didn't turn me into one. But if you're looking for an inspiring and somewhat useful business book, I would recommend it to you.

Book Review- An Introduction to Perfumery

An Introduction to Perfumery, 2nd ed., by Tony Curtis and David G. Williams, Port Washington, NY: Micelle Press, 2001 (reprinted 2007 and 2009 with corrections).  ISBN: 9780960875283 (USA) 9781870228244 (UK)

This is a textbook- not light reading, and while it's called an introduction, it's pretty intense for someone who might want a few ideas of things to blend to make a perfume. A lot of it is about working at a perfume house, and if you're anything like me, that's not happening. It goes over things like the chemistry and business of perfumery, including the things you might not want to think about, such as the household cleaners that need scenting. A lot of the experiments talk about using a lab, and if you're just sitting at home reading this, chances are you won't be able to do a lot of them.

I wanted to start with that so that no one invests the money in this book who won't find it suitable for their needs. For me personally, this was a great book, though not always the most fun to read. It covers many aspects, including the aroma chemicals and essential oils that might want to learn about, plus experiments on creating floral bases, such as lilac, rose, and gardenia. If you're interested primarily in natural perfumery, this book is probably not the best for you, since it doesn't go in depth into how to use the naturals.

I liked how it covered the chemistry aspects of perfumery, though those sections were sometimes daunting. The applications of perfumery sections were useful in learning exactly why chemistry is so important- not all scents are suited to all applications. It was a bit silly the way they talked about fragrance and some products you don't associate with fine perfumery, but products like laundry detergent and dish soap have their scents developed by perfumers.

As someone who thinks about top, middle, and base notes, it was also interesting to think of how some products don't need an evolving scent- for example, candles need to give off the same scent throughout their burning.

While the business sections of the book might be interesting for someone, they're more focused on big businesses rather than small, independent perfumers. It covers things like marketing, management, operations, and product development.

While I would not recommend this book to most people, I do think anyone who has a serious interest in all aspects of perfumery and fragrance might be able to useful. While I was certainly bored at times while reading the book, overall I'm glad I read it.

New product ideas and other thoughts

When selling items in person, I notice that what I think is normal in terms of products, other people either haven't heard of them, or think they're strange. Mostly in terms of the oils I sell. Hair oil? Wouldn't that make your hair greasy? Only if you glob it on. With hair oils, you only need a small amount. If you're using it as a hot oil treatment, then you would add a lot more. But as an alternative to a leave-in conditioner, just a small amount works.

Same thing with face oils. A small amount is all that's needed for the face, and if the right oils are used, you shouldn't feel oily. I spend a lot of time researching oils and experimenting with them to make sure they won't feel gross. You do need more for your body, but again, the right oils will absorb quickly and won't leave you greasy.

So now that I'm thinking of new products, and testing them out, I'm wondering what people really want to buy. Current ponderings include things like dry shampoo, facial cleansing grains, scrubs, and bath salts/teas. I am also considering lotion, if I can sell one that I'm comfortable with in terms of naturalness and safety. Also expanding my selection of soaps. But since I can't expand every which way, I need figure which items people really want or need. Any feedback would be welcome.

Also, I have secret products in development. Because even if I want to figure out the products people know about and want, I also want to create things they didn't know they needed until they saw it.

Art vs. Craft vs. Science vs. Gimmick

I was looking for spring/summer craft shows to apply to, and I looked at the pages for some art shows. These types of things go by all sorts of names, so I'll look at pretty much anything that sounds sort of promising. Of course these art shows are "fine art" shows, and fragrance is not an included category. I realize a lot of what I make wouldn't fall under the category of fine art, but I strongly feel that fragrance doesn't get the respect it deserves.

Most perfumes that people buy are more about marketing than scent. Sure, the scent counts, but most of the money goes into making the packaging pretty and paying for all the ads. I don't know if the people making these scents consider it an art, or if they're sitting in their labs looking at what's needed and figuring out the cheapest way to get there while still making a scent that people will wear. Those scents are mostly science- a degree in organic chemistry is actually very useful to anyone wanting to work in a big perfume house. There are some commercial perfumes, and definitely a lot of niche perfumes, that are art. To me it seems like what separates the fine art of fragrance is the passion that goes into, making the best you can with what you have, and creating a scent that has some meaning, even if that will never be clear to 99% of the population. You need mastery over the materials, just like you would with any other fine art.

I aim to be a perfume artist, and hope that if I'm not there yet, I will be soon. Working with scent can be a craft as well. When I assist at a perfume's class, the scents that people make are sometimes nice, but they don't rise to the level of art. That's not to be harsh, but a great perfume requires more time and thought than can be fit into an 8 hour class.

And a lot of what I do is craft- hair oils, lip balm, foot balm, lotions bars- those really aren't art. The scents are usually blended so that the product smells pleasant, usually with hopes of bringing hopes of some benefits to the product as well. So there's a bit of science in there too- nothing that would make me a scientist, but I do research which ingredients do what. Soap makers are working with science and craft. I don't know if those who make fancy swirls and designs consider their soaps works of art or not. I've seen some truly beautiful soaps (nothing I've made- I'm lucky if mine aren't plain ugly), but I'm not sure if there will be a gallery of beautiful soaps, or soap displays at museums. I guess in that sense perfume is getting a little more recognition, since there are occasionally exhibits dedicated to scent.

Beauty products are usually somewhere between craft and science. The ones you see at chain stores are probably mostly science, though don't necessarily fall for all the claims on their boxes. Just because something is made by people wearing white coats in a lab, it doesn't mean it will make your wrinkles disappear. Those who make beauty products on a smaller scale probably do use some science knowledge. You need to understand things like emulsion, preservative systems, and what each ingredient brings to the finished product. But these are handcrafted, not made on an industrial scale.

And then there are beauty products that are gimmicks. These are the most painful to me. I see single oils (like argan oil) being bottled up and sold at a large mark up. If you want 50ml of pure argan oil for less than $48, email me and I'll make you a bottle for less. While some of my products only use a few ingredients, I don't create single ingredients products and then sell them for a huge profit. Though I suppose if those companies are spending a lot of money on marketing, they might not be making such huge profits after all.

TL;DR- I want perfume to enter the world of fine art, and hope to be a fine perfume artist myself. Most of my products are craft, with a dash of science. And I will not sell you a gimmicky product like a single ingredient at a high mark up, unless you ask me to (at which point I'd reduce the markup).

New Year's Resolutions (of a sort)

I'm not big into New Year's resolutions- a lot of them are thought up with good intentions, but hard to follow through with. I do try to think of what I need to do to make the coming year better though.

On a personal level, I feel my life is pretty good, but I'd like to work on a few things. I don't really like my shopping habits, and so I need to work on that. I'd also like to get back to tracking my weight each week- I did that for awhile, and I think it helped, but then slacked off. I don't feel much of a need to lose weight right now, but I'd like to make sure I don't put any more on.

On a business level, I feel like the main thing I want to work on is refocusing my brand. My products feel kind of scattered now, which might not seem obvious, but when I was selling at the SF Holiday Bazaar, I felt like I was a little too scattered.

Since scent is what I care about most, I am going to start by making natural fragrance the center of my brand. While I love trying exotic ingredients, most customers seem to have little interest in the strange and wonderful things I add. So I'll be sticking to more basic (but still awesome) ingredients, while working on exotic scents. I still have a few interesting ingredients to use up, so if you do like trying the latest and greatest, keep an eye out on my Etsy store for limited time items.

Patchwork Show this Sunday!

As stated on here and a few other places, I will be selling at the Patchwork Show in Oakland this Sunday! I will have all of the products featured on my website and my Etsy store. We have six flavors of lip balms, including the Blood Orange & Juniper Lip Balm featured in Conscious Box this month. Our five floral balms will also be available, along with our foot balm.

We are also launching three new products at this show! These will be available online once the show is over.

New Products:
Pumpkin Seed & Cocoa Body Butter- Limited run for November, this is a decadent body butter that is solid in the tin, but melts easily in your hands. While it is made only from oils and butters, it doesn't leave you feeling greasy.

Hair Oils- We have four scents- Lavender Herbal, Geranium Floral, Soft Woods, and Ylang Ylang & Sandalwood. Containing argan oil, camellia seed oil, and shea oil, these oils nurture you hair without the use of any silicones.

Everywhere Oils- Available in Rose Otto, Lavender, and Ylang Ylang. The oils are lightweight, and can be used on your face, hair, or body. The primary oil used in these is camellia seed, a rejuvenating oil filled with antioxidants.

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Conscious Box Giveaway!

Last month I made 5000 Blood Orange & Juniper Lip Balms to be distributed in November's Vegan Conscious Box. It was a lot of work, especially since I had only made 50 lip balms at a time in the past. But now the boxes are being mailed out, and we're giving away three boxes, so you can win a box with the Blood Orange & Juniper Lip Balm along with other eco-friendly samples.

Our Blood Orange & Juniper Lip Balm is a sophisticated take on orange, and features the same premium oils  as our other lip balms. It uses the essential oils of blood orange and juniper berry for its flavor.

Want to buy the lip balm? For November, Ivre de Fleurs is offering the lip for $7.50, 25% off the normal price of $10. We offer this along with our other lip balms in our new shop- checkout the Ivre de Fleurs Website to buy directly from us.

Want to try Conscious Box? For 25% off your first month, go to Conscious Box and order your first box. You can choose between the classic box, vegan box, or gluten free box

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New Products, New Stores

I have two new lip products that will be available for soon- a moisturizing lip gel and a lip butter.

There's very little wax to the lip gel, so it has a soft texture and no waxy feel to it. It comes in a little pot with a silver lid. It uses sunflower wax, meadowfoam seed oil, castor oil, and extracts of evening primrose and orchid. I flavored it with fresh ginger and ylang ylang essential oils, giving it a spicy and exotic flavor.

The lip butter uses rice bran wax and mango butter, but otherwise uses the same extracts and oils as the lip gel. This one is flavored with rose geranium. It's softer than a normal lip balm, but not as soft as the lip gel- basically a nice middle ground between the two. It comes in little pots as well.

Unfortunately, the lip butter pots were overfilled, so all the tops got squished down once the lids were put on them. This brings me to the new stores part- I will be opening a seconds shop on Storenvy this weekend, where I will be selling products with packaging issues at reduced prices. I will be selling the Rose Geranium Lip Butters there. While the lip butters themselves are great, I'm not satisfied with the way the tops look after I put the lids on them.

I will have several Mocha and Lemon Cream Lip Balms for sale on Storenvy, since the original packaging doesn't really work- the labels on the boxes don't stay down, so they don't look that nice. There will be one Rose Otto Lip Balm available, since the box on that one has a small scratch, and one Jasmine Balm where there's a small dent on the lid.

I will also have products for sale on my website soon, as opposed to buying through Etsy. I will still have some products on Etsy, just not as many. Once my new website is up, I will be introducing two new promotions- one product will be sold for a reduced price, and a monthly limited edition product.

For the month of November I will have Blood Orange & Juniper Lip Balms on sale for $7.50- it's a new lip balm flavor, a sophisticated orange. The limited edition product will be pumpkin seed body butter. It won't smell like pumpkin, because there is no pumpkin essential oil, but it will have pumpkin seed oil and extracts, providing your skin with a plant based Omega-3 boost.

More News- Patchwork Show in Oakland & Shops

In addition to selling at the San Francisco Bazaar Holiday Show, Ivre de Fleurs will also be selling at the Patchwork Show in Oakland. I'm very excited to be selling at these two events. I've written a bit about the San Francisco Bazaar in a previous post, so I'll spend a little time on the Patchwork Show.

The Patchwork Show will be on Sunday, November 24 at the Jack London Square Pavilion. It's the weekend before Thanksgiving, so it's a great chance to get some holiday shopping in before many people have even started. In addition to the craft show, there will be food trucks, DIY stations, photo booths, and live music.

In other news, I will be updating my website soon to include a shopping cart. I will still have some items available in my Etsy shop, but will have a wider variety available on the Ivre de Fleurs website.

San Francisco Bazaar Holiday Show

It feels like I haven't written in so long, but there's so much that's been going on! Part of it is a secret for now- I'll write about it in a week or two, once everything is set. For those who know- shhhh.

One of the big things for me is that I got accepted to my first craft show- I will be at San Francisco Bazaar Holiday Show, Dec 7-8, at the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco. I went there last year and bought almost all of my Christmas presents. It's a really great show, and I'm thrilled that my application was accepted.

I plan to have several lip balm flavors available, body balms and butters, and some hair oils (possibly face and body, too), and hopefully some solid perfumes. It's going to be a lot of work for the next few months, but I'm looking forward to it.

Natural Fragrance

Talking about my products with a few people lately, it seems as if a lot of people are confused about natural scents. I only use naturally derived fragrances (essential oils, absolutes, concretes, waxes, enfleurage, and CO2 extractions) in my products, so if someone recommends a flavor or scent, I sometimes say I can't do it, since they don't exist in a natural form. It doesn't help that some companies advertise their products as natural, but don't mention that their scents come from fragrance oils. I'm not strictly opposed to fragrance oils and synthetic fragrances, but I think many people aren't aware that the products they're using aren't scented naturally.

Many fragrances aren't available in a viable natural form. When talking about lip balm flavors, a lot of friends mention various fruity flavors, but they're not available as essential oils. A "natural" flavor can be made, but you won't necessarily know what it's made from.


Citrus fruits are some of the few that can be turned into essential oils, and there really are many wonderful ones to choose from. I keep several types of orange essential oil on hand- blood, bitter, sweet, wild. The different colors of grapefruits and mandarins produce slightly different scents as well. That's not even going into lemon, lime, and all the other citrus fruits you find out there. Citrus oils are often inexpensive, but the main issue is that they can increase photosensitivity, so you don't want to add a lot to products that will stay on the skin. Bergamot is particularly bad due to the bergaptene in it. There are bergaptene free versions out there, so those are a little less likely to leave you burned.

Some essential oils have a fruity smell, such as Roman Chamomile, red raspberry leaf, black currant bud, osmanthus, and boronia. These range in price from expensive to obscenely expensive, so it's unlikely you'll find them in a beauty product, at least not one that isn't equally expensive. Also, while some of them have a fruity aspect, the other aspects to their fragrances make it so that they won't really come of as a simple fruit smell.

Floral scents are pretty tricky. Lots of them are available as essential oils or absolutes, but floral oils are usually pricy. Some are incredibly rare- there's only a small amount of gardenia absolute produced, and it costs a small fortune. Gardenia enfleurage is another option, but again it's too much money for anyone to want to throw it into a soap. I use an absolute and maceration of gardenia in my Monoi Hair & Body Oil (coming soon!), but most gardenia scents out there come from a fragrance oil.

Enfleurage, maceration, and CO2 extractions are options for getting a fragrance out of some flowers that don't otherwise give up their scents. These are expensive and hard to find, so scents like lilac most likely from a fragrance oil.

There are also some flowers that don't have a scent that can be captured. We might long for a natural scent from them, but they either have little to no fragrance of their own, or the fragrance is too delicate to survive extraction.

I don't think people should necessarily avoid all fragrance oils and synthetic scents. They're an easy and inexpensive way to give a product a nice scent. There many high quality fragrance oils out there, some that even use essential oils and absolutes. Without them, we wouldn't have coconut scented soap or strawberry lotion. Scents like rose and jasmine would be available, but many people wouldn't be able to afford them.

Cleaning up my workspace

When I moved across the bay, I was so excited that I finally had my own little crafting room. I bought a giant wooden old filing cabinet with regular cabinets underneath that takes up a lot of space, but holds all sorts of things. I use it for paper, ingredients, packaging, etc. I also have a little plastic table that I've turned into my scent station. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I've run out of room there, and have essential oils taking over other spots. I have a little book case, some carts, and a mini-fridge. I also had a sewing machine, some fabric, and various other crafty supplies.

While getting ready to launch my business, my slightly disorganized space became rather hectic, with papers everywhere, supplies misplaced, and every empty surface filled. I went on a reorganizing mission this weekend. I started with kicking out the non-business craft supplies- those are now out of the way, and might even be easier to use now that they're not competing for space. That cleared up a lot of space, so I got a new tall bookcase and another cart to help me get better organized. After a few hours or moving things into their new places, I finally had a clean space in the middle of the floor, and logical places for my supplies and ingredients.

Things are still a little crazy, but they probably always will be. I tend to know where everything is, even if it's not obvious to anyone else. And some day I will relabel the filing cabinet drawers, which still have the previous owner's labels. For example, I do keep manuals in the "manuals," but I use the "shrunken heads" drawer for bottle caps. I know. It's not nearly as exciting.

My scent station.

My awesome cabinet.