Do marketers dictate consumer behavior?

As our Christmas festivities were winding down I sat down and the television happened to be on. And when I saw my first commercial for some weight loss scheme I was thoroughly disgusted. Can't we revel in the enjoyment of the holidays before laying a burden on consumers that they now have to get back to obsessing about appearance? This obvious shift in retailer marketing from buying gifts and decorating your house for the holidays to organizing, weight loss, and cleaning has always fascinated me. It's like which came first? Consumer demand or marketers creating awareness of "need" by their marketing strategies.

The idea that marketers influence our culture to such a high degree really bothers me. But they do. Do you know anyone who has not now moved to considering a new diet or new way to organize their life? It's a sad but true state of consumer behavior. I have to admit, I am also contemplating going on a detox diet. And I'm considering how to reorganize my gluten free pantry to make all my flours more accessible and easier to work with. I think it's natural to emerge from the busy days of holiday preparations and festivities with a desire to clean out the old and bring in the new. But honestly do we have to let retailers dictate and influence our behavior to such a high degree?

I want to rebel! How should I do this? By not going on a diet and living in a messy cluttered house? I haven't figured out exactly how to rebel, if you have any ideas let me know. But one thing I know for sure, I do not look forward to all the extra people showing up at the gym in January. It makes it hard to get my spot in Pilates. Maybe the frenzy will wear off sooner this year. It's not nice for me to be so cynical about the new members new years resolutions. I AM very supportive of people trying to work out more, but the efforts never seem to last past the month of January. Perhaps I'll see you at the gym?

Shopping ideas for the women in your life

Hey guys:

I'm getting ready to host a men's shopping night featuring my product line of naturally good soaps and bathing essentials. This shopping guide is broken down into two sections. One section is for gifts that would be great for any girl: moms, daughters, co-workers, someone who works for you, etc. And then there's suggestions for your significant woman, the one and only!

Any girl gift ideas for under $10:

A bar of soap made from luxurious all natural ingredients and replete with awesome aroma will be sure to please. Several soaps have a free gift wrap option, consider Candy Cane, Mint Chocolate Chip, Idaho Mossmint, Lavande Bleu or consider the two soaps gift set for $14.75, your choice of two luxury soaps come already packaged and ready for gift giving. If you have no idea what aromas your girl likes, stick with Lavande de Bois' tried and true customer favorites: Lavande Blue or Mint Chocolate Chip or Orange Spice.

A gift for the hands that help you: a naturally good soap paired with a hand salve provides practical yet luxurious care for her hands. Lavender soap with a Lavender Hand Salve or try Lemongrass Poppy Seed with a Lemon Drop Hand Salve. These will also make great stocking stuffers.

For your honey:

Bath Rx kits contain everything a woman needs to create a personal spa experience. Lavender essential oil, known for it's calming influence on the mind is the star player in the Relaxing Bath Rx. This kit contains an assortment of lavender bath products and our Relaxing Massage Oil blend which unites lavender with a hint of mint and cedarwood to create an aroma that relaxes and sooths the mind and body. The Happiness Bath Rx incorporates orange essential oil which is known to encourage feelings of happiness and creativity. The Ginger Passion Massage Oil marries citrus essential oils with ginger essential oil to create stimulating and energizing aroma.

Bath Rx Kits are $38.00 and include the following all natural handmade body essentials encased in woven mesh bag:

Salt Scrub

Handcrafted Soap

Wood Soap Dish (to extend the life of her soap)

Massage Oil (can be used as a bath oil or massage oil)

Spa Salts

What? Your honey doesn't take baths? In that case I can adjust the kit to contain only products that are suitable for the shower. And well you can provide the massage.

Have you ever thought of treating her with gifts for the 12 days of Christmas? Twelve gifts arrived gift wrapped for you to surprise her with. Please order by December 8th so you can start the gift giving on December 14th. Not so organized? Then fill her stocking with 12 pre-wrapped gifts. Kit includes: 2 Lip Balms, 2 Hand Salves, 2 Therapy Salts, Wood Soap Dish, 5 Handcrafted Soaps. All items are different. Retail value: $61.25. Kit price: $54.95.

To place an order call me at 208-761-9775 or email me at susanne@lavandedebois.com. Most of these items can be purchased individually on the webstore. However the Bath Rx and 12 Day of Christmas kits have to be ordered via phone or email. These kits can also be placed in a gift basket and wrapped beautifully for your honey.

TLC Bar makes its debut

I’m so excited to present my latest soap creation, the TLC Bar! This soap has been in the works for a while, but what I’m excited about is I’ve decided to donate $1.00 from the sale of every TLC Bar to Turn the Corner Foundation, a foundation dedicated to support research, education, awareness and innovative treatments of Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.

The trials and travails of Lyme disease came on my radar last year when my little sis was diagnosed with Lyme disease. It was shocking to watch her go from active mom of two boys to struggling to survive. I’m so proud of her for staying with the fight and looking for answers to puzzling health problems. Thanks to Lyme aware doctors she is on the road to recovery! And she’s using some of the health she’s recovered to work toward the fight against Lyme disease. You can read about her story on her blog and on Spirochicks.

Recently I was diagnosed with Lyme disease as well. Alas there may be an explanation why chronic illness has been chasing me for 15 years!

The TLC bar? Well it’s full of naturally good ingredients, a bathing essential for people with chemical sensitivities and allergies. Olive oil, known to be gentle on your skin, is infused with calendula petals, creating an extra soothing oil base for this soap. Just a hint of lavender essential oils and ground calendula petals are added to create wonderful soothing aroma and soft texture.

I started experimenting with this recipe when I was looking to create a soap for my “Baby du bois” line. The feedback was that the ground calendula created light texture not really desireable for babies skin. But the aroma was out of this world! The ground calendula combines with lavender essential oil to give this soap it’s fabulous aroma. So I had to keep the recipe as is. And here it is!

I invite you to give this soap a try and join the fight against Lyme disease.

All of my soaps are made with naturally good for you ingredients and suitable for people with sensitivities. Of course, sensitivities are highly individualized. Please see the following pages for additional ingredient information.

LDB natural handmade soaps ingredient information

LDB natural goodness committment

What does natural mean at LDB?

Peppermint craze is back!

I went crazy for peppermint last year when I created the recipe for my Candy Cane soap. In one season this soap cultivated a loyal following of customers who've been waiting all year for me to make it again. Well it's back with a new twist! Now made with local peppermint and some organic ingredients. I was able to acquire peppermint and spearmint essential oils from a local grower. I'm elated to say that I'm now able to incorporate locally grown and distilled mint into all my mint soaps. And this first batch of Candy Cane soap is comprised of over 60% organic ingredients. My organic supplier had some supply issues this fall, so the next batch of Candy Cane soap is less organic. If you're looking for the wholesome goodness of mostly organic soap be sure to purchase your Candy Cane soaps while supplies last.

Also available to satiate the peppermint palate is my Cocoa Mint Lip Balm. I experimented on friends and family last season by giving out White Chocolate Peppermint Popcorn with a Cocoa Mint Lip Balm attached for their lip smackin' pleasure. It was a big hit.

And since I'm going crazy for peppermint these days ... you might be seeing some additional peppermint products soon ... like White Chocolate Peppermint Body Butter and Candy Cane Salt Scrub. Can't wait for them to appear on the webstore? Drop me an email of phone call. They're made and ready to take center stage at my holiday events.

Gluten free diet ... living without?

Over twelve years ago a nutritionist challenged me to get off wheat. What I discovered is, after having a headache every day for fifteen years, I could virtually extinguish my migraine-like headaches by eating gluten free. Of course I've fallen off the wheat wagon many times. It is just plain hard to live in a world of glutinous options especially when you're traveling or eating out! But several years ago when my oldest son tested positive for wheat allergy, I had to regain my resolve, it wasn't just me who suffered when I didn't work hard at providing alternatives. A teenager living in a glutinous world had even more challenges. I called the school dining hall to find out what options there would be for him. The answer: "we don't do that". So it was up to mom to figure it all out. Through trial and error we soon discovered how important it was for him to adhere to the diet. I would pick him up from school and I could tell by the way he carried himself when he ate pizza. Not only did it make him fatigued it affected his entire demeanor and cognitive abilities. I'm really proud of him today, as an athlete trying to perform at the top of his ability he knows what he needs to do, and he's doing it! This past summer, I decided to try the diet on my youngest son who's symptoms were moodiness and chronic dark circles under the eyes. The result: a new kid!

Last year my little sis gave me a subscription to Living Without, a magazine for people with food sensitivities. It's been a good source of baking ideas and medical information. But one of the things that intrigues me is this idea that I'm "living without". It leaves me with this feeling that I'm somehow missing out. Well I'm here to tell you that embracing a lifestyle that chooses to eat the foods that fuel your body without burdening it with foods you're allergic to is far from living without. I guess you could call it living within. Sure, living within the constraints of my body's needs has been so frustrating. And having two kids that have followed my genetic disposition for food sensitivity has been really hard! At first I internalized it as pressure, I felt this great huge burden to provide for them. And while I have been working hard at providing options for them I've had this growing list of new food sensitivities to deal with for myself. So at times I would be providing sometimes up to three different meal options for my family of five! Providing food for myself and my family this past year truly has been one of the most challenging tasks of my parenting "career".

But what I've discovered as the key to success in this journey is as simple as the perspective shift from "living without" to "living within". It is that simple. I'm living within the constraints of mine and my family's needs. And what I've discovered is that food can taste really good, even without wheat, sugar, eggs, etc. In the past I hadn't been much of an experimenter in the kitchen. One of the things that becoming a soap artist has taught me is to experiment with new things all the time. And those experiments of good and bad have led to great new discoveries of what I like, things that I didn't know I would like. So now after years of following food recipes to a tee I'm finally experimenting with them. Having multiple food sensitivities of my own, and the needs of my boys, have pushed me to a new level of creativity in the kitchen.

But I could not have gone down this path without the help of people who were willing to share their ideas, people I REALLY appreciate! I met Jody last year, soon we were conversing about diet and discovered our common concerns. She being farther down the road than me has been an amazing source of ideas and inspiration. Thank you Jody! She also pointed me to Tom and Ali's cookbook and blog. Ali's recipes are amazing! She has totally engineered her recipes to perfection. I have not tried a single one that wasn't good, in fact, most of them are just downright awesome. I followed the elimination diet in their cookbook and on their website and it has been enlightening. One of my discoveries is that I'm allergic to rice. Even though many of Ali's recipes incorporate rice flour I've been able to adjust the flours in her recipes and they still turn out fabulous.

So here's a note of gratitude for the people who've shared their gluten-free experiences with me. And you know what I've discovered now that I've made the perspective shift to living within? It's really not as hard as I thought it was because mom feels so much better and so do the kids! And there's also something satisfying about taking an insurmountable challenge by the horns and going with it.

So here our some of my favorites for Tom and Ali's blog to help get you started:

Gluten free waffles I have to make these every Saturday now! We freeze the leftovers and the boys eat them throughout the week. They taste great slathered with my new sugar free jam!

Cucumber Tomato Basil Salad I was eating this daily at the height of our tomato and cucumber harvest. So fresh and scrumptious!

Spicy Summer Black Bean Salad This was another amazing harvest salad recipe. Love the flavors all together, and the black beans for protein.

Maple Raspberry Scones Now this one is downright awesome. I was so sad when our raspberry harvest came to an abrupt end with the coming of frost.

Brain cloud or inspiration?

Do I have a brain cloud? I just love the movie "Joe versus the Volcano", you know when his whole world is dreary, clouds in the sky, no windows at his desk, a buzzing florescent light bulb, a lamp that doesn't work, etc. Joe's life is depressing and when the "doctor" tells him he has a brain cloud, he believes it. Well, my life is not depressing, but there are days when I think I must have a brain cloud. And in many respects I do, it's called menopause and lyme disease. I'm not going to bore you with the sob story just the net result.

So I've been working on creating a facial cleansing soap for quite some time. This work was inspired by the events that lead me to leave my mask behind. And I've been testing my recipe on friends and family with rave reviews. (We don't product test on our chocolate lab, Chip, even though he is a member of the family, or any one else's pet for that matter. Although, when I start working on creating a pet soap I may have to bend the no animal testing rule just to make sure they like it ... we'll see). So anyway, lot's of people trying it and loving it and I start making it to add to my product line. And I let my customers know it's coming in October.

Then I'm laying awake in bed one night thinking about the ingredients in the new face soap and what to tell people about it. And I think about this one ingredient that was placed in the soap because it is so great for your skin called "wheat germ oil". Anyone who knows me knows I am allergic to wheat. I avoid it all costs, gives me migraines and other maladies. I also have a ton of other allergies. And because of that my customers kind of look to me to provide allergy friendly products. While I did not seem to react to this face soap many people who suffer from wheat allergies or celiac disease do not use any products that have wheat in them. So anyway it begs the question, how did "wheat germ oil" somehow cross the barrier and end up on my shelf. I would have had to order it, then look at the label every time I added it to the recipe. And mind you I've made this recipe quite a few times. Hence the brain cloud question. Anyway, I'm laughing it off. But as I tried to figure out how to explain to my customers why the face soap isn't here as planned the only thing I could figure out was to totally own my condition as chronically suffering from brain fog. So what next? Should I jump in a volcano?

While hiking up to the top of a volcano and jumping in it as it's about to erupt does sound rather exhilarating, I've decided to go back to the creative drawing table on the face soap. The net result, the new new face soap is going to be even better! I'm still in the testing phase on this. But you can look forward to rice bran oil instead of wheat germ oil, and some awesome additives, like pomegranate seed oil and rose hip seed oil. I can't wait to be able to offer it to my customers. But for now I have an awesome new face soap for my shower. And, well having a brain cloud isn't so bad when it leads you to rethink the equation.

Update on organic soaps

As you may now from the post Organic Harvest I've been converted to this commitment to going organic. I have a supplier that has been great at providing organic base oils for my soap. Well apparently they completely ran out in early September. And I have been waiting for their organic oils to come in. And waiting... October is my biggest production month of the year as cold processed soap takes four to six weeks to cure. I couldn't wait any longer for their shipment to arrive and had to order from another supplier this week. So I'm said to say that for the time being my soaps won't be as organic as I'd like. But I do have a lot of soaps in inventory that have over 60% organic ingredients. So if that's important to you, let me know when you place your order so I can pick through my inventory and get the most organic ones for you.

Sugar Free Raspberry Jam

I guess you could say I've been on a sugar free kick, or rather a sugar free lifestyle change. I just don't feel that great when I eat sugar, so why bother? Well it's really hard to find sugar-free alternatives. And most of the time sugar-free recipes call for chemical replacements. I don't do sugar chemical replacements either, they make me feel worse. So when it was time to make our traditional raspberry jam this year I was in a quandry. I started doing some research and discovered I needed special pectin to make jam without sugar. I found Bernardin and I've been pleasantly surprised by the results. I made three variations of the same recipe. I like them all, but I think the Raspberry with Blueberries and Acai berry juice is pretty sweet. A little disclaimer here: my husband, a lemonade addict, says they're all kind of tart. So here you go if you're looking for an adventure in Sugar Free Raspberry Jam:

Raspberry w/ Apple Juice
3 cups raspberries
1 cup applejuice
1 packet bernardin pectin

Raspberry w/ Apricot Nectar
3 cups raspberries
1 cup sugar free apricot/pineapple nectar
1 packet barnardin pectin

Raspberry/Blueberry Jam w/ Acai Berry Juice
2 cups raspberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup Acai/blueberry juice
1 packet barnardin pectin

I'm sad to say the raspberry crop is gone now that we've had several nights of frost. We picked by headlamp last week when we realized the frost was coming. But it sure was fun while it lasted.

Want to find bernardin? Go to http://www.amazon.com/Bernardin-Pectin-No-Sugar-Needed/dp/B000FRVVJW

Need more recipe ideas? Go to http://www.homecanning.com/can/ALRecipes.asp?R=660

Organic Harvest

I had no idea that "going organic" would impact so many areas of my life and thinking. First it invaded my shopping and eating patterns. As part of a new eating plan I started last January I began a committment to buying organic foods to bump the nutrient density of what went in my mouth and to reduce chemical exposure. It's expensive yes! So I started slowly adding more and more organic foods each shopping trip while our budget adjusted.

Then it impacted my gardening principles. As I continued to purchase organic foods this conviction started brewing: "how can I buy and eat organic foods while at the same time loading my lawn and garden with chemicals?" So off to Barnes and Noble I went to find some books on organic gardening.

Applying organic gardening principles to my vegetable garden wasn't so hard, after all we were going to eat the harvest. We had utilized mostly organic principles for many years, it was just a matter of taking it to the next level: a firm conviction to add no chemicals. I knew the hardest areas would be pest and weed control. Well we did it. We made it through the entire growing season without using any chemicals on any part of our yard. There have been moments of doubt like when the squash bugs were attacking our pumpkins and zuchini. I scoured the shelves at the gardeners supply for an organic remedy for squash bugs. The salesperson sounded pretty doubtful when he said "this one is organic". We handpicked larva and bugs and sprayed the organic soap on the backs of the leaves. Admittedly, I was surprised when the effort saved our plants!

As far as the lawn goes, it looks terrible. It's full of weeds. We have a huge lawn so handpicking the weeds is, well, unlikely. Thankfully it will go dormant soon and we can take another whack at it next year. There are some good ideas in the organic gardening books that we can implement next time around, but for now, I'm choosing to live with the weeds, the look of not perfection, because I'm sticking with my convictions. If the chemicals are bad I can't contribute to the chemical mess by using them.

I guess going organic is contagious, or perhaps it's just that deep personal convictions tend to invade every arena of our lives. When I first started my business occasionally I would meet someone who was looking for organic soap. In my mind I thought that I might some day go organic or I might make a few organic soaps, but only if my customer base was looking for it and willing to pay for it. Even in this my thinking has shifted. I can't just create what I think people are willing to pay for. The things I create and bring to the world must be consistent with my own personal convictions. So I'm starting slowly in this as well. I've made a shift in two major ingredient players in my soap:coconut oil and palm oil. Now they're organic! And so far I've been able to do this without a shift in pricing. The net result is that my typical soap recipe is comprised of a minimum of 56% organic ingredients. And I have a yummy organic cocoa butter, so in the recipes that have cocoa butter: Orange Chip, Mint Chip, and Candy Cane (coming back for the holidays very soon!) almost 60% of the total ingredients are organic! Quick disclaimer: this is a go forward decision, and some of the soaps in my current inventory were produced pre-thinking shift. So bear with me as I complete the conversion.

Going organic has been an adventure well worth the effort. We're enjoying our garden's all organic harvest. Everything in the photo (above) is from our garden.

A Place Called Home

Recently we took a ten day vacation that was just pretty awesome. Spent six days on the beach playing, reading, and sleeping, then another few days visiting friends in our old stomping grounds. It was all great fun and so relaxing. But this body of mine is not so adaptive to travel so when day ten came around I was ready to embark on the long drive home. We got a late start and ended up driving late into the wee hours of the morning. I dozed off several times. We were dropping out of the foothills into our valley when the familiar aroma hit me and wow did it smell good.

There's an irony in the "wow". I can only describe the aroma as a combination of cow manure, rotting mint, onions, and farmland dust. I have grown to love that smell and it evokes the sweetest memories. Of course I live in Idaho's treasure valley year round and I don't "smell" it. But when I leave and come back it's like this aroma pleasure every time I do. Who would ever have thought that cow manure, rotting mint, onions, and farmland dust could smell so good? Well it does and here's why: I've found this place I call home. It's not perfect, it just a place where we've put our roots down and we're raising our kids. There's trial and error, just as there are ups and downs, but it's where we are, it's home, and wow does it smell good even if there's a little cow manure thrown in there.

This post inspired by Switchfoot's song "This is Home" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwa8-3GXbuE. Yeah, I borrowed my teenage son's ipod while he was driving. I needed something to distract me!

When to hire a mold expert

Don't bother. Recently we hired a mold expert to do indoor air samples as we were concerned about a mold problem in our home. The tests came back and according to our "expert" we didn't have anything in our home that needed treatment. Yes the air samples had mold in them. But according to the experts the mold we had in our sample wasn't statistically significant enough to point to an indoor source. He believed that what was in the sample had been tracked in by people and dogs. My symptoms told me otherwise. The expert looked at me like I was crazy when I told him I was sure we had mold.

At a loss for what to do next and a word for the experts that we didn't have a treatable mold problem, we installed an infinity air purifier to our HVAC system. The air purifier kills mold, dander, bacteria,viruses etc. Within 5 days I was feeling much better and actually in certain parts of the house had no symptoms. However, certain rooms would flare up my symptoms. So we bought an $8.00 mold kit from Lowe's. Big surprise ... the test was positive for mold! The picture above is our mold petri dish after 5 days.

So the hunt for a mold source was on. We removed carpet in our home office. We had already removed my son's carpet before the air samples were done, but when we went back in to remove the carpet in his closet we discovered mold underneath the carpet and up his wall and in his ceiling. So much for the expert advice! My recommedations for anyone out there with mold suspicions: "find it yourself!" In our case the expert did not lend a bit of help to the situation, in fact he temporarily through us off the trail of what we needed to find. I was getting sicker by the day. I am so thankful for my husband who hung in there with me on the hunt.

Moral of the story ... be your own mold detective. If you find yourself facing a mold situation you might refer to this website for information http://www.aehf.com/

Mint Chocolate Chip Soap reviewed by The Soap Bar

I know I make awesome good soap because my customers rave about it. They say things like "the aroma lasts the whole bar. I've used soaps and the aroma dies before you're done with the soap." Or they say "Your soap lasts a long time". But honestly I rarely use someone elses handmade soap from start to finish. So I don't always know how mine is stacking up against the competition. Naturally I was thrilled when Joanna at the Soap Bar, an experienced soap maker and soap enthusiast, reviewed my soap. You can read her comments at http://thesoapbar.blogspot.com/2009/06/mint-chocolate-by-lavande.html

When I started blogging it was to tell the stories behind each soap recipe. Soon I started writing about life snippets and my quest to discover healthy life alternatives. But now would be a good time to talk about my Mint Chocolate Chip soap. This one is near and dear to my heart for one reason. I LOVE chocolate! I am an absolute chocoholic more recently converted to dark chocolate because of the health benefits. But this is a no calorie alternative for me. I get real mixed comments from first time soap converts. Some think chocolate in the shower sounds terrible. And others think it looks good enough to eat. The truth is the cocoa butter in this soap adds wonderful light bubbles to the lather. It is absolutely luxurious on the skin. This soap has an extremely smooth texture. The spearmint essential oil blends with the cocoa butter to create light refreshing aroma. The aroma refreshes your mind while the soap soothes your skin.

Leaving the mask behind

Recently my doctor said that I am chemically sensitive. This was no great news flash to me since I’ve been very aware of my chemical sensitivities over the years. In the past year I have plunged into buying organic food and scouring labels for hidden ingredients that are counter to my quest for good health. The doc did have a new twist on this quest. He suggested that my cosmetics might be a source of chemicals that has left me with chronic illness. Wow …

I’ve been thinking about a whole new change to my cosmetics for a long time. I’ve been aware that there are chemicals that mimic estrogens in cosmetics. And for my body estrogen is the enemy. But once I started looking at the chemicals in my cosmetics … yuck no way do I want daily exposure to this stuff! So then I started the quest to find replacements. I thought that would be relatively easy in this day and age with so many progressive consumers seeking better more healthy alternatives in every venue of life. So off to the local Co-op I go and I return with some wonderful alternatives. But …

I brought home eleven new skin care and cosmetic products. I rechecked the ingredients through my online sources and decided that one of them was beyond my comfort level of scary ingredients so that one would be going back. The rest looked pretty good. So I decided to try the rest all at once. I proceeded to have itching and burning reactions. So after a long process of trial and error I figured out the four items I’m sensitive to, and the rest are working fairly well. This new quest turns out to be not so easy! I now have huge gaps in my face prep line up! What’s a girl to do without foundation to hide all the blemishes and uneven skin tones?

I have been using make up since I was a teenager. I was taught (by cosmetics companies of course) that you always put foundation on to protect your skin from free radicals and dirt that might cause blemishes and premature ageing. What they didn’t teach me is that the foundation has chemicals in it that are known to cause cancer, neurodegenerative disorders and a host of other things. I feel like I’ve been duped by cosmetics manufacturers into unnecessarily exposing myself to toxic chemicals under the guise of good skin care for over twenty-five years!

I find that I’m caught between this need, this drive to eradicate all things harmful from my environment and this compulsion to live in the culture as I always have, with my mask on! Can I do it? Can I put the mask aside, the foundation, the lipstick, eye shadow, blush, eyeliner, lipliner, and mascara as a step toward embracing healthy living? I’m starting small. I’m leaving off the foundation. I’ve found more healthful alternatives of the others.

Since I've been talking about my quest to erradicate the hidden chemicals in my life people have been asking about how to get more info. So here's a couple links to try if you're ready to take the plunge:

Skin deep cosmetic safety reviews http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/

Consumer Health Organization of Canada http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=19990303213610

Gluten-free Dairy-free Egg-free Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I've been baking gluten-free creations for many years now. More recently I've been presented with the challenge of baking without dairy and eggs as well. When I started searching for a recipe online nothing came up that met my needs ... so I took a gluten-free recipe and adjusted it. I figure after making six ingredient changes and amount adjustments I can claim this as my own. Enjoy!

¾ cup sorghum flour
¾ cup almond meal (I used ground almonds)
¼ cup tapioca flour
¼ cup potato starch
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 ½ tablespoons poppy seeds
2 tablespoons flax seed meal whipped into ½ cup boiling water, let sit for 5 minutes
Juice from 1 lemon
1 cup almond milk (soy or rice milk would probably work fine)
½ cup agave syrup
8 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
Zest from one lemon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and oil muffin tins.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, xanthum gum, and poppy seeds.

3. In another bowl combine flax seed mixture, almond milk, agave, extra virgin coconut oil, vanilla and lemon zest. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Do not overmix.

4. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake for about 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean. Makes 15 muffins.

The power of suggestion

Ever since Rex mentioned the pedicure my feet have felt insanely dry (see post below "Real men use naturally good soap"). The mere mention of the pedicure heightened my senses to my own "need" for one. Have you ever stood in line unable to make up your mind and just ordered what the stranger in front of you ordered? I have. Crazy, that a stranger would influence my decision making. Well that's just how the world of consumerism works. We are influenced by people, especially those we respect.

I make this soap called Nature's Goodness. It's a soap packed with a ton of nutritive ingredients like aloe vera, sea kelp, vitamin E, rosemary, lavender, etc. Anyway, the sea kelp kind of throws the aroma, so it has a very unique fragrance and people either love it or hate it. Well I wasn't really selling a ton of it and it was destined for extinction until ...

A good friend hosted a soap naturally party for me to share my products with her friends. She raved about Nature's Goodness. Well, guess what? I sold out of Nature's Goodness that night. So Nature's Goodness was brought back from extinction and I've learned a great lesson: never underestimate the power of endorsement.

Real men use naturally good soap

I just have to talk about this comment from my good friend BJ. This comment was generated from the post below "The best things in life are often not planned", check it out.

So here's BJ's comment:
Ok this it "BJ" the guy that likes the fancy, black soap (I also like quiche, occasionally wear a pink shirt and tie but still consider my self a real man....)and i do like this soap... it has a soothing smell. With the economy the way it, i consider it a small treat for myself (and white chocolate mochas).And black soap... who would tease a guy for black soap... awesome marketing plan...

I so appreciate this comment because I totally agree. A small luxury like awesome good soap to incorporate in your bathing ritual is a great way to beat the economy blues. As for my marketing plan, LaVader just happened upon me. I'm glad it did.

But BJ brings up an important point. What is the deal with men and soap? Why is it not okay for men to want to smell good? I just don't get it. When I do shows I see men walk by my booth with intense interest but like this inability to come in and smell the good stuff. Or they buy it for their wife or significant other. I am most inspired by the real men who come out and say, "I just love handmade soap". Like the other day, Rex, a very manly gentleman from my pilates class, came out and told us that he'd had his first pedicure and loved it. No Rex is not gay. He's just a man who doesn't need to prove his manliness, so it's okay to get a pedicure, and tell the world about it. Don't worry dear hubby, Rex is old enough to be your dad, and tall enough too! Anyway, guys enlighten me.

Insights from a 7 year old

I went on a field trip with my son's class today. As I was driving down the road I felt like a fly on the wall of their conversation, it was amusing. But I also heard some practical insights that the adult world could benefit from. One little girl said, "I believe in monsters, and it scares me." Another little girl said, "then stop believing in them." I chuckled out loud and thought, "could it be that simple?" In this case surely it is that simple. But think of the things we are afraid of. How often are the fears that we have really just imagined threats to our security, like a monster living under the bed? It's just a thought ...

Ravenous for greens

My doctor recently turned me on to green smoothies. It has turned my taste buds upside down! I'm like ravenous for greens now. Over the past several years I've noticed that I feel my best when I'm eating lots of leafy greens. But I usually get tired of chewing a salad before I get full of it. So this simple approach to adding more greens to my diet has really given me the energy boost I needed to get through the holidays and now the January funk that usually follows the flury of holiday activity.

To get me going on the green drink, my doc recommend Victoria Boutenko's book "Green for Life". I highly recommend this book, a great read, full of great information about how and why to consume more greens. She mentions that soon after consuming more greens she started looking at greens differently. I've had a similiar experience. When I walk to the produce section I get excited about experimenting on the next green drink. She explains the importance of using a variety of greens in her book. So trying new things all the time is definitely the way to go. I look at a handfull of carrot tops, you know the green part, and think, "I wonder how this will taste in my smoothie".

It took me a while to get started because I felt like I needed to read the whole book and get to the recipe section. But now I realize how easy it is. So I thought I'd let you know what I've discovered as three simple steps to more energy. Take your blender, add two cups of water, one piece of fruit, and two large handfuls of greens. Blend. It's that simple. I feel great when I drink it regularly. I look forward to discovering what the next smoothie will taste like depending on the fruit or greens I have available. And I look forward to shopping for the next load of greens (and shopping is something I really detest). My favorite smoothie is pear and spinach with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg. Also, most of the recipes I've seen have more fruit than I use, so if you're just getting started and want to sweeten your smoothie up a bit add more fruit.

For more information on Victoria's book go to http://www.rawfamily.com/index.htm

Idaho Mossmint

Soap with moss in it? Yeah it's kind of weird, but I LOVE it, and it's getting rave reviews from my customers, that is, they're buying it!

The story behind this soap is simple. I saw a soap with moss in it and thought it was cool. When I discovered moss growing on the trees at our favorite campspot I was inspired. The camp spot is on a secluded lake on privately owned land; my family has been going there for thirty years and it still looks much the same as it did when we first started going there - rugged, pristine, serenely beautiful. This camping experience represents everything I longed to return to Idaho for, the quiet beauty of the outdoors, largely untouched. So for me, making Idaho Mossmint soap is all about bringing the outdoors into my bathing ritual.

More on Idaho Mossmint Soap: I add spearmint and rosemary essential oils for incredible uplifting aroma. The moss creates beautiful lichen green highlights throughout the soap and feels like a very soft loofah. In all of my recipes the highest percentage of oil is olive oil, which produces a very gentle bar of soap, but to this recipe I also added safflower oil, and I've noticed this bar seems to produce larger creamy lathery bubbles than some of my other soaps while maintaining the same great gentleness.

Painting my world

I don't know how many days it's been since we've seen the sun in Boise ... at least a week ... going on two. But really this is getting dreadfully depressing!

I'm so thankful I talked my husband into a painting project over the holidays. Color is so uplifting!

Today I made a batch of Orange Oatmeal Soap. Customers have requested that I share the story behind each soap I make. I decided that today is a good day to write about Orange Oatmeal. Orange essential oil is amazing! I was seriously down yesterday with a migraine too. The bright spot of my day was receiving an order of essential oils. I quickly opened the package and inhaled deeply the bottles of spearmint and orange essential oils. My daughter looked at me and said, "Mom, are you getting high off your oils." It was an attempt to be sure. According to Susanne Fischer-Rizzi in Complete Aromatherapy Handbook, "The essential oil of the orange is sweet, warm, sensuous, radiant, and alive. The oil is wonderful to use when we take everything too seriously and forget how to laugh - when we feel tense, nervous, and withdrawn." She also states that orange essential oil's "influence on mood is positive and joyful; it harmonizes feelings and awakens creativity." Making orange oatmeal soap today has been the best antitode to this inversion yet. I'm continually amazed at the effect that essential oils have on me, especially orange. By nature I tend toward the melancholy side of mood, but especially with the icky gray clouds looming over me, day after day, I've sunk into this aimless sort of existence. But today, I made soap, now I'm blogging, and I have a new outlook despite the gloom outside.

Back to the soap, I also add lemongrass essential oil to this recipe, it too has refreshing and mentally stimulating properties. An infusion of annatto seeds in the olive oil gives this soap it's radiant sunshiney glow, and to all that I add oatmeal for mild exfoliation. This is a great morning wake me up soap. It's kind of like having oatmeal and oranges for breakfast. Only in the shower, it is mentally stimulating, the orange essential oils really does make me happy.

This brings me to an important point, I started making soap as a creative outlet for me. But I soon discovered that having my family test the soaps was creating shared experiences and as my test subjects they were soon lending their creative ideas to the process. This led me to what has become the underpinning of my goals with making soap and bringing it to the consumer: to create soap that provides multisensory goodness on three levels. I want the aroma to be inspiring and revitalizing, the color to be soothing and of course match the aroma, and I want it to feel rich and luxurious on the skin. Because each of us is unique, I make lots of soaps with the hope that you will find one that will nurture a unique you. But honestly I use them all, and I have anywhere from five to eight different soaps in my shower, primarily because I test everything before it heads out the door, but secondarily because aroma and color have such a powerful effect on my brain, I get to pick the one or two I need for that day.

I am grateful for my husband who partnered with my in coloring my kitchen world so that when I'm in that room my mind is soothed. But since changing the color of my kitchen every day is not so feasible, picking the soap of the day is a way for me to color my world with aroma and color that nurtures my mind and body. So that's my tip for the inversion blues, pick up Orange Oatmeal soap, or if you don't have a bar, pick up an orange and take a good sniff.

If you'd like to get your hands on a bar of Orange Oatmeal Handcrafted Soap go to http://www.lavandedebois.com/

Peppermint Craze

I went on a peppermint craze over the holidays. It began when I made my first batch of Candy Cane soap in September. When I took it out of the mold it smelled so awesome I immediately walked over to the pantry and took out a Candy Cane left over from the past Christmas ... and ate it. By the time I sold out of my 70 plus bars of Candy Cane soap I was making Peppermint Bark Lip Balm, Purifying Bath Oil, and then took the craze a little further to food, and made Peppermint Bark Popcorn. I gave the homemade popcorn away with a lip balm as lip smackin' treats to friends and family. Anyway, I'm posting the peppermint bark popcorn recipe here because several have asked for it. It was scrumptious and addicting. http://www.foodbuzz.com/blogs/643885-peppermint-bark-popcorn

Yesterday I used up the last little bit of my very last bar of Candy Cane soap and wondered if I would be able to wait until next September to make more. Peppermint essential oil has become one of my surprising new favorites. The aroma is intoxicating! In any case, you'll probably see peppermint appearing in more of my products soon.