Why do we buy the soaps, lotions hair products, sprays, gels, and all the other potions and concoctions we slather ourselves with? What makes you pick hair shampoo Q over Hair shampoo Z?  Why grab the face lotion with shea butter and alpha hydroxy acids over the one with Jojoba oil and vitamin E and Lavender? Do you know? I didn’t know. Really, until I turned forty I never really gave much thought to my skin. Over the years I have given some thought to my hair. I was blessed with really great hair. My sister’s may have gotten everything else, height, great figures, great skin, the ability to eat and lose weight, wear clothes flawlessly, but I got the hair! I can do or not do anything to it. In almost 43 years I have had one bad haircut. The only time I even really looked at what shampoo I was buying was if I had color or a perm in my hair.

Mostly my shopping for any beauty product was what I like to call “buzz word” shopping. Shea butter, alpha-hydroxy acids, Retinol, Panthenol,  collagen, “all natural” sulfate-free, Non-comedogenic.  Those all sounded really great. I had NO idea why, but it all sounded like good stuff and it must be they put it on the front of their labels.  So now I’m not only a buzz word shopper I’m a label shopper. What I’m not is an ingredient shopper.

The big buzz words at the moment are all natural, organic ingredients, and my favorite: sulfate free. Now natural products are great, do not get me wrong, I believe for safety and shelf life we have to turn to using some synthetic products for preservatives.  I think that as much as I would like to, I can’t find a way to make a really good liquid shampoo out of ingredients without the help of a few synthetic ones. Believe me I have tried and tried.  I am amazed I am not bald from my attempts.  I am still working on formulating the best liquid shampoo I can with the least amount of synthetic ingredients. Most of the buzz words from the different schools of thought when it comes to making lotions and potions.

There are basically two schools; it seems, of folks who make lotions and potions. The people who want to be all “organic and natural” and the other end are the people who want to buy all synthetic ingredients.  I realize that is a widely gross stereotype, but it gives you an idea of where people who make products are coming from. Yes, all natural people use preservatives and yes, synthetic ingredient people use natural ingredients. Somewhere down the middle is where I hope to be. I will say, no matter what you choose to put on your face, unless you were smart enough to start really caring about your skin at 15, all the products in the world will never completely erase the effects of sun, time, laughing, smiling and worrying.  There are things that may reduce those signs, but unless you have a good plastic surgeon on speed dial and a love of botulism, it is just not going to happen.  Sorry, I was sad to find that out too. On the other hand, after using all of my own things for the last year I know that  I feel better about myself, I think I  look better, my skin is soft, my hair is great and all of those are good things.

I’ll write more about the individual topics, buzz words, ingredients, so forth and so on in coming blogs. I suppose the point of this really long blog was to introduce you to me and how I used to be about my lotions and potions in the search for looking like Marg Helgenberg on CSI and how I view them now that I have started trying to formulate things that are good for other people. Yes, I do really apologize for the liquid shampoo I gave out at Christmas but thank you for being unsuspecting guinea pigs. I couldn’t find any real ones.  The only person harmed in the testing of my products is me, and I haven’t actually harmed myself but I have had some really funky hair days. The great thing about working at home is that no one sees me except the post woman and my husband loves me no matter what my hair looks like.

For fascinating reading on natural vs chemical I really recommend a blog called swiftcraftmonkey. Google it, she has information on bath and beauty products and ingredients and chemical breakdowns of things that will really blow your mind.

So keep checking back in. I look forward to chatting with you. I hope you will take a look at my products when I get them online.

Kristina