Product Spotlight - Natural Lip Balm

Marmalade Hills' Lip Balm is a beautiful child of thorough research and precise formulation. We have come a long way to get to this perfectly smooth, not too soft and not too hard, nutrient rich and vitamin packed lip balm. It is made of creamy beeswax, exotic butters, nutritious oils, soothing aloe vera juice and Vitamin E. Combined together in perfect amounts they protect, moisturize and nurture gentle skin of your lips. Our lip balms are great to wear under your favorite lipstick, I find it especially useful to wear under mineral base lipsticks as they are loaded with powdery pigments that can make your lips feel extremely dry.

You can never have enough lip balms...especially in winter!  My personal favorites: Tea Tree (perfect for chapped lips) and Grapefruit (fun and energizing).  Forget your petroleum rich chapstick, and get yourself a new best friend!  We promise to make you a convert!

Star Ingredients:
* Creamy Bees Wax is a natural emulsifier and it serves as protective coating that locks in moisture and nutrients on your skin.
* African Shea Butter has been praised for centuries in Africa and is very well respected now for its ability to moisturize and nourish dry, damaged skin. It has been clinically shown to provide benefits from just dry skin to many minor dermatological diseases (if you have a serious skin condition, you should see a doctor).
* Coconut Oil is the source of two of the most powerful anti-microbial agents found in any food substances. These are Capric Acid and Lauric Acid. They are the same acids that are found in mother’s milk and keep the baby protected from infections. When these are applied on skin, some microbes (good ones) present on skin convert these acids into Monocaprin and Monolaurin respectively, thereby replacing the protective acid layer on the skin. Finally, Coconut Oil is soothing on skin and highly penetrating.
* Palm Oil is high in fatty acids and leaving virtually no residue on the skin. An incredibly rich and intoxicating oil which gracefully shares it benefits in numerous food and cosmetic applications throughout the world.
* Almond Oil is one of the most useful, practical, and commonly used oils. It is great for all skin types as an acting emollient and is best known for its ability to soften, soothe, and re-condition the skin. Natural expeller pressed oil from raw almond kernels and exceptionally rich in fatty acids.
* Rose Hip Oil is one of my favorite ingredients. It is truly a miracle oil and it is extremely rich in essential fatty acids (omega-6 and omega-3) which help nourish skin and keep it plump and youthful, helping to reduce wrinkles, tone and smooth roughness. Essential fatty acids are called "essential" because our body is not able to produce them, they must be obtained through the diet or through supplementation. Rose Hip Oil is recommended for scarred tissue and this makes our balms a perfect solution for chapped lips.
* The structure of Jojoba Oil closely resembles that of your own skin sebum and is readily absorbed without making the skin feel greasy or tacky nor does it clog the pores.
* Most people know first-hand the soothing relief of aloe vera on minor burns, cuts and bruises. These superb qualities also add desirable effect of our lip balms on chapped lips.
* And the last but not least ingredient is a Vitamin E oil. The benefits of Vitamin E for the overall good health of individuals are substantial. In particular, Vitamin E is very important antioxidant, regulator of Vitamin A and an excellent anti-aging agent that makes skin look younger by reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

Elf Shelf Raffle

I have 22 email addresses in my sign up sheets. I will contact all the participants about the raffle once and those who have checked the box for receiving updates in the future, will be automatically signed up for our Newsletter. I have numbered all the participants as they were added to the list and here it is as follows:
1-Jenny M; 2-Amina G; 3-JoEllen G; 4-Chris W; 5-Ann W; 6-Annete O; 7-Wendy C; 8-Sue S, 9-Kevin M, 10-Andrea D, 11-Sue R, 12-Tanya A, 13-Nancy S, 14-Sherrill J, 15-Mary Ellen H, 16-Kathleen S, 17-Michele K, 18-Megan B, 19-Michael S, 20-Mary B, 21-Mali B, 22-Brittany L.
*In case of unclear handwriting of the email addresses, winner’s email notification may come back to my mailbox. In this case I will subtract that person from the list and random number for the winner will be regenerated.
The lucky winner will be getting our Omega 3 Body Lotion and One Bar of Soap.
And here it goes! Drum roll please…

Our lucky winner is Mary Ellen! Congratulations Mary Ellen! I can neither recollect who you are nor if you made a purchase that day, but I will gladly mail you your prize as soon as I have your shipping info! and don't forget to select your scents!

Thank you very much to everybody for stopping by at our booth last Saturday! If we could grab your attention among many other wonderful crafters, it means we are doing something right! Hope to see you in our shop and don’t forget to use your Free Shipping codes that some of you received at Elf Shelf.

Happy Holidays!


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Elf Shelf 2009

I finally came to my senses after the show. When I applied for this show I had no idea what to expect and I had no idea how big this show was. I just knew that I have to make progress every day and keep moving ahead. What a crazy time that was: taking care of kids, I gave up on cleaning the house, going to the studio to make products, cooking dinner, back to the studio to make more products… Last night before the show, we stayed up till 2:30am finishing labels and got up 3 ½ hrs later to go to the show. That day was really rough, but adrenalin kept me going and I think, I haven’t eaten all day that day, just coffee and water. Thank God I had my friend with me, who was helping me with everything. I am not sure if it is even possible to do shows on your own. Our booth was in the last room, so the foot traffic was kind of light compare to the two main rooms, in the early morning it even looked a bit empty. People started coming in at 9am sharp! We had our first sale 30 min or so after the opening. We burned and crashed with our first credit card order, it was a $40 purchase and the system was BUSY! Why does it always have to go this way? The lady was very nice and gave us a check and made another $30 purchase :) It was a good start and now looking back, we were pretty busy all day: meeting people, telling them about cold process method of making soaps, talking about benefits of using natural skincare products, making orders, refilling shelves with products, making customized gift sets and processing cards. We could hardly catch up on things, because it was a lot of people around our booth at all times and we tried to be helpful and attend to every stopper-by. There were many different people: some were just wondering around and stopped by just to get a chocolate, some went straight to soaps, and some were interested only in facial care. A few of my good friends stopped by to show us their support and make a purchase, it was very important to hear their words of encouragement. So after all, it was a great show with a big turn out of 1,600 guests and us making great sales! If this is how people shop when the economy is bad, then I can hardly wait to find out how they shop when the economy is good! We had 22 people sign up for the raffle which will be held tonight. The winner will get Omega 3 Body Lotion and one Soap of their choice.
Marmalade Hills will be back to Elf Shelf next Holiday season for sure, only bigger and better and in either of two main rooms! This show has taught me so many things and I cannot wait to improve my flaws next year. I will keep trying until I get it perfect!

I wanted to share with you some of the pictures from the show, please keep in mind that I had only 3 ½ hrs of sleep that night :) So have mercy!
Early Morning: setting up (next year I will have a huge banner behind my booth to cover up any ugly doors or walls)
Side View with soap rack, body mists and soy melts.
Display with raffle sign up sheet, my MICE poster and Specials Menu.


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Featured Product - Omega 3 Body Lotion

This post will be the beginning of the series called “Featured Product”. I have to start with one of my favorite items “Omega 3 Body Lotion”. It is a replacement and upgrade from our original Gentle Body Lotions line that some of you have been introduced to before. The first time I have tried this lotion, I fell in love with its texture and the after-feel of it. Cold weather is already upon us and everyone needs an extra nourishing and extra emollient lotion in their arsenal. The texture of this lotion is on a thick side, but it sinks into the skin momentarily, leaving your skin feeling soft, supple and moist. It leaves absolutely no greasy or oily residue and because it has no silicone-by or petroleum-by ingredients it feels like your skin can breathe after application. You know how sometimes, after using a lotion, it feels like you just dipped your hands into a sticky, heavy clay mixture? With Omega 3 Lotions you will feel absolutely none of it! In case of a body/hand lotion, it is important for it to be free of “dirty words” like parabens, phthalates and such because it is a leave-on product and most of the ingredients will be absorbed by skin and transferred into the blood stream. Our Omega 3 Body Lotions are made of pure botanical and plant derived ingredients. We are using Grapeseed, Hemp, Sweet Almond and Sunflower oils that are cold pressed to retain their minerals, vitamins and essential fatty acids. Omega 3 is found in Hemp oil. With its healthy essential fatty acid composition of Linoleic and Linolenic acids in the perfect ratio of 3:1, it also contains the relatively rare Gamma-Linolenic fatty acid that the body needs. They are called "essential" because our body is not able to reproduce them, and because they help to nourish and maintain a healthy skin on cellular level. Omega 3 has been found to assist in correcting problematic skin; typically, psoriasis, acne, and eczema. Additional properties from Shea Butter, Japanese Green Tea, Chamomile, Aloe Vera and Vitamin E, makes this a great skin rejuvenator. To guarantee fungus-free and bacteria-free lotions we do have to protect our water in oil emulsions (this is what lotions are) by adding gentle, paraben-free preservative at the ratio of 0.003% of net weight of the product. We offer Essential Oil scented lotions in Tea Tree Blossom and Lavender, and Fragrance Oil scented lotions in Zesty Cranberry, Gingersnap, Sea Foam and Sugar Fig. Our Essential Oil Lotions are a bit more expensive due to usage of pure, therapeutic Essential Oils. Omega 3 Body Lotion can make a thoughtful gift this season for special people in your life.

P.S. if you have missed our previous healthy tips you can find them here:
Clean Truth about Antibacterial Soap
10 Foods that are healthier than you think
Healthy Nails Tips
Healthy Hair Tips
When to buy Organic and when it's ok not to
Benefits of Green Tea
Beauty Sleep
Fish Oil or Omega 3 & 6
How to add years to your life

Back to work!

I had a few minutes today for myself before my older one returns from school and while my youngest enjoyed his jumper. So I finally was able to return to blogging. It was a long and busy summer but it was planned to be this way. I am glad to be back to work! An opportunity to get back to business kept me on my toes all summer long! I just couldn’t wait to get back to my studio, make new products and search for new scents and ingredients! However, I am very happy with our summer and the progress we made. We have finished remodeling 1/3 of our house, what at one time used to be Marmalade Hills studio is now a home office and a family room. My husband had supervised his first project at work, and even though it took him out of the country for three weeks, it was an important step in his career. And finally we had a fun family trip to Chicago. The most memorable part of the trip for me was Cloud Gate sculpture in downtown Chicago or The Bean. It is so simple, yet unique, modern, engaging, fun and absolutely breathtaking! Check out for yourself…

Unfortunately it was too crowded to capture true beauty of it, but found many gorgeous pictures of Cloud Gate here.

Here are some night pictures of Chicago

Now the summer is officially over (today we had first frost overnight!); schedule for Fall/Winter season is set; new products and scents are finalized; and I am back to work at my studio! Because all of Marmalade Hills’ soaps have to cure for 6 weeks I am whipping new batches of soap every other day to make sure that I have enough fresh and yummy smelling soaps this holiday season! As far as new products go, you will be able to try new Bath Truffles and completely new Lotion formula, which is divine in texture and extremely beneficial for skin. I am so excited about new products that I will have to blog about each one of them individually!



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