I'm in Love

If I could marry a scent this might be it.
I've been stocking up on fragrances, essential oils, etc. for some new projects (more on that later), and some arrived today.
This morning I made a new soap called "Captain Wentworth" after the hero of my favorite Austen novel, Persuasion. It is a blend of tobacco flower, blood orange and leather with a little sea salt for exfoliation mixed in. It smells so fresh and clean- and it's not super masculine so females could totally use it too. I think I'm going to have to make a 'man soap' gift pack with this scent as the centerpiece. My new gunpowder fragrance blend is gorgeous as well. I had a female friend request that I make her a solid perfume with the scent.
My next projects on the horizon are bath salts, sugar scrubs and lip balms. I've already started playing with bath salts, making some lovely eucalyptus scented salts the other night. For the rest of the year every order will come with a small sample of my new bath salts- I have some friends testing them as we speak.
I've found a recipe for whipped sugar scrub which intrigues me, so I'll be playing with and tweaking that. And as soon as my beeswax arrives I'll be playing with some lip balm recipes as well. So, I'm keeping busy and finding new inspiration for my soap shop.
I will be putting my first shop, Blackbird Crafts, on vacation for a while and just focus on Morning Valley Soaps. I see that being a better long term focus.

Thoreau Would Probably Approve

My brother and his girlfriend where outside watching the lightening storm on the porch tonight, so I joined them. Gorgeous forked streaks of light were flooding the sky. There was so much electricity in the air, the neighbors' motion sensor light was tripped. While we were sitting there I said, "Thoreau would approve of this I think," we had shut off the tv and computers and were being entertained by nature. "Who's that?" my brother asked. Oh well.
We've been having so much rain lately that suddenly new tomatoes are sprouting from my plants and I fear they'll be killed by the rapidly approaching first frost. In one of my literature classes we've been reading a section of Walden and Thoreau describes watching his area in the woods flood, an eerily familiar sensation lately.
Say what you will about Thoreau (my dad already has), but he was right about one thing: we should take our cues from nature, not contrived social classes and customs. And we should simplify above all else. Everyone wants things to be more and more complicate- a phone that's also a music player/computer/planner/ereader- it's too much for me. (Maybe it will save a couple trees, but I could never use a Kindle or whatever, I like paper books.)
I made and listed new soap and some solid perfume today and then I went to practice at the archery range, not a very eventful day, but one of my few holidays from school, so I tried to enjoy it.