What's a Sugar Scrub?

You may ask, "What the heck's a sugar scrub?" Granted, most people interested in beautifying their skin know very well what it is, but there are surely a few lonely souls wandering the planet with flaky, dry skin who haven't a clue.

A basic definition is "Sugar scrubs are made from brown, maple, or white cane sugar with skin softening body oils and scented essential oils. They are a milder alternative to salt scrubs." This is taken from www.dayspanc.com. I'd amend it to include "fragrance oils" and "butters".

In essence, a sugar scrub is an exfoliant, an agent applied to the skin to remove dead cells. Depending on what else is in the scrub, it can also soften and moisturize the skin, as well as unclog pores and keep the skin clean.

Egyptians are credited as being the first people to exfoliate their skin, but in the Middle Ages, wine was used to exfoliate, with tartaric acid being the active agent (might have worked, but I can't imagine getting in the shower with a bottle of red!).

Why white sugar in Lalalita Body Co scrubs? It's gritty and rough enough to exfoliate well and leave your skin feeling clean, but not as rough and potentially damaging as pieces of shell, or some natural and unnatural acids. Since sugar scrubs can potentially dry out your skin (especially overuse), the additions of butters resolve that problem.

•••••

In other Lalalita news, the shop has its first sale!! I'm over the moon about this, and tomorrow, "Clash of the Peanut Butter & Chocolate" Sugar Scrub will be winging its way to its new owner, ready to moisturize and exfoliate. And almost all the products (scrubs, lotions, and body sprays) are in the Etsy shop. Please stop by to see if a particular fragrance speaks to you.

Til next time!
Athena

It's Open!

After months of hard work, Lalalita Body Co is open for business! I'm nervous, excited; many, many other adjectives...

Please visit Lalalita Body Co at Etsy today and in the coming days as I unveil products that make you smell and feel great. :)

Lalalita Body Co

Welcome to Lalalita!

I racked my brain to come up with a great inaugural post. A good idea as any is to just tell you about myself. So, welcome to the first post of the Lalalita Body Co, brought to you by the Great and Mighty Creator. Oh, just call me Athena. ;)

Welcome to Chocolate Mousse-Port: creamy and delectably-scented

I'm forty-one years old, happily married for twenty to a great guy (hereafter known as Mr. Calm), and we have two daughters, ages twenty and twenty-two (yep, got started young!). Through my adult life, I've been a stay-at-home mom, a writer, and an artist of various mediums. We live in Nashville, Tennessee and have three cats and one Wonder Dog (and a small zoo of neighborhood birds that like to eat WAY too much bird seed). With all those things, why start a bath and body business? Really, basically, it's all about feeling and smelling great.

A sampling of Lalalita's fun sugar scrubs

I have always loved to smell good. As I got older, I also began to want my skin to feel good (darn that weakening elasticity and dry air!), and once I learned about sugar scrubs, man, there was no stopping me. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard, at least to me, to find one that I absolutely loved. My favorite sugar scrub of all time ended production in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina. Other scrubs were unreasonably-priced. I ordered a jar of scrub once and the ratio of soap to sugar was way too high. And then there are the scrubs that aren't gritty enough: you might as well just be slathering plain oils or butters on yourself in the shower. So, when my girls ventured out into their own lives, I wasn't writing anymore, and just not making (or selling) art like I used to, I decided to turn my efforts toward creating a scrub that was perfect for me. Gritty enough to be a great exfoliating agent. Moisturizing enough that when I got out of the shower, I wouldn't have to lotion. Not greasy or too oily. Doing this was better than wandering around in an empty-nester haze. ;)

Once I got that down, I moved on to lotion: after all, while it's fun, you don't need to exfoliate every day! Lalalita's lotion is creamy, thick, leaves my skin powdery-smooth, and has fantastic scents that linger long after you apply it. The body sprays are the same, and they share the same characteristics and requirements as the sugar scrub: paraben- and phthalate-free (the lotion is also mineral-free). The colors and fragrances are skin-safe.

One of the best things of all is that as the Almighty Scrub Creator, I get to come up with scents that I can't normally find, like Peanut Butter & Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, and Strawberry Lemonade. Be on the lookout for more unique and unusual scents like these in the future.

Me on a slightly better hair day

What are Lalalita's plans for the coming months and years? To continue to make great scrubs, lotions, and body sprays, as well as slowly introduce more products designed to make you feel better. Isn't it always a boost to the mind and emotional state when your body feels good?

Til next time!
Athena

www.etsy.com/shop/lalalitabodyco