Yum Yum Cupcake!

I have a confession: I have a new addiction. It's sitting here and searching, searching for new flavors to create with. I have a growing collection of flavor oils on a shelf here in my workroom, and it just doesn't. seem. big. enough.

I order new lip tubes, or shea butter, or emulsifying wax, and I can't help but add a flavor oil or two to my shopping cart. "Oh, just one or two more," I think. When UPS delivers my order, I'm like a kid on Christmas, opening my box and opening the bottle(s), seeing if the scent is as good as I'd hoped it would be (and they usually are).

Hell, it could be worse.

The flavor oils I've ordered lately have been spectacular, some of my favorite.  Some of these are already in my shop, like "Yum Yum Cupcake" lip scrub:

"Fruit Punch" hasn't been released yet, but it's great: smells just like Hawaiian Punch:

"Strawberry Cheesecake" is already out in a lip scrub, but the matching lip balm will be out soon:

I'm also rolling out Bananarama, and Coconut Milk & Peaches.

After these debut at Lalalita Body Co, I'll be taking the time to mix some scents and come up with some new flavors.  Ha, it'll be like shopping at my own worktable.  Stay tuned!

Perfume Sticks!

Perfume sticks are now appearing at Lalalita Body Co!

What are perfume sticks?  They're compact (lip balm-sized containers), and made from a combination of natural waxes and oils.  As with everything else at Lalalita, they're paraben- and phthalate-free, with skin-safe flavor oils, and no ingredients have been tested on animals.  Which is good, because Pippi doesn't like to wear perfume. ;)

Below are a couple of "Ooo, I Smell Good!" perfume sticks already at Lalalita: "I Love You", which is a Love Spell-type fragrance, and "Suntan Oil", which smells so much like a leading-brand suntan oil.

Other scents that will be coming in the next few weeks include Little Black Dress, He's So Sexy, Glazed Donut, Basket of Berries (pearberry-type), Margarita, Monkey Farts, Peanut Butter & Bananas, Coconut Cream Easter Egg, and so many more!  Please stop by the shop daily to see what new fragrance is in store. :)

New at Lalalita - Lip Balms!

I've had a love affair with lip balms for a loooong time. I'm one of those people who's said, "I'm addicted to lip balms." I totally am. LOVE finding good ones. I get distressed when I can't find my Favorite O' the Moment in the recesses of my purse. I sure don't like discovering that I've wasted my money on one that doesn't work, or tastes too waxy.

A few weeks ago, I started working on lip balms here in the "Lalalita Lab". I'm happy to say I am in LOVE with the way this lip balm feels. Not too greasy or oily; not too heavy, but not so light that you can't feel its on your lips. And it really works itself in there and makes your lips feel soft and moisturized. With a combination of oils and wax, how could it not?

Right now, at the Lalalita Body Co Etsy shop, two "Lick My Lips" lip balms are currently for sale: Cotton Candy, and Pink Icing, which is my biggest seller in lip scrubs.  In the coming weeks, more scents will be released, like Peanut Butter Cup, Cherry Limeade, Marshmallow, Double Mint, and Red Velvet Cake.  As with my other products, the lip balms are paraben- and phthalate-free, mineral oil-free, smell great, and they're lightly sweetened.  And have I mentioned that they make great, affordable stocking stuffers? ;)

Stay tuned!

What Do You Smell Like?

This week marked the start of the release of Lalalita Body Co's winter scents. Already released is "A Wonderful Gingerbread Cookie", and today begins the launch of "A Spiced Cranberry Story". Both are great, bold scents that I love, and would choose myself to wear in colder months. Almost like styles of clothing, changing from shorts to pants, short sleeves to sweaters, my tastes in scents vary with the seasons. In the spring and summer, I wear more tropical, light scents like coconut and fruit, or satsuma. As soon as the third week of September rolls around, however, I get out the cinnamon. The pumpkin. The fudge brownie (scents, of course. I don't rub a pumpkin on my wrists! ;)). And that's the way I roll, until spring rolls around again and the short sleeves come out.

Do you do the same thing? What are your favorite scents for the warmer months? What about when the air has a crisp snap to it, or snowflakes are swirling around your head? Or are you a one-scent kind of person year-round?

Make it Pretty!

Do you like pretty things? That's sort of a "well, DUH!" question, isn't it? I like to make orders a little "prettier" than they already are when I ship them off. With dolls, it's a bit of wrapping in colored tissue paper, and a name tag, usually. With my Lalalita products, it's also tissue paper, and raffia.

Here are sugar scrubs, awaiting shipment last week. Instead of shrink bands, I use colorful deco tape to seal my jars and bottles.

And Pink Icing lip scrub that went out yesterday. Kind of reminds me of an oversized Tootsie Roll ;):

I feel that "decorating" my products for shipping adds just a little more to what is hopefully a pleasurable customer experience. Do you do anything special for shipping?

Smooth, Soft, Supple Lips

Lip scrubs are now available at Lalalita Body Co! Now your lips can receive the same luxurious treatment as your skin. :) Personally, I've been waiting for this release, and I was so excited when I started coming up with the perfect recipe. As a lip balm/chapstick freak, this is right up my alley.


"Lick My Lips" Lip Scrub is made from sugar, butters, oil, Vitamin E, flavor, and color. Yes, just seven ingredients: all skin-safe, without parabens, phthalates, and none of my ingredients are tested on animals. The firm lip scrub comes in a handy-dandy oval lip balm tube: to use, simply push the tip up, apply to lips, gently scrub, and rinse! And they taste great: believe me, as the official tester at Lalalita, I can attest to that!


Right now, you can find Orange Dreamsicle flavor in the Lip Scrubs section at Lalalita Body Co's Etsy shop. In the upcoming days more scrumptious flavors will be released, such as:

•Chocolate Mint Truffle
•Pink Icing
•Sno•Cone
•Butter Pecan
•French Toast
•Red Velvet Cake

Have a great day!

Autumnal Memories in Scent

What do you think of when autumn approaches? For me, autumn is associated with a variety of aromas. Cinnamon. Candy corn. A slightly cool chill that contrasts with a warm, almost burnt scent in the air. But above all, pumpkins are, for me, the number one aroma that comes to mind when I think of this glorious time of year that just bursts with color.

And you know what that means... it's the time of year to roll out the autumnal scents!


And first up is "Hush... Hush, Sweet Pumpkin Pie". Cinnamony and spicy, this scent definitely does its job to invoke the heady aromas of fall. It's quickly become my Favorite Scent O' the Moment, and I've already made myself a batch of shea butter and aloe lotion. It's also available in my emulsified sugar scrub, and you can find it in the "Holiday Scents" section of the Lalalita Body Co shop.

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