A Cleaner Endeavor

Yes, I'm still face painting, although I've been slacking with the posts. In fact, next Sunday I'll be at the Ho-Ho-Kus tree lighting, painting holiday designs!

However... in my quest to keep creating, and now that I've got a husband who also loves to make anything and everything from scratch, we've opened a new business! Eric and I are now the proud proprietors of Reef Botanicals.

At the site, we're selling our handmade hot-process soaps! We've got four recipe varieties so far:

Fudge Chunk contains Ghirardelli cocoa powder and has a subtle chocolate scent.

The Oatmeal Honey is made with precisely those ingredients, and smells amazing! We have it in both bath bar and hand soap size.

The Honey Chocolate is similar, but made with premium crushed cacao nibs, giving it a slight chocolate smell and exfoliating properties.

And our Lemongrass & Sage soap is made with lemongrass essential oil and dried sage. It has a great lather and an amazing citrus scent that wakes me up in the morning.

All of the soaps are made with all natural ingredients, nothing synthetic. At this time, all of our soaps are also vegetarian or vegan-friendly. Those are noted in the descriptions.

Today, we're planning a coffee soap with fresh-brewed coffee and coffee grinds for exfoliation.

Each bar comes packaged in a beautiful organza bag, tied with a ribbon. They're perfect for gifts or to spoil yourself.

We're having a blast! Feel free to visit the site, email us with questions, and place an order.

North Jersey Face & Body Art Guild

I'm a member!

In joining this guild, I've pledged my commitment to the maintenance of hygiene and safety in the profession, as well as a desire to improve my general face painting skills.

Tonight was fun, with about fifteen of us gathering at our very first meeting to discuss some basic housekeeping issues and get some demonstrations of rainbow/split cakes of face paint and some one-stroke instruction.

I got to try out my new Snazaroo rainbows, that I made.

I also used my Wolfe Brothers rainbow to paint this butterfly on my friend Ricki.

And I got painted up as a rainbow kitty.

I now have lots of ideas for more rainbow cakes, so I'll be making a bunch in the near future. This is great news for you, because you as my clients will reap the benefits of my cakes, and the wonderful designs for which I can use them. At fairs, they'll save a ton of time. At parties, they'll let me add some serious wow to my face painting. Just wait and see!

Witches' Ball (aka Halloween - Part 3)

Last night was the Witches' Ball in Montclair, NJ, co-hosted by Mystic Spirit Metaphysical Shop and Everything Akasha. I'd never been to it before, because it usually conflicts with my own Halloween party, but this year they held it a week later, and so I was able to go.

Me, miss a costume party? Not if I can help it!

My friend came over earlier in the evening, to be painted as The Morrigan, and Irish goddess. This was the picture from which I was working:

Kerry didn't have the head circlet or armbands, so here's what I did:

For myself, I saw this as another opportunity to wear my new pirate garb, so I went as a dead pirate:

Simply because I didn't feel right going to a costume party unpainted!

It was hilarious how many people apologized for saying it was creepy, when that's exactly what I was going for!

After the party, my husband and I stopped at the Wendy's drive-through because he was hungry. I was driving, and scared the bejeezus out of the two women at the window, who then proceeded to call over other employees to look at me.

All in all, a good night!

Halloween - Part 2

My morning clients from Friday liked their paintings so much that they asked to come back Saturday and get painted again! They came over in the afternoon, and this time the husband (who'd been a Jack O' Lantern) requested a face from the Insane Clown Posse. This one:

His wife, who had to be convinced to get painted on Friday, requested this geisha on Saturday:

And this time, they brought a referral with them! The husband's manager at work loved the Jack O' Lantern so much that he wanted to get painted too. He saw the skull face I'd done on Friday and wanted something like that. Doing it again gave me the opportunity to change some details and improve on the design a bit.

He was apparently heading out to the Halloween Parade in NYC to scare some of the city folk.

Later, I was able to do my own face before my Halloween party. I was a vampire.

Unfortunately, because of all the party prep, I was not able to do my husband's face as intended. I'm planning to give another go this Friday when we attend the Witches' Ball in Montclair, so check back after that to see if I accomplished it!