Welcome to Bubbles Of Thought From Circle A Naturals

Welcome,
Bubbles of Thought. I am very glad that my thoughts don't pop up in little bubbles over my head like in the cartoons. Could you imagine the repercussions of people actually knowing your every thought. It would be complete chaos. Divorces, lost friendships, lost sales.
I have friends that seem to be lacking the little yellow censor light that should go off before opening their mouths, and that is annoying enough.
Of course being the only sober person in a room some nights, speaks for itself. I've often been tempted to record some of these get togethers. I don't think anything else needs to be said about that.
If you come over to my house for the first time, you'll probably leave with at least 1 bar of soap. I love things that smell nice. I love being closer to nature here on our farm (though there is absolutely nothing even slightly romantic about the smell of manure on a hot summer day). The sense of community from living in a small town. How many people can say, their neighbor, without being asked, or even mentioning it, came over and spent 7 hours raking your hay, because they know you've just had surgery and can't be on a tractor? Many years ago, before my current husband, and the adventure of moving out to the farm, I don't think I even got a hello from most of my neighbors. I'm not scary looking, and generally really friendly, so appearance and demeanor were not the cause of their lack of being neighborly.
I live on a road, that if we see 2 cars we don't recognize within an hour of each other, we wonder which neighbor is having a party, or family situation. Otherwise, if you don't live here, you'd have no reason to be on our road. It leads to nowhere but farms on one end, and farms on the other.
I have an artists spirit, but can't draw, knit, use a kiln, or anything like that, so creating really wonderful soaps and skin care products, is part of my expression of my artistic side. Sometimes my husband will wonder what I've come up with, because the house smells so nice, or bars of soap sitting out, are so eye catching. Other times, he's been known to lean over and say "what is that". The what is that question, is a definite sign to either do a major overhaul on a recipe, or scrap it completely.
I've learned about the science of skin. The amounts of research I do, and have done, should earn me a PhD. The benefits have been worth it. I know what ingredients can sooth skin, brighten it, refresh it, help clear up blemishes, moisturize, exfoliate it, and just about every other thing you can think of. I use natural herbs, and what mother nature has provided, everywhere I can. I love the smell of honeysuckle, but to make honeysuckle soap, I have to use a fragrance oil, as the essential oil is unavailable due to the thousands of pounds of flowers it would take to yield even an ounce of essential oil. If it ever does become available, because of the amount of flowers it takes, I probably won't be able to afford to use it in soap, no matter how much I love the smell. Right now, rose essential oil is over $900 an ounce. I kid you not. Rose oil, is very literally, worth it's weight in gold, but unlike gold, doesn't appreciate in value, and can evaporate into the air, in a very short amount of time, if I leave the top off the vial. I have nightmares about that.
I love the creamy feel of the soaps I make. Their smell, their texture, the science behind what's in it. There are some very nice commercial soaps, but once you've had handcrafted, and been able to understand the short list of ingredients, you'll probably never trust the unlisted ingredients in mass produced soap again. In a world of chemicals in our food, our water, the air we breath, and no way to avoid them. it's nice to have some tiny bit of control over what goes into my body. Skin is the largest organ on the human body. I never used to look at it like that. It was just something to love or hate when looking in the mirror on any given day. If it goes on the skin, at least some of it gets absorbed. Put peppermint oil on your feet, you can taste it in your mouth. Weird but true.
I could go on and on this morning, as I was making a vanilla and cinnamon goatsmilk soap yesterday, and the smell made me hungry. I can't wait to get it photographed and listed in my shop CircleANaturals.Etsy.Com. It should be a fantastic seller. I just hope nobody takes a bite out of it. I actually had to stop handing out tiny little animal shaped soaps, to the kids being dragged around at the craft shows and farmers markets I sell at, because several popped them into their mouths, after being told it was soap, and not to eat it. They smelled good enough to eat, and they did. Now I give out samples to adults only. I've even had adults start to pick them up and put them in their mouths without a thought. Completely ignoring all the big banners that say "Handcrafted Soap", in 2 foot tall letters. I wonder how those same people manage to get thru to adulthood.
Anyway, I need sleep, and will continue my welcome and craft show stories on another day,
night all.
Anne