Enriched Bath Salts

New products for 2014!

I recently trialled a range of bath salts and I was very pleased with the results.  I sold them at That Dapper Market and people seemed to respond to them well. 

In making the salts, I considered what I wanted out of a bath product - something luxurious and indulgent - something which softens the water (sheesh, Adelaide water is hard!), leaves the skin gently moisturised and provides a wonderful scent (gentle and not over-powering).  

So, I used high quality, mineral-rich salts - Dead Sea mineral salt and pink Himalayan rock salt - mixed with skin-softening epsom salts and added a splash of shea oil.  I chose shea oil because it feels particularly nice on the skin.   The shea oil and the essential oils I added needed to be anchored (oil will eventually seep to the bottom so something needs to keep it suspended around the salt throughout the jar), so I used a blend of arrowroot and bicarbonate soda (again, great for softening water).

I made three, if I might say so myself - amazing - all-natural scents:

The Violet Hour - a complex yet sweet blend of violet leaf essential oil and vanillin;

West of the Moon - a super-rich floral blend of rose geranium and ylang ylang and;

Evening in Capri - a sophisticated dry citrus blend of kaffir lime and bergamot.

Each jar of bath salts is accompanied by a cute little wooden spoon (made from plantation wood) and is beautifully labelled ready for gifting or indulging!   The 200g jars of salt will be $16.00 and postage will be $7.00.   The salts will be ready in the Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez store about mid-January.

19th Century Papier Mache Mushrooms

The Museum of Economic Botany, Adelaide Botanic Gardens

I don't know why, but I often feel drawn to Victorian things in the days following Christmas.  I think it must be a desire to be grounded in that quiet, solid world of elaborate design, earnest pursuits and brown things after the brash, noisy rush of Christmas.

Boxing Day, I like to pore over (or is that paw over - I do both) my small collection of 19th century gardening books, read a little Tennyson and go through my collection of cabinet cards and cdv photographs. 

So, today, I was pleased to make a visit to town with my partner and we wandered through the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, including the wonderfully stern Museum of Economic Botany.

Within this small museum, there is housed an amazing collection of 19th century papier mache mushrooms, apples, pears and plums, made by Heinrich Arnoldi & Co, Gotha, Germany.   They live in lovely Victorian cabinetry with their original labels.  They were a joy to see!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Jelly!

Time to get nostalgic

We had a lovely time visiting my parents last night.  We brought food to share and exchanged cards and gifts and while it was a lot quieter than my childhood Christmases, it all felt festive and cheerful.  

While helping pack the special crockery and glasses away, I noticed in the corner of a lowly cupboard a couple of glass jelly moulds.  Glass jelly moulds are always beautiful of course; their weight and the glistening curves, but this pair brought back memories of my grandmother and her small flat filled with bits and pieces of her life in London that so fascinated me as a child.  

I commented on the glass jelly moulds and my mother reminded me that they were her mother's and she believed they came from her mother's mother.  She then gave them to me, a gift I happily accepted because the moulds are both beautiful and full of unseen memories for me.  I know I'm getting a bit of a reputation as a grifter, but I insist this is unfair!   (Only the night before I was at a party marveling at the bowl of pitted cherries, when the gracious host insisted I take her cherry pitter - which I did, it would have been churlish not to!).

Well, here are the jelly moulds in all their sparkling, chunky, Victorian, crystalline beauty!

 

 

Merry Christmas, all, and thank you for your interest in Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez!!

That Dapper Market

Dear Diary, today is my first market...

Yes!  Finally Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez will be appearing at That Dapper Market today from 3pm to 9pm.   No, there won't be singing and dancing but there will be plenty of soap - SIXTEEN varieties, no less, plus some beautiful bath salts and room sprays.  Come down and have a look, it's a great little market with plenty of atmosphere and a good mix of vintage, hand-crafted, food (especially vegan!), music and fun!

Gift Buying for Her

A selection

Eeek, what happened?  It's December already?!  No, I'm not ready either, but no need to worry, I've got some ideas for gifts for those occasions when you just want a small token to give to a lovely lady! 

Top Row
Love Lies Bleeding - a lush rosey scent
Lemon Meringue - mouth watering lemony scent
Riviera Escapade - citrus and lavender blend

Middle Row
South Pacific - exotic ylang ylang and may chang
Madame X - a spicy rose scent
When in Rome - bracing basil and spearmint

Bottom Row
Spring Sherbert - a fizzing lavender and lemongrass scent
Spearmint Julep - fresh as a daisy spearmint
Odalisque - romantic rose geranium and may chang

All of these soaps, and more, are currently available through the Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez shop now.  Or, if you can wait, I will be at That Dapper Market on 14th December from 3pm onwards.  Each soap is $7.50 and is beautifully packaged ready for gift-giving.  And of course, all Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez soaps are vegan, all natural and hand-crafted in South Australia!  I do not use palm oil.

So, if you want to see your friends and family dance with glee, give them a Shanghai Lil and the Scarlet Fez soap and sit back and watch:

Photo from Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez collection.

Party Season

Tokens of appreciation

It's a busy time of year for most people and there are usually plenty of events to attend in the lead up to Christmas.  Work functions, barbeques, family reunions (eek!) and, if you're brave, you throw your own party!

Attending this whirl of activity can get expensive, new clothes, the food, the wine but it is often the gift that causes the most anxiety.  A small token of appreciation is an appropriate way to thank your host and wish them all the best for the season, but it's picking out something a little different and a little easier on the waistline, that can be a challenge for some.  

Here at Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez, you have a vast range of all natural, vegan soaps, hand-crafted right here in Adelaide, to select from if you are looking for an inexpensive gift.  Take a look here:

There are 19 soaps to choose from!  Each soap comes packaged in a lovely box, ready to gift, and only $7.50 per bar!  This is good value when you consider the luxurious oils used to make the soaps, designed to cleanse your skin without making you as dry as a biscuit.  Each bar is scented with essential oils - oils extracted from flowers, leaves and fruits - which provide you with an authentic, natural sensory experience without being bowled over by tenacious synthetic fragrances.

Visit the shop by clicking the button above.  Have fun and let me know if you have any queries.

One Fine Summer - Remix

A tweaking of a favourite soap

Having sold out of the first batch of One Fine Summer, I quickly whipped up a new batch.  I have kept the same oil content as the first batch, as this is a wonderful, creamy soap and I wanted to keep it that way.  I have, however, switched the green to mica and added a splash of rose red (a mix of French pink clay and red oxide).  

One Fine Summer still has that glorious scent - so hard to describe but it's like a citrusy floral, green and sweet.  Here is a snap of the soap just poured into its mould.  The colours will be be more subdued in the cured soap, of course, but how promising!  Four long weeks to wait for this one, but let me know if you want to reserve a bar or two as this one gets snapped up quickly!

Of Worthy Advice and Bad Art

Book finds

While being a lovely sunny day, there is always time to pop into second-hand bookshops and dig up some treasures from dark and dusty shelves.

My recent finds include "The Practical Way to Keep Fit" (ha!) by Harry Roberts and "How to Write, Think and Speak Correctly" (I know what you're thinking, reader) by C.E.M. Joad.  Both are part of Odhams Press Ltd's quaint range of self-improvement books for the Everyman, probably from the 1920s and both have the same lovely endpapers. 

Knowing how to write, think and speak correctly is all very worthy (an' all that), but the guide to keeping fit is my favourite of the two, mainly for its illustrations.  The text is ponderous and preachy and reminds me of being trapped at a party by a perfectly lovely but deadly dull guest.  The illustrations, however, are a bit of a hoot.  They range in quality, staying on the dark side of mediocre for the most part, but some are really very bad!  Some have quite funny captions and others are just, well, inexplicable.

 

You're telling me it does!

Well, that's all very well for him!

 Not even trying.

Gift Buying For Him

A selection 

It's coming up to that time of year again and the (sometimes) painful task of buying gifts is here!  I have noticed over the years that the people who are the least frazzled by gift buying seem to follow a few simple rules:

1. buy early;
2. buy thoughtful; and
3. buy small.

I think buying for men is particularly difficult for some people, but here at Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez, I have a few solutions for you:

Top Row
The Emperor's Chai  delicious cardamom
Mister X...               green and earthy vetiver
Lemon Meringue       lemony may chang

Middle Row
Smokey Joe             sophisticated smokey cade
Evening Star            aromatic star anise and basil
A Siberian Wood      a dry wood

Bottom Row
Spearmint Julep       fresh spearmint
St Clement's             zesty sweet orange and may chang
The Fez No. 1          the gin and tonic of soap, lemongrass, may chang, juniperberry and
                              wormwood

Each soap is available from the Shanghai Lil and the Scarlet Fez shop for $7.50, plus postage.  Each soap is hand crafted from all natural ingredients, vegan and without palm oil.  Packaged and labelled in a range of beautiful boxes, these soaps make a thoughtful (relaxed gift-buying person's number 2 rule) and small (relaxed gift-buying person's number 3 rule) gift for men.   Buy now and I can help you with relaxed gift-buying person's number 1 rule too!

My further advice is, if you have to buy a gift for a fellow like curly-locks below, I'd suggest Smokey Joe.  He looks the type.

Photo from Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez collection.

Chim Chim Cher-ee Chincheree

What do you get when you mix Mary Poppins with an African lily?

Chincheree!  Beautiful and long lasting, chincherees are the perfect cut flower!

Blackbird, Fly

...super hyper mega fun.

The Blackbird, Fly is a twin lens reflex camera.   The viewfinder is on the top and you look down into it - one of the lens is for the viewfinder, the other to capture the image on film.  It's made of plastic and comes in a range of bright colours.   I haven't taken mine out for a spin for some time, so I might get some more film and experiment.   

Here are some snaps of some 60s architecture in my local area, taken with the Blackbird, Fly.

Mater Dei, Woodville Park and Ukraine Catholic Church, Woodville.

And some other brightly coloured snaps:

Mini Golf at Semaphore and Kingston Park beach.

When in Rome

Breezing along on a breeze

I have just released a new soap - When in Rome.  This wonderfully aromatic basil and spearmint scented soap will be fresh start to the day and put you in the mood for scooting around town with the wind in your hair!

Packed full of excellent quality oils including olive oil, olive pomace, shea oil, rice bran oil, meadowfoam seed oil and a dash of castor oil (for that silky skin feel!), When in Rome is a treat for the skin and the senses!

Sophisticated and youthful, When in Rome is all natural, hand crafted, vegan and contains no palm oil.  Now available in store!

Top photo: Detail from the cover of "The New Target Book for Girls".

A Glorious Day

Guess what I'm doing?

Well, I'm doing a few things, but this is one of them:

 

Otherwise, on this wonderfully sunny and springy public holiday, I'm making a new soap, a new perfume and listening to bossa nova while catching up with some reading.  Perfect, yes?!  I hope your day is as relaxing!

Mister X...

Sophisticated.

I love the smell of vetiver.  It's a wonderfully complex, green and smokey scent and I have used it as the sole fragrance in the new soap Mister X... .  This soap is also filled with some very good skin conditioning oils, including olive oil, olive pomace, shea oil and macadamia nut oil.  I have also added some Mojave living clay, a mineral rich bentonite clay from the Mojave desert.

All natural, vegan and pure luxury!  And no palm oil!  Now available through the shop - the shop button is above.

Underwater Wonderworld

A trip to the museum

A lovely day out today.  My friend and I were passing the South Australian Museum and we decided to pop in just to see how much it has changed since we were last there - which was some time ago.  We were pleasantly surprised when we found some old favourites were still there (love the Victorian cabinetry in the Pacific Island exhibition room) and some new displays (minerals!).  We took a lot of pics, but here are some I took from the underwater exhibition room, the mineral room and the Pacific Island exhibition room:

 

 

Postage

Buying online

I do quite a bit of my shopping online now (and yes, I'm sure saying "online" makes me sound old) and part of that is the joy of receiving a parcel.  I guess it taps into the childhood pleasures of Christmas and birthday events.  Embrace the inner child, I say.  It's the anticipation of a treat coming your way.  This lady understands, she's been putting on her best straw cone-hat and waiting by the chinoiserie letterbox every day since 1961!

The only downside, of course, is that you have to pay postage and packaging to get your treats to your letterbox.  Here at the Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez shop, I have kept the postage costs down to a minimum.  Here they are:

1 to 3 bars - $7.00 flat rate; and
4 bars and above - $11.00 flat rate.

Now, following on with the '60s theme, here is a song I'm obsessed with at the moment - very sweeping and dramatic (the sort of song someone who would use Madame X... might like...):

Photo: detail from found photo dated October 1961. Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez collection.

The Fez No.1

The gin and tonic of soaps!

Having spent the last 4 weeks curing, The Fez No.1 is now ready and available through Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez's shop.  

This beautiful new soap has a wonderfully aromatic scent of juniperberry, wormwood, lemony may chang and lemongrass.  It is packed with skin loving and super conditioning oils including olive oil, olive pomace, shea oil and vitamin E-rich rice bran oil.  And it looks a treat too, with a rich golden yellow swirl of natural annatto colouring.

All vegan, no palm oil and totally natural!

Spring Wallpaper

Further thoughts of spring

1940s European Glamour

Vintage photo

A glamorous young woman with an elaborate hair style, circa 1940.  It has written on the back "Souvenir de Bruxelles".

From the collection of Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez.

The Adventurous Madame X...

A new soap

Just released today, Madame X... is a wonderfully sensuous soap.  Spicily scented with ylang ylang, rose geranium and black pepper, it is packed with super luxurious and skin-loving oils including olive oil, olive pomace, cocoa butter, apricot kernel oil and the exotic musk melon oil.  

The soap has a deep and mysterious colour - from Australian red clay.  It gives the soap an antique feel - it makes me think of a late eighteenth century adventuress racing across the moors in a glittering black carriage.  But I have some imagination!  What is clear is that this soap feels and smells luxurious.  

Now available in Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez's store, which you can access by clicking the shop button above.   Let me know if you have any questions about Madame X... - I shall be discrete...

Sweet Pea Heaven

Fresh from the market

A Friday night treat, Haigh's cardamom dark chocolate and a bunch of sweet peas.  Happy weekend people!

Keep an eye out for Madame X..., to be launched this weekend!

Tea and...Sunday Spice!

A deliciously scented new soap

A wonderful addition to the Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez collection - Sunday Spice.  With a blend of oils packed with skin-loving goodness, like olive oil, olive pomace, cocoa butter, shea oil and avocado oil, Sunday Spice is a rich and luxurious soap.  Scented with carrot seed and ginger essential oils, this soap will make your mouth water!  Delicious!

Sunday Spice is all natural, vegan and palm oil free.  Gentle on your skin and a treat for your senses!  

Now available through Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez's store.  Pay a visit by clicking the shop button in the right-hand column.

The Royal Adelaide Show

The reason why I love it...

Nostalgia.

On display in the Country Women's Association cafe, Royal Adelaide Show.