b/c i forgot to hit "save copy to outbox"

hey, ****!

i don't know that you'll get this before your sister's party-- or that i could turn your skin around in time, anyway-- but take heart: breakouts do heal, and although it's perfectly understandable that you're upset, know that this won't be your skin for the rest of your life!

1. your breakout seems primarily hormonal, but perhaps are also aggravated by product.

2. you were on the pill for 10 years, many of which were years of fairly major development in your body-- as you "became a woman," so to speak, your skin-- like any other organ in your body-- was learning a new sort of normal. external hormonal control was a part of that. when you get off the pill for the first time in all that time, you pretty much have to expect your skin to go haywire on you as it tries to find and establish a new norm for itself (expecting it doesn't make it suck any less, i know!)-- and this period of wackiness as your whole body tries to adjust to the change in the hormonal situation can last, sadly, for months. you say you got off the pill around easter? that would put it somewhere in late april, this year-- so it's been about a month. that sucks, but when you look at what you're asking your body to do, it's pretty much par for the (unfortunate) course. people generally say that it takes 1-3 months for your body to adjust to a new pill, or to get used to going on it or getting off it.

3. trying different products is a challenging thing to do when your skin and body are adapting to such huge changes-- not necessarily b/c trying different things is BAD for your skin during these times, but b/c it becomes really hard to pin down WHY your skin is flaring up. is it the product or your body's adapting to fluctuations? *rashes* are almost always the result of product (or external/topical things like poison ivy, contact allergies, reactions to food you've developed a food allergy to, etc). *breakouts* tend to be much harder to solve. if the proactive made you break out in a rash, i'd skip it-- or, if you want to see if you'll resume the good results you achieved with proactive before you got off hbc, i'd at least try it in patch tests before using it on my whole face. use it in a small, relatively discreet but equally sensitive/breakout prone area, like your neck or your jaw, for a week or so. if you don't break out in a rash or pimples from it, i'd say it's probably safe to try resuming normal use of that product. otherwise, i'd just be conservative-- skin that isn't irritated by external things like product heal up fro breakouts and other issues faster and more thoroughly than skin that is. if conservative just means a gentle wipe-down in the shower with a washcloth, and jojoba cleansing at night (or whatever you were doing), stick with it until your skin calms down. once your skin calms down, you can test the success of various products a lot more accurately.

to treat the current breakouts if you're not ready to go back to proactive, but you're not sure the jojoba thing is really going to help, here are a couple of options:

1. use a mild mask (look for white clay or white kaolin clay) once or twice a week to gently draw without drying out your skin too much (dry skin doesn't heal as well as normal or oily skin). keep the fragrance or essential oil quotient in whatever mask you use on the low side if it's minty, citrusy or medicinal-smelling (save these types of products for spot-treatments. more on that soon)-- for a face that's mid-flare-up, milder masks are the best idea. rose, cucumber-- follow your nose toward milder scents (especially if they're from natural sources-- distillates, essential oils, etc) to find masks that will reduce irritating your skin further. you could make a mask at home with oatmeal, milk & honey, too-- cook the oatmeal with milk and add a dollop of honey, and apply it when it's warm, not hot. the oatmeal contains softening oat protein as well as mild exfoliation when you eventually rinse it off; the milk contains dairy enzymes that act as natural, gentle exfoliants, also, as well as nutrients that will benefit your skin, and the honey both contributes trace minerals and moisture that keeps the mask from drying onto your face.

2. if you use a cleanser, use an appropriate toner afterwards to balance the pH of your skin's surface layer again. proactive has its own as part of the kit. if you use a cleanser or facial soap-- opaque or glycerine-- know that it's going to be slightly basic in nature, and you should have a slightly acidic toner to neutralize the cleanser (i skip it a lot-- but my skin lets me. normally.). witch hazel is great. very diluted apple cider vinegar is great. water with a bit of citrus in it is great. etc.

3. don't feel you NEED a cleanser. if just doing a variation on the oil-cleansing method w/ jojoba works for you, do it. i go weeks with using nothing on my face but warm shower water and a washcloth, and, apart from the days on either end of my period, things generally feel perfectly clean and good. just be sure-- ESPECIALLY when you're very broken out-- that you exfoliate *gently*. no apricot scrubs, no walnut or almond scrubs. nothing that feels like it is scratching your skin or causing it to sting. rely either on enzymatic exfoliation (AHAs, BHAs) (oh, hey, i think aveda has a good one-- they used to, anyway. i think it was called a "botanical exfoliator" or something. i used it for years.), or very gentle washing with a nubby-but-not-scratchy washcloth. the reason for this is pretty simple, and i'm sure you've read it or heard it elsewhere: when stuff is trying to heal, you just don't want to tear it open with sharp edges or a lot of forceful scrubbing. why? b/c every time you do that, you scrape away cells that your body has tried hard to knit back together, and you're also opening up the possibility of bacteria getting in and causing infection, or getting out and spreading it around. this is related, by the way, to the reason i think it's best to avoid minty, citrusy, and strongly medicinal products on sensitive skin on the mend (possible exception: tea tree oil-- again, we'll get to that). basically, if it's not something you want getting in your mouth, vagina, eyes or nose (sensitive openings of your body), you want to be very careful with how much you apply to damaged skin.

4. for spot treatments, it's okay to take stronger steps at first to force a situation to come to a head, have its cathartic, painful moment and let it all out-- because then you can work on the healing process. if a zit looks like it's ready, in fact NEEDING to spill its guts and void itself on you, it's therapist, feel free to help it along with a hot compress and careful, gentle-but-firm fingers. if it's ready, you'll be able to empty a zit without much coaxing. if you find yourself digging it with your nails or breaking the skin to try and clear it out, it's not ready, and you're doing more harm than good. some will just never surface, but swell, sigh and be digested somewhere in deeper layers of your skin-- these can only heal from the inside. your skin literally has to digest whatever has caused the zit, by normal cellular activity of bringing in good nutrition and carrying out toxins and wastes like defeated bacteria and the old pus that helped defeat it. once a zit has been voided, or for a zit that simply won't void, you can fight surface infection with over-the-counter spot treatments with salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide, which are anti-microbial and drying (when skin tissue dries out, it can't host bacteria) (unfortunately, it also can't heal, so it dies and peels), or with antibacterial essential oils like tea trea, rosemary, and lavender. these three oils can be applied neat (straight), but the tea tree and rosemary may sting and burn and still cause some drying, depending on the sensitivity of your skin-- so be careful. they also have powerful, lingering smells-- you will smell medicated. if you're okay with that-- enjoy. if not, consider it. you can also dry out zits with toothpaste-- but that seems so ... i don't know. it makes me think of Full House, or something-- maybe it just reminds me of being 13, broken out, and not clued into so many other, better suggestions. it's good when you're traveling and don't have anything else, but that's about it (but note: tooth GEL = practically pointless, and when comparing toothpastes for their anti-zit qualities, the ones w/ actual peppermint oil instead of synthetic flavor are slightly better.). better than toothpaste is applying a straight baking soda + water paste. even better than THAT is baking soda + crushed aspirin + water paste. the baking soda is very alkaline, and inhospitable to bacteria for that reason. the aspirin contains salicylic acid. it's a pretty solid one-two punch. but yeah-- either paste WILL dry out the spot to which you apply it-- so use it only where it's needed.

once a zit has spilled its guts and/or started drying out, you want to play the very delicate balancing game of dryness and healing. as i mentioned, skin that is dry is skin that is getting rid of bacteria, b/c bacteria need moisture to live. but skin that is dry enough to be bacteria-free is DEAD skin, and will peel and flake and look unattractive. so you don't want to thoroughly dry your skin out, either. what you want to do is tip the balance of your skin's moisture very sharply toward the dry at first, and then carefully use moisture to keep your skin healing and looking alive. spot treatments + GENTLE cleansing + GENTLE masks + continued moisture (both in form of water drunk and moisturizer) should help you do this.

you're a nutrition-lady, so you know how important it is to eat well any time your body is going through changes and/or stresses. good diet-- like good water, good sleep, good exercise-- will show up in your skin. and when your body is in a period of upheaval, as yours is, good diet/water/sleep/exericse are the best ways to help your body normalize as quickly as possible b/c it won't be fighting on all these different fronts at the same time. take care of your body's basic survival needs, and it will be able to address the hormonal thing specifically. once it adapts to the hormonal thing better, your skin will improve without a doubt-- b/c you'll already have the good nutrition, hydration, rest and circulation it requires to look perfectly healthy.

i don't know-- this is really long, and there are no quick-fixes in any of it. but i hope it helps-- either just to calm you down and remind you that it will get better, or to help you understand your skin better in some way, or to give you a couple of tips about how to care for stressed-out skin. good luck with your skin-- and keep me posted. i've been struggling with my own, lately, b/c i still haven't found a sunscreen that doesn't break my face out and i'm kind of at my wits end on that one. totally a product thing. but i'm stuck. i won't NOT use sunscreen, so i'm stuck tending to these awful zits that result from my effort to be responsible! i'm at such a loss as to which sunscreen will work and not cause my face to break out in huge lumps everywhere. sucks!


ps i kind of do want to start experimenting w/ a sunscreen. for personal use, of course-- but yeah. i am dying here trying to find a sunscreen that will work for my face. i mean, i sell SOAP, for crying out loud. who will buy soap from a woman with a face that looks like it needs some serious cleaning??

huh?

i brought some lip balm stuff up to the rich's house this weekend (i have done this before), so i can catch up on some stuff i didn't have time to do this week.

but my scale is being really, really weird! it's a myweigh lotionmaking scale from lotioncrafter, and i've never had problems w/it before but today, i'll tare it out to 0, and it will seem fine, and then just as i'm about to weigh something, it will decide it wasn't REALLY at 0, it was really at 0.034 or something.

same thing when i measure something-- i'll measure out jojoba til it gets to 2.07 oz (or whatever i'm trying to measure out) and stays there and then i reach for the next ingredient and when i return my eyes to the scale, it's decided the jojoba doesn't REALLY weigh 2.07 oz, it's somewhere between, oh, 2.075 and 2.08. no wait, it's really 2.085. yeah, that's it. 2.085.

i put the next oil down and consider reducing its quantity to keep the original overall oils weight consistent, but before i've really decided, i look at the scale and it's wavering, again.

wtf!

it's not a crazy battery, b/c i have it connected to the wall outlet. i moved the scale to a flat counter, away from my computer and the fridge; unplugged any other electrical appliances in the room.

what is going on?!

i know for lip balm it doesn't really REALLY matter that much... but i have a bunch of lotions and soap to make at home tomorrow, and i don't want to be using tenth-of-an-ounce measurements when i really need my hundredths to be working right!

frustrating! if you have any ideas re: what is up, please, please let me know.

eeeeeee! look what i got!

something so simple, and yet so divine!

i love making lip balm-- i make GOOD lip balm. REALLY good lip balm, if i do say so myself. but, like lining soap molds, there is an aspect of lip balm making that sort of sucks unless you have a little something on your side. in the case of soap molds, you cut out the time-consuming, pain-in-the-butt aspect of lining w/ freezer paper or plastic wrap with silicone or silicone-lined molds. with LIP BALM, this little plastic doodad w/ more air than plastic dramatically reduces the awful, painful, *loathesome* tedium of filling the tubes.

do you know how many tubes i've filled in my relatively young career as a lip balm maker? hundreds, literally hundreds. one by one. with disposable plastic droppers. SUCK.

this. this changes everything, and i am STOKED.

this weekend: honey-orange and honey-grapefruit are back on a roll. tea treelief and sweet cream (white chocolate) are ready to go.

now if only there was some plastic fix for the LABELING issue.

hey, dudes

as you can tell, i got the website up in october-- but there are some broken images and incorrect things i need to revise... BUT I CAN'T

my home internet connection is spotty at best for some reason right now, and it's very frustrating. also having software problems, including some that are keeping me from my packaging and web processes. so please bear with-- i am swamped with regular stuff/tying up the semester, and now this. it's going to take me a little bit to get sweet june in working order again-- but i am ALMOST done with school, so should have sooo much more time later on to get stuff back in order. so you can order.

thanks for your patience!


ps before i lost all my software, i finally figured out how to get the "yellow" out of the light in my product shots. when i DO get my computer back in proper order, i have a lot more pictures of stuff on the racks to take and modify for you. they ought to look pretty sharp, too.

AJFHIAOIYUOAAAARGHH!

ARGH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!

that's it. i'm soaping this weekend. a lot. i've been abstaining b/c i've really been focusing on school and my job and rich but you know what? rich is out of town this weekend, i'm doing well in school right now and i'm doing more for my job than i should be, anyway.

so fuck it, it's going to be a soapy, soapy weekend.

and i, for one, am looking forward to it.


also, i'll get the website up this weekend if it kills me.
it looks good.


****
i'm going to shoot for 6 batches, this weekend. get ready. i'm going to plow through some FOs and EOs that have been sitting there very patiently waiting for me to get my hands dirty, again.

it's october. the windows are open, the air is cool and dry. i'm ready.

Long Time, No Nuthin'

Well, not nothing. Some behind-the-scenes type stuff. But yeah, not too much.

1. my mom's hangin' tough! she says she likes the creams i've been testing on her (poor woman-- i'm all "cruelty free" this and "no animal testing" that, and then i go make my poor, sick mother a guinea pig. and stupid me, the first set of shit i gave her included a bath milk that was intended to help sooth her skin if it becomes dry and itchy... totally forgetting that she has this thing in her arm that's supposed to stay dry, so she can't really take baths (they'd have to be too shallow, i think, for a bath milk to do much). anyway, she looks pretty great in spite of things, and i'm hoping this continues throughout the remainder of her treatment. she has yet to start the radiation, though, so we'll see. i've already given her some stuff for the burns.

2. the burns-- my recipe for my mom has prompted to make an adapted version for sunburned skin, which i've dubbed "Apres-Soleil". i am fair-skinned; in spite of spf 30 and 45 that i use daily in summer (my summer job is an outdoor one), i typically burn once or twice a summer. this year was no different-- but i applied the cream consistently and didn't peel, this time. while i have always secretly (not really secretly, actually, but nevermind that) enjoyed peeling sheets of skin off my shoulders or belly or arms, it's probably better to avoid a peely situation, and i managed to do that with this cream. that's probably a good sign, but when i start to offer it more widely (probably summer of '06, though i did debut the formula at the punk rock flea market in philly this june), i will of course not be able to market it as a skin healer or protector. just as a soother.

3. speaking of things that are functionally successful but which will have to go undescribed as such, i think i've perfected my essential-oil-based insect repellent! i blended my oils in march and let the blend mature in amber glass for 4 months before blending it into a cyclomethicone base. i had tried jojoba before, but wasn't thrilled with the feeling of the oil, as in summer humidity, an application of oil is the last thing i want to do while i'm hiking. this cyclomethicone/EO formula *kicked ass*-- the scent didn't disappear rapidly, it kept a boatload of biters at bay (literally-- a couple of sprays completely cleared the deck of beth's pontoon boat of mosquitos and other nighttime buggies attracted by the flashlights), and absorbed enough that it was still surprisingly effective after swimming for 20 or so minutes. although my testers liked the scent, i still think it's a little strong. i'm going to experiment with percentages before mixing up a retailable batch for next summer.

4. Aubrey is in the Philippines right now, but says she is close to done with the new site and i am pumped. Can't wait to get that out to you.

5. Rich and I sat down at his office today and cranked out a couple of hours of work on the labels in between his proE drawings of some remote control thinggie that looks like maxi pad to me. It's a challenge trying to keep two different kinds of creative personalities working in the same vein-- I love Aubrey's ideas, and I love Rich's ideas. Trouble is, they don't intersect much, so I'm trying to negotiate and take aspects from both aesthetics and meld them into a form that best represents my own creative personality. stressful and fun at the same time. I almost feel like I can't go wrong, though, so I'm excited for the time when things will finally be done.

6. it's too damn hot in my house to make shit. sorry, i really wanted to use my extra time this summer to crank out batch after batch of product (didn't register for summer classes, b/c i wasn't sure how things would be going w/ my mom). but i live kind of high up, and my teeny window unit a/c in my bedroom doesn't do crap for my kitchen on the far end of my apt., so that whole melting shea butter for 20 minutes at 170 and then working w/ hot lye solutions and then oven processing everything? not happening. sorry. i do have some stuff that hasn't been posted to the website-- i'll have to take some pictures tomorrow during the sunlight hours and get them online.

7. *however*, i DID start powerlifting (!) (long story), and the trainer who is the boss of me twice a week* has been doing his best to wreck me, i think, so i've discovered the amazing benefits of a) a cool bath as a post-workout relaxant and b) the benefit of bath salts with menthol crystals, eucalyptus, peppermint and lavender. i've been winging my recipe with each bath so far, but man, is it good enough to bottle. so, i think i'm going to bottle it. hey, kiehl's has a muscle soak. why shouldn't sweet june? also, though he wrecks me, i will keep dear trainer in stock, if he's the bath-taking type. do manly men take baths? i imagine manly men who wear themselves out physically on a regular basis must soak sometimes. but i know so few of them so probably don't know what i'm talking about.

* initially, i had typed "weak". how's that for a slip.

8. finally, it's already mid-august! i'm not going to get much stock made between now and the semester, and i've made up my mind that i should really just focus on my two top priorities: my job, and my classes. running/lifting and soap will fit in, b/c i love them, but they both will have to take a backseat during the semester. sucks, i know. this means no regular sales, no regular inventory (funny how all the major holidays/sales seem to coincide uncannily w/ exams and projects or conferences). bums me out, honestly, but i keep telling myself that it's a temporary thing. already i'm eyeballing rich's house (oh hey, i asked him to marry me and he said yes! --this was in april.) in terms of where the gallon jugs of olive oil will go and where the 5-gallon buckets of coconut oil will go, etc etc etc. and you know, his house has two things that will make life so much more conducive to soap: a DISHWASHER and CENTRAL AIR. while i never gave a poop about either of these two amenities just to live, for soap, it's another story. they mean that i will be able to soap two days in a row, and that things should cure out properly and in a timely fashion. wooo! still, i love my house and don't ever want to leave it or give up living alone, so we'll see what happens.

i'm sorry, i'm babbling-- viruses still plague my computer so i've been offline so much (i'm house-sitting/dogsitting this week and am using their computer) that now when i have access and time, i just go on and on. i'll go to bed, now.

good night,
michele seelinger
sometime-operator of sweet june handmade.

mother's milk

wanted to make some soothing bath milks for my mom, whose body has taken a beating and a half, recently.

ordered a shit-ton of coconut, whole, goat and yogurt milk powders, and have come up with a rather nice standard recipe for a bath treatment that combines the emollience of milk protein structures, the relaxing and detoxing properties of sea and epsom salts, and the soothing silk of colloidal oatmeal.

i decided not to scent it, at first, b/c everything i know about chemo says the more invisible the scent, the better. so.

but it's such a great thing, how can you not play with scents, too? so i made another batch, this one with bulgarian and 40/42 lavenders.

i think, once i knock out the remainder of this one paper, i will make a vegan vanilla milk, b/c i got my vanilla oleoresin in, today, and garp was right... once you let the bourbon evaporate out, it really is DIVINE.