Magickal Realism

I’m a perfume bottle collector, which often conflicts with my compartively new unclutter values. Someday I do hope to show you my perfume collection, but the crafter in me who’s done too many shows wants to create a multi-level display for them and the organizer in me is still pining for a suction-cup hanging rack for my kitchen.

In the meantime, I may show you pictures of other perfume bottles I admire, drool on or pine for. To be human is to desire. For me to desire usually means wanting something pretty and glass that holds perfume!

My bottles aren’t as pretty, but you can see perfumes at Magickal Realism on Etsy.

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I’ve yet to meet a fellow perfumer not in a state of constant concoction. “Ooh, how would this smell with this? What happens if I shake it for awhile first? Are these flammable?” That curiosity extends to food. In my home, once the kitchen is cleared and sanitized after a round of body-goodie making, I’m rolling up my sleeves for human subject experiment hour - aka, dinner.

Because I have a corn syrup allergy I’ve had to explore vegan and vegetarian options for food product substitutes since that’s currently the heart of the “real food” movement. It’s been good for me; my body has forced me to visit a healthier way of eating.¹ But it can also leave me in the lurch when things that were conveniently packaged and on-hand to me all the time are now filled with something dangerous to me.

Fortunately, I’m really happy with my first attempt at worcestershire sauce. I read a few recipes and I determined that it’s a balance of sour, sweet, and warm to hot spices. Anchovies are completely unnecessary to the process; all they add is a little hot and a lot of salt and if you have cayenne and salt, you don’t need the fish.

Here is my recipe, with some comments after on ingredients I rejected and why:

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp. organic sorghum molasses

2 tbsp. water

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 clove garlic

1/4 tsp. allspice

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. dried mustard

1/4 tsp. dried ginger

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/4 tsp. onion powder

Place ingredients in a blender. Liquify completely, pour into a glass container and refrigerate.

The above is my current version; it’s a little stronger on the sour flavoring, but tastes pretty well like worcestershire as I know it. Given, it’s an imitation and not an original creation, but since I absolutely hate the taste of the vegan brand on the market right now I can deal with this just fine!

If you want something that does feel a little more fishy, 1/8 tsp of cumin and an 1/8 tsp of oregano will fix you up quite well. You can also add a dash of tabasco to heat it up, or 1/4 tsp of chili and 1/4 tsp of coriander to make it a little more earthy in its sensibility.

Stop by my Etsy shop and say hello!

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1. Despite aggressive and offensive advertising by PETA, however, a vegan diet has not made me thin. Nor has it made many a fat vegan thin. I am not anti-PETA, but I am anti-anti-fat. [↩]

I can’t get it to link to the post. Why?

I haven’t been included in a treasury for a few weeks, although I had quite the fun run with Etsy treasury inclusion in early 2007. At the time, I wasn’t quite clear on what treasury inclusion meant, and I’ve only recently figured out what’s necessary to capture a treasury (hint: it involves never sleeping normal hours.)

Let’s say you wake up one morning and you find a convo in your Etsybox: you’re in a treasury! Of course you should go, click, and post a comment thanking the curator. It’s the gracious thing to do, after all. And you could just leave it at that. Treasuries are random, low-traffic things with a short lifespan. Why make a fuss?

Here’s why:

Etsy admin looks through treasuries for front page ideas. While we on Etsy are still subject to admin’s whims and limitations, it does at least give us a chance to present new ideas to them.

So when your item is included in a treasury, you are being nominated by someone as front-page worthy. It’s like receiving a neighborhood association award: it means something to the person who picked you, and it might mean something to you.

If you assume the attitude that you’ve essentially received a small award, you should proceed as you would with any other award: tell the world. You’re helping bring more attention to your item and the items of others and it gives you a little bit of content for your social networking sites. Just grab a screenshot - you can use the print screen function on your desktop or one of three or four add-ons available in mozilla - and you can upload the image to your respective accounts. I’ve even gone so far as to add my treasuries to Etsy-treasury specific groups on flickr.

Places to Go with your Treasury Screenshot and What to Do when You’re There:

Myspace
Add it to your slideshow. Create a 500 pixel image with a link back to the treasury and post it in bulletins. Ask people to click.

Twitter
Tweet it no more than twice. Add a link.

Your personal blog
Post the image. Say how it makes you feel.

Facebook
Add it to your notes field.

Your Etsy shop
Include a link in your shop announcement, just be sure to take it down as soon as the treasury expires.

You can also talk about it in forums in the appropriate areas - Etsy pretty much keeps you to Promotions, but it still can get some play there if your treasury is attention-worthy. I’m not suggesting you drop everything when you get in a treasury, but doing one or two of these things can help inch you up that path of recognition.

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Heads up perfume lovers, Magickal Realism is offering free shipping worldwide through the holidays. If I can legally send it to your country, it will be sent!

Stop by Magickal Realism and gather up your goodies while the shipping is free!

Image via Wikipedia

It’s well established I’m a bootstrap/shoestring seller. I have no business debt, and I refuse all business credit. For me, this works: perfuming is a supplement to my life, and while I love doing it, I am facing the ever-present possibility of change. As technology and science advance, I may have to change what I do or how I do it.

Because bath and body is such a densely competitive business, I also have to strive to stand apart from other people who purvey the same goods. Some of this is motif, and because buyers become used to certain looks and approaches in their motifs, my variation sometimes is and sometimes isn’t memorable - it depends on the psyche of the person looking, how well my imagination is working and sometimes purely on hitting zeitgeist, otherwise known as the jackpot. I don’t get the purchases made out of simple practicality and cute-appeal as do other sellers; this is because I am opting to be different, and still learning ways to appeal to people.

I realize people need to be able to smell my goods, and need to know what’s in them. They also need to know why my stuff is different from the last dozen perfumes and bath salts they smelled. After all, when people don’t know what to do with their lives, they either make soap and spa products, write a children’s book or buy a sports car. So I have to make it clear in a visual way that my stuff is not just more of this. Buyers need to have expectations met, and yet, they need to know more about why I deserve their support - and even then, not everyone will or should support me.

While I work out the right balance of being different and being conventional, I have had to adjust my own expectations. I can’t afford to do big craft shows, just the small ones. And those small craft shows are as unpredictable as any other. So rather than going in to make money, I have a slightly different set of expectations.

My goals at a small show are as follows:

1. Recover the booth fee.

2. Get a serious commitment to my email list.

3. Educate my visitors about who I am and what I do.

I do not push for purchases, or offer BOGOs. Instead, I let people get to know me. I consider these shows part of my advertising budget - not part of my income generating activity. I am much more practiced at online marketing, so these adventures are a way of paying my dues. To me, it’s all about being present - I’m not a big corporation, so I don’t need to make continuously more money, and I’m a writer, so I don’t see this as the only thing I do. My business can grow slowly. So a craft fair where I don’t make much? Sure, it’s not great, but it’s OK. I can deal, because I’m still learning and always will be.

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The Minnesota Etsy Fall Boutique is next week - stop by for goodies made by local artisans.

Magickal Realism will be there, and we will have available the following stock:
2008 MN Etsy Street Team Fall Boutique
See something you like? Contact me privately and I can set one aside for you. See something in my Etsy shop you want? I can have that ready for you to pick up at the show!

Magickal Realism Inventory

Roll-on Fragrances
Autumn $18
Coffee Wonderful $22
Lemon Pop $22
Zombie Repellent $19

Men’s Fragrances
Dragon $24
Eugene’s Unbirthday $28
Geek Boy $24
Woodsman $20

Room Fragrances

Oil Burners
Midnight Oil $5
Room for Possibility $5
Spiked Grandpa $5

Sprays
Blowing Sunshine $10
Den of Sin $10
Crooked Broomstick Smudge Spray $10

Incenses
Incinerates $5

Scrubs
Lavender and Spikenard Olive Oil Scrub $5

Bath Salts
Dip Me in Chocolate $4
Lavender $4
Lurid $4
Patchouli $4

The Minnesota Etsy Fall Boutique is next week - stop by for goodies made by local artisans.

Magickal Realism will be there, and we will have available the following stock:
2008 MN Etsy Street Team Fall Boutique
See something you like? Contact me privately and I can set one aside for you. See something in my Etsy shop you want? I can have that ready for you to pick up at the show!

Magickal Realism Inventory

Roll-on Fragrances
Autumn $18
Coffee Wonderful $22
Lemon Pop $22
Zombie Repellent $19

Men’s Fragrances
Dragon $24
Eugene’s Unbirthday $28
Geek Boy $24
Woodsman $20

Room Fragrances

Oil Burners
Midnight Oil $5
Room for Possibility $5
Spiked Grandpa $5

Sprays
Blowing Sunshine $10
Den of Sin $10
Crooked Broomstick Smudge Spray $10

Incenses
Incinerates $5

Scrubs
Lavender and Spikenard Olive Oil Scrub $5

Bath Salts
Dip Me in Chocolate $4
Lavender $4
Lurid $4
Patchouli $4

If I had an explanation for why I did this, I might tell you. But ultimately, I really don’t have an explanation. I just went nuts with the Crayola products and the poetry, and this pdf displaying my absence of any drawing or sketching skills is the end result.

The end result is that this book is available in pdf form through my shop on Etsy.

Here’s the Contents listing:
This is a 21 page pdf with 10 spells/concepts included.
Here is the contents guide:
1. Book Dedication
2. Statement of Copyright
3. Acknowledgments
4. Disclaimer
5. Preface
6. Grounding
7. Centering
8. Purification
9. Creativity
10. Home Protection
11. Love
12. Money (not actually a money spell, so buy for a different reason.)
13. Mercury Retrograde
14. Mini-exoricsm
15. Reversal
16. Sources
17. About the Author (yes, that’s me.)

The entire thing is created, the criticisms are expected, and I bring this into the world with my middle finger extended and a great big smile on my face!

Perfume ‘risk to unborn babies’Pregnant womanThe first three months of pregnancy are vital to future fertilityPregnant women have been told that not using perfumes or scented creams may reduce the risk of unborn boys developing infertility in later life.Edinburgh University researchers claimed a crucial window between eight and 12 weeks of pregnancy determined future reproductive problems.They believe that exposure to chemicals found in cosmetics during this period may affect later sperm production.But they stressed there was not yet conclusive proof this was the case.The research team was led by Professor Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, based in Edinburgh.

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | Perfume ‘risk to unborn babies’

So, here’s the maddening part for me on this - there is no list as to what those chemicals are. Way to go for accurate reporting there, BBC. If you can’t read it, that’s sarcasm.

From the synopses of the article I’ve located on PubMed, it looks to be theorized - but not proven - that pthalates are the cause of this problem, specifically dibutyl phthalate. I found the full text of the study here.

There are two entries in the Cosmetics Safety Database on dibutyl phthalate. One comes up for its use in perfumes/fragrance oils. One under its chemical name. However, the “data gaps” are reported as 64% and 50% respectively (lower data gap means higher confidence in the data.)

Tags: perfume, safety