Inside Wunder Budder... Jojoba Oil!

Jojoja

Simmondsia chinesis

(adapted from Wunder Budder's fall 2010 newsletter)

jojoba shrub

 Jojoba is among my favorite oils, and the one I use most frequently, both at home and in Wunder Budder.  While it's thick and rich, when used correctly (a little goes a long way!) it sinks into the skin and leaves little to no oily residue behind.  It has a beautiful deep golden yellow color and a very light natural aroma.

Jojoba is native to the Sonoran Desert area of southwestern Arizona, southern California and northwestern Mexico.  It’s a desert shrub growing to an average height of 5ft tall.  Jojoba plants live for 100-200 years, and each year they produce flowers.  The male plants produce yellow-green flowers which grow in small clusters, and the female plants produce green flowers which usually grow one per stem.  The female flowers harden into a pod-like fruit, with each fruit one containing 1-3 brown peanut–sized seeds which are collected and cold pressed in order to claim their oil.

Although it’s referred to as jojoba oil, it is technically a liquid wax with a chemical structure similar to both sperm whale oil and the sebum (natural oil) made by human skin.  When the US banned the import of sperm whale oil in 1971, jojoba became more commonly used in cosmetics.  Its popularity has increased since then because of its usefulness and its stability and long shelf life.

calendula infused jojoba oil

While more expensive than other common oils, it can be used in smaller amounts due to its rich consistency.  It’s easy to spread and absorbs nicely into the skin.  It helps regulate sebum production, doesn’t clog pores and is useful for all skin types.  It may help reduce the appearance of superficial lines and wrinkles, making it excellent for facial care.  It also makes a great scalp oil and is thought to encourage the growth of new hair with its ability to regulate sebum production and remove hardened sebum from hair follicles.

With all its attributes, jojoba is used in many types of skin care products.  It may be used full strength or blended with a complimentary oil.  With its low odor, it’s also excellent as a base for natural perfumes.

Paramedic Salve, with jojoba oil

In Wunder Budder, jojoba is frequently used.  I love that it’s thick and nourishing without being heavy or greasy.  I love its golden color and how it picks up the yellow from calendula flowers and the green from chaparral.  And, that it has a very mild aroma which helps when blending it with essential oils.  But, most importantly, I love how it feels on my skin, and I think you will too. 

XoXo,

Lisa

www.wunderbudder.com

What Wunder Budder products contain jojoba oil?

Original & Paramedic salves

All nine flavors of lip balm

Calendula Oil

Facial Oils

Body Oils (when available)

Small Changes

I've changed the name of this blog once again.

Recently I've realized that one of my biggest fears since I was a teenager is to be stagnant, unchanged, unmoving.

For a long time, I thought that meant to change I needed to move, change jobs, change relationships.  Itchy Feet Syndrome.

And that's what I did.

At some point over the last few years, I've realized that while I still like external changes, the changes that mean the most to me are changes I make internally.

Thoughts, ideas, focus.  Things that change the deeper me are what make me happiest.

Today I realized that telling the story of Wunder Budder from the beginning (the idea of the first incarnation of this blog) and Wunder Budder Buzz (the second incarnation - spreading news) are not what I presently want to share.

Maybe this is why today I changed the name of the blog once again, to Adventures of Wunder Budder.  Maybe this will help change my focus to this blog to all aspects of Wunder Budder, from my personal intentions to specifics about my business.  Maybe it will help me to post more, to share more.  Or maybe it won't.  Either way, it needed a change, so that's what happened.

XoXo,
Lisa

www.wunderbudder.com

Me.

My birthday is today...

At this time of year, I always take a look around

to see what I'm doing, where I'm going, and who's coming with me...

It's an extra burst of confidence,

 a renewed realization that I have complete control over my life...

there's always a choice, a direction,

a decision to make.

Don McCloskey says...
promise to never to age
in such a way
that you don't rage
against
the dying of the light
and fight the right fights
and turn the page at the right time
and realize at the right age
that mankind is alright and ok
and wasn't meant to be caged anyway
cause life is a stageso hop up and engage
and forget your lines
cause half the time
you gotta improvise anyway
don't wait to have a seizure
before you seize the day
 (from the song Don't Tango With the Freak Show)

I love birthdays!

XoXo,

Lisa

wunderbudder.com

Lip balm! Lip lovin' lip balm!

I'm not sure where to start!  At the beginning?

Wunder Budder lip balms have always been made with a base of rich jojoba and apricot kernel oils infused with calendula flowers and solidified with golden beeswax.  I modeled them after the Original calendula salve, the one that the whole company started with (pictured below, to the right).

They also included cocoa butter in the beginning.  Although cocoa butter is widely used and it's a great butter, I wanted something different, something better, and started experimenting with other butters.

I settled on kokum butter, a butter with amazing skin softening properties, that melted right around skin temperature, allowing the lip balms to stay solid, but melted into lips when applied.

After a while, my most trusted supplier stopped selling kokum butter.  I never found out why, and never found another good supplier for it, so I was forced to choose again.

Because I was so happy with the kokum butter, I chose a butter with similar properties - Sal butter.

I loved it... Sal was softer than kokum butter, with a slightly lower melting point, and I ended up really happy that I was forced to make the change.

I still love sal butter, but about six months ago I started experimenting with mango butter.  Even though it's too hard generally to be used on its own, I fell in love with it the first time I dug out a little chunk from a fresh jar and massaged it into the back of my hand.  Even as a stand alone, it was amazing.  It had an almost invisible aroma, a nice light golden color, and it made my skin feel great!  I knew I had to find a way to work it into my products.

I decided to start with lip balms, and once it was in there, I fell in love with it all over again.  After a few long-time users (and two hopefully future employees, although I don't think they know it yet... yeah, Timm and Deirdre, if you're reading this, I'm talking to you!) and my husband told me they liked the new formula better than the old one and why (didn't get melty in pockets and didn't get crumbly when cold - neither which I knew the old formula did, and this is why I love feedback!), I knew I made the right decision.

The three new flavors of lip balm are made with the new mango butter formula: Lemony, Dark Mint and Java (not pictured).  For more information about the new flavors, click here to go to the lip balm page of the Wunder Budder website.

Lemony natural lip balm by Wunder Budder

Dark Mint natural lip balm by Wunder Budder

Over the next month or so, I'll be transforming all Wunder Budder lip balms to the new formula.  I really think you're going to love the new flavors, and the new smoother formula!

Spread the love!

XoXo,
Lisa

www.wunderbudder.com

Slacking.

I used to be really good at slacking.

I've had a job since I was 15 (and babysat before that), and although many of those years were spent working well over 40 hours a week, and most of them also included school of some kind, I somehow always found time to slack. 

Good, old-fashioned slacking... just sitting and watching the world go by, listening to birds chirping, riding my bike, attempting to to draw or paint, whatever it was, it was time I spent by myself and feeling a deeper connection to the world around me.

Then I started school full time, majoring in a subject that I loved but never really saw myself making a life out of, with some of my professors expecting much more effort out of students than they wanted to put into teaching, in a school that I hated more than pretty much anything else in the world.

I did that for two full years.  Why did I wait so long to change things?  I have no idea.  I was so stressed out, so broke, tired, sick, over-worked, under-funned, I don't think I really knew what was happening.  Or, I did, but I was in denial.  Or, I knew it, but I just wanted to finish something.  I still haven't decided.

Then a string of events happened (The Story Part 1... but after just looking back on it, I guess I still need to write more of the story!).  Wunder Budder was sent into motion.

I went straight from being all those things I mentioned, to being all those things I mentioned (only I was loving what I was doing this time), with no break in between.

After three years with no real break, I'm teaching myself how to slack again.  And to not feel guilty for it.

One of my forever goals is to find balance in all aspects in my life.  This year, my focus is to find balance between growing a small business, spending time with the people I need in my life, some old-fashioned slacking, and any combination of those things.

I started with sleeping more, only using an alarm when absolutely necessary, and becoming more organized... to quit wasting time trying to keep my head, my business, my life together, and just take steps to make sure they stay together without all the extra effort, at least most of the time. 

I've discovered projects... as in, a goal, with a time frame, split up into parts for a less overwhelming experience.  This month I have two major goals... to have my studio fully organized and to have my lip balm wholesale campaign ready to go by May 1st.

So far, so good, and I can't wait to show off my studio before and after pictures later this month!

XoXo,
Lisa
www.wunderbudder.com

40% off Some Stuff!

Hello!  Spring is in the air!

I was spring cleaning in my studio earlier today... I found 200 pipettes, 100 perfume sample vials, 25 1/3 oz perfume roller bottles, 1000 wooden sample spatulas, 50 1oz dropper bottles and some chocolate sunflower seed clusters.

All of these things I forgot I had or thought I lost, so it was a day of surprises!

How do you lose that many things in a one room studio?  You become me.

That was earlier in the day.

Later, I took some new photos to update the website...

Just Lavender Aromatherapy

I had totally forgotten that I had no picture of Just Lavender anything on the site!

As I was going through the bottles, I realized that some things had paper labels

and some things had EarthFirstPLA labels.

We're in the process of switching all our products over, and all 1&2oz bottles,

inhalers, salves and lip balms have the PLA labels.

Except the few that I found.

spring cleaning + mismatched labels = hugely discounted sale!

40% off all 1oz & 2oz facial oils and toners, and select aromatherapy air & body sprays until the paper labels are gone!  There's only a few of each left, and once the paper labelled items are sold, the sale is over.  So, get some while you can!

Some of these things are on sale



XoXo,

Lisa @ Wunder Budder

Love living naturally!

www.wunderbudder.com

 

A love letter to Wunder Budder...

my original salve - Original.

At first it was just called Wunder Budder.

That was the name of the salve.

Wunder Budder super soft salve.

Original calendula salve

Time went on, and I as kept making new stuff, the name Wunder Budder slowly became the name of my business and my original salve, no longer with it's own name, became Original.  Original calendula salve.  Sometimes I think it fades into the background because of it's name, but it is one of my favorite things that exist in this whole world.

Really.

The Whole World.

I'm not exaggerating.

Sometimes I forget... I get so distracted with the new stuff I make that Original might sit in a bag for days, all alone.

And then I see it, pick it up, put it on my lips and massage it into my hands.

Those words aren't even right... I don't just "put it on" or "massage it in"... I see it, feel it, smell it... I experience it.

It's so soft that sometimes I can't even believe it.

And the smell... the beautiful beeswax aroma... a little calendula, a little apricot kernel oil, but mostly just the sweet smell of beeswax.

bright

yellow

beeswax

Someday I will raise my own bees.

I think about where I was when I first started making it... a cold dry New Mexican winter at first, and then the snowiest Massachusettes winter I had ever remembered when it became official.  I think about picking out the tins... flat tins... they just feel better

I think about designing the labels, teaching myself how to use Illustrator.  What did I want it to look like?  What did I want to see when I looked at that little tin filled with soft yellow magic?

I experimented a lot...

A few of my favorites.

Stars!  It needed stars... and my favorite color?  Orange?  Or is it green?... both!  Add a little blue, just the right color blue...

And the back?

From the very beginning, the labelling laws from the FDA plagued me... the font size of the weight or volume had to be bigger than the ingredients!  Ok, it doesn't have to be that way, but in the case of the small label needed for a Wunder Budder tin, it did.  I spent so long on the front, getting it exactly as I wanted it, that I didn't want to interrupt it with the contents measurements.

I got it to fit on the back, with the ingredients, the original Wunder Budder quote "Don't forget to smile", and a short description: "A soft smooth salve to moisturize and protect your skin and lips.  Apply whenever needed".

It seems simple, right?  But it wasn't!  It still isn't!

Trying to fit everything I want to say about my stuff never fits on a label.

I also wanted to add something else... how to use it... what it was good for... I was familiar with salves, but now still, 8 years later, I meet many people who don't know what they are or what to use them for.  So, I needed to add some guidance... "A little goes a long way!" followed by the words, in a ring around the edge of the label:

hands   lips   cheeks   elbows   soles   hair   legs   friends   fingers   knees   toes

My dorkiness still makes me smile.

It's still my favorite thing to make.  And don't get me wrong... there's nothing but love going into everything I make... it's what I do... it's what I love.  But Original is still my favorite.

Infusing the golden calendula flowers into a special blend of the even more golden jojoba and apricot kernel oils... it's liquid sunshine... not like Sunshine... a different liquid sunshine.
I guess I say that a lot.

I think of vegetables as crunchy sunshine.

...

The melting of the beeswax...

really, I just love beeswax!

Makin' Original

But my favorite part... cleaning up after!  Really!  It's like making a cake and licking the spoon.  Only, there's no eating involved.... I love to scrape the melting pot and take globs of the slightly warm amazing goodness and spreading it over my skin... it's true that a little goes a long way, so it's these moments, and I think it's these moments only, that I'm happy I have no furry friends to go home to.

I'm in love.

Original Super Soft Salve

XoXo,

Lisa, proud owner and lover of Wunder Budder

http://www.wunderbudder.com