Cosmetics College - Intensive Week Programme

Life changing - fantastic course, excellent teachers, great information

generously shared and lots of lovely take home presents

Although almost a month ago now, we are still on a high from our Cosmetic College Intensive Week programme. What a week it was! Let me share a little insight from the week interspersed with comments from our students.

Sadly we had a last minute cancellation on the Friday before as - due to work commitments - one of our students was unable to come. Although we operate a wait list, we thought the notice was too short for anyone to take up the place, but our replacement student managed to fly in from Malaysia to join us for the 2nd part of the week.

Oh So Natural

We had an SOS call on Friday evening from a friend of mine - she had a swarm

of bees in her front garden, very close to the gate...and too close for comfort to her front door. She had got home from work, turned the car engine off, but could still hear a motor so was very confused......she then realised it wasn't the car engine, but some other source and it didn't take her too long to track down the buzzing!

Knowing that not only am I doing my bee keeping lessons but that I was a happy recipient of a bee hive (Christmas prsent), she phoned to ask if we could help. I'm still kicking myself as I had my son's hockey awards to go to as well as meeting up with friends for a drink...somehow overlapping those two Friday night's entertainment just didn't allow for squeezing in building the beehive and catching my first swarm. :-(

Luckily Ted, our local bee keeping swarm patrol came to the rescue and took them off in a temporary hive.

This week we'll be putting the hive together in anticipation of it being swarm season and offering a home to another band of bees on the run. Can't wait!

Seaweed & Watercress Soap care of The Apprentice

OK - own up, who saw it? I love The Apprentice and last night it was very close to my heart - making beauty products! See our website to listen to our stint on BBC Radio reviewing the Apprentice Soap Making episode www.plushfolly.com

Seeing the Apprentice teams scavenge around in the rock pools collecting seaweed or donning their protective gear to collect honey reminded me of two lovely ladies we had on a course once. Their plan was to drive around the British Isles in their Winnebago making and selling soap created from ingredients indigenous to the area they were staying in.

We had fun compiling the list - Oats & Whisky soap (Scotland), Seaweed and Sea Salt Soap (Cornwall), Clotted Cream Soap (Devon), Guinness Soap (Dublin), Tea Soap (Yorkshire), Coloured Sand Soap (Isle of Wight), Crab Soap (Cromer - OK I'm lying, but you can see how fun this was!), Strawberry Soap (Wimbledon) etc - the list was extensive.

I wonder how they are getting on.....

Ducks in the window

When we used to dress the windows of the shop, it was a long, well thought out plan of action....we'd decide on a theme, a colour, a range of products, props and positioning and then spend a happy couple of hours darting in and out of the shop peering through the window to see how the creation was emerging. We'd have critical hats on, creative hats on and finally, the 'yup, that'll do nicely' hats on.

Well what a load of poop! The idea was to draw passer bys attention to something attractive and appealing in the hope that they'd stop in their tracks, back step to the door and come in and spend money. Now I know that the effort spent was all in vain....we recently took every single rubber duck we had in the shop and put them in the window. What an easy display they made - over 60 ducks in all, ranging in size, all with very cute faces, all lined up in a winding, snake-like row. Children have been stopping and head bashing the window to get a closer look - I can't believe there isn't one buggy in Hampton that hasn't been parked up whilst mother and toddler/child/ teenager/grandmother have been duck counting. The ducks weren't for sale, they were our shop ducks used to fill in gaps, adorn shelves, sit on pots, pans and generally keep us company when it rained.

Making Cosmetics - on the radio?!

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to be invited onto BBC Radio Solent to discuss the art of making cosmetics at home.

Live on air we made a lip gloss (using beeswax, olive and castor oil, shea and cocoa butter) coloured witha little red wine coloured mica. The radio presenter loved it and commented on how soft it made her lips feel (great for those air conditioned studios).

Then came the hysterical part ! The presenter selected to make a face mask was the lovely Jon Cuthill (not much hair on his head, but sporting much facial hair!). After tasting many of the ingredients and pronouncing them 'delicious' (good thing it was radio so you couldn't see the grimace he was pulling), he opted to make his mask with Wild Yam powder and Strawberry extract. After much clinking of teaspoons (oh those special effects you can get away with on the radio) and stirring of the powders and clay, Jon literally spread the paste over much of his face and head.

As the mask tightened, his voice became more and more clipped until it was impossible for him to continue presenting the show! Cue for a break - a dash to the washrooms, and Jon emerged looking "younger, glowing, and downright good looking!".

Hmmmm, if it did all that for Jon, I guess I should give my husband the same treatment.......Nick darling, wild yam and strawberries for 'supper' tonight!