Man, today was busy.  Felt like Monday all day long, which was good, since it IS, in fact, a Monday.  And after yesterday’s hooky-break from the scent side of things, I decided to dive into a project that’s been marinating in the idea drawer of my brain for a good while.

Sincerely is a store here in North Carolina — Asheboro, to be specific.  Downtown, to be even more specific.  Kim, the lovely lady who runs the amazing place (seriously, locals…go there.  Drive NOW.  Do not stop.  Do not pass Go.  You won’t regret it.), has had a stock of my soap since she opened, and was quite interested in carrying the scents.  Since she’s out of soap at the moment (and I’ve not really made a whole lot more lately), I figured now was as good a time as any to break out the recipes I’ve had on the backburner for these.

There are six that I did today:  Sincerely Skin, Spring, Sprite, Sea, Sweet, and Spice.  I’ll describe them here in a second for you non-locals who can’t run down there and sniff.  There was a seventh, Sincerely Sun, but, to be honest, something went all kinds of wonky and smelled vaguely like ass on toast.  It needs reworking, clearly, since there are not many among us who want to smell like either ass or toast, much less both.

I’m a little in love with the labels.  I had to cut them out by hand, which took a lot longer than intended, but I trimmed while on a conference call that I really didn’t need to be there for, so it wasn’t all that bad.  But I love the look of the shaped labels, and might have to figure out a way to do this for other series, too.

Because what I really need to do is find a way to make things more time-intensive, right? :)

Anyway, the scents:

Sincerely Skin – Skin musk at its finest.  A combination of musks and a touch of heliotrope, with just a drop of something dirty and green.  It’s profoundly sexy, in a sex-hair kind of way.

Sincerely Spring - The ONLY floral that I’ve ever liked, if that says anything.  (I’m SO not a floral person.)  It’s a combination of wet, white flowers over rich earth, topped with a literal drop of white rose.  Gorgeous, and it lasted FOREVER on me.

Sincerely Sprite – Woodland greens, with resins and sparkling blondewoods.  There’s a bit of clary sage on the tail-end of it that makes it sparkle.  Think fairies in the woods, standing on mossy logs.  Seriously.

Sincerely Sweet – Lives up to its name, but without the biting OMG SUGAR going on.  Aged vanilla base, with peaches and pears, dripping with toasted marshmallows and sprinkled with rainbow sugar.  Despite the notes, it doesn’t go all top-heavy with the tooth-rotting sugars, but it’s definitely sweet.

Sincerely Sea – Stand next to the ocean, on an old wooden dock, while seagrasses lick your ankles.  It’s like that.

Sincerely Spice -  Best description I can think of is that it’s like finding a mahogany box full of precious resins and spices.  (Sans cinnamon, which almost always amps through the roof on most folks.)  Because of the resins, this one lasts FOREVER, and barely morphs on me.  I can still smell it on the place I tested it, and that was a good sixteen hours ago now, if that says anything.

Right now, they’re only available at Sincerely, but if you non-local folkses want one, just drop me a comment and I’ll put links in the sidebar.  She doesn’t sell online yet (that I know of), so it’d be the only way to get them unless you fly in and drive over there.  (Which I’d still suggest.  Awesome store.)

Total time today:  A whopping  4:53:28.  Whew.

Then tonight, it was this:

I fully admit that I was trying to bring it back around to the Earth Day thing, and thought this would make an awesome card/postcard.  It’s only two elements, but there were…uh…more.  They just weren’t worth keeping.  To be fair, I was pretty brain-fried after all the scent stuff, a huge meeting, and a dinner party (I baked a brie and asiago bread.  Everybody loves cheese.), and I’m still brain-spinny about the art journals from yesterday.  A couple people showed off creations of their own from it, and now all I want to do is make little journals all day long.

It’s a sickness.

total time: roughly an hour.  I totally forgot to set the timer, because apparently, I was distracted by Teh Shinee.  I’ll take the hit and only call it an hour anyway.

Tomorrow, I’m starting an easy week.  Scentwise, at least.  I have some reading I want to do (which totally counts), and I want to fix Sincerely Sun, but I need to read about certain chemicals first.  I also took a bunch of pictures on Saturday and Sunday that are being modified into stuff for ORT’s main street, so drawing will be taking place.  I know I wanted to do a daily scent start-to-finish, but that’s morphing as I go forward.  The education part of all this needs attention, so there we go.

ALSO…if you’re not in the US, and you wanted a tiny art journal…scroll down.  Apparently, when I cut off international shipping for physical goods, Paypal doesn’t let you rescind that just for downloadables, even though it would make sense to have different rules for downloads vs. mailings.  I can totally send you a link manually, though, if you want to play along with the tiny art journals, no matter where you are in the world.  Just let me know. :)