The Lotion Promotion!

If you've never tried our body lotions, this is a great time of year to start! From today through Saturday, March 9th, you can bag our amazing cure for winter skin for for 25% off! (discount applied automatically, no code necessary).

6 delectable scents!
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A little history: Before I started Mama in 2004, I patronized a little shop in LA that had a lotion blending bar. I was able to choose my lotion base and add the scents that I liked, and I wore this lotion every day for a few years as my moisturizer and my personal scent. The shop closed right around the time my business got going, so it was a great time to find a replacement. Unfortunately, creating a lotion from scratch takes time, so I was forced to try a lot of other lotions during the void. This ended up being a great way to really identify the important things that I wanted from a good lotion - smooth application, a good balance of butters, oils and water, a blend that was thick and moisturizing but didn't leave you feeling like you had an oil slick on your hands -- that was a BIG one for me!  And then once I started researching ingredients, I discovered how many lotions contained mostly synthetic ingredients, so the objective became to create the ideal lotion with natural ingredients. It took well over a year and a lot of mistakes to come up with the lotion we had in mind. Cut to almost 10 years later -- our lotions are still handcrafted in small batches and we haven't changed the recipe one bit!

Did You Know? In body care products, manufacturers must list ingredients in descending order -- so the list starts with the largest amount and ends with the smallest amount -- and the rule of thumb is that the first few ingredients almost always make up the majority of the formula. So if a product boasts green tea as an essential ingredient but it's toward the bottom on the list, you can be sure that there's not enough in the product to offer any real benefit.

No machines here!
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So why are our lotions so great?

First of all, we hit all the points on our lotions wish list.  Our body lotions have a thick, creamy consistency with just the right percentage of water so that they glide on smoothly but they're not at all watery. And they're uber-moisturizing, but the oils absorb quickly so you're not left with your hands sliding off your steering wheel.

Secondly, they're made by hand in small batches, which allows us to make sure the quality is consistent every time. And by our standards, handmade means you're getting a high quality product. I mean, who wants to work with second-rate materials if you're going to spend all that time creating something? Think of it as a home cooked meal vs a microwave dinner.

Thirdly, they have a shelf-life. Just as fresh food can't be kept forever, neither should a high-quality body product. We recommend using up our lotions within 9 months (zen is 6 months) of their made-on date, and we always ship within a month of making them, to ensure you get fresh product.

And last but not least, the first four ingredients of our lotions make up over 90% of the ingredients: water, olive oil, shea butter and mango butter. All of these are 100% natural and they're all skin loving ingredients. Olive oil is a wonderful moisturizer and shea and mango butters are super healing and soothing. So with the exception of a small amount (around 1%) of non-paraben synthetic preservative and a fatty alcohol compound*, the rest of our recipe is made of entirely natural ingredients - we even use 100% natural essential oils as our scents. (*This fatty alcohol compound is called emulsifying wax -- it's an essential ingredient in lotion making that ensures that the water and oil will bind together and will keep from separating during the shelf-life of the lotion.  Click here to read more about E-wax: http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/emulsifying_wax.php )

Did You Know: to push a natural agenda that isn't exactly truthful, some body care companies will use a synthetic ingredient but call it "natural" because it was derived from a natural ingredient. But cocamidopropyl betaine, which is derived from coconut oil, is a synthetic ingredient that isn't even remotely the same (as far as your skin is concerned) as using 100% coconut oil. Ask questions and read up to become a savvy naturals consumer. 

Serving up lotion at our shop in Atlanta!
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And last but not least, the best thing about our body lotions is how many ways you can use them:

1. Massage onto dry cuticles. Do this regularly and you'll see quite a difference in the texture and strength of your nails!

2. Rub a small amount on your hands and use it to tame frizzy hair

3. Slather on warm skin right out of the shower for maximum moisturizing

4. On pregnant bellies to help soothe stretching skin and help minimize stretch marks (shea butter is great for this!)

5. On cracked and dry heels and hands (wear sleep socks or gloves overnight to really smooth and soften)

6. Soothe sunburned skin

7. Soften rough skin areas like knees and elbows

8. Some of you even use it on your face - even though we don't necessarily recommend it. (we love rebels!)

Have you found other uses for our lotion?  Please comment and let us know!!

Valentine's Day at Mama!

The Mama Shop is all about love right now.



Loving the felted roses (stage right) that were formerly wool sweaters - made by my friend and former studio mate Felted Heart. We have some other great gifts for your sweetie too at a variety of price points.



Loving our V-day themed soaps: Chocolate Bar and My Flower. Both are 100% natural, so it was a challenge coming up with a chocolate scent. The combo of cocoa butter and cocoa powder won. Chocolate Bar smells like a brownie and My Flower is rose geranium essential oil. It's a really lovely rose scent - no Granny perfume here.



Also loving my flowering Quince branches. A much needed little bit of spring. I have a hookup, so let me know if you want some of your very own!

We were a little late with our Valentine's Day offerings this year, so I'm not going to have time to photograph and get them up on the website. If you're interested in ordering any of the chocolate or rose scents, shoot me an email: mama@loveyourmama.com or call the shop: 404.377.7800. Still plenty of time to ship before the big day!

My sign is mangled, but my spirit is not

I had this up for all of 2 days.



The Cookie Studio ladies warned me this would happen. There is just no good place to put a sign out by the road. They inevitably get run over. This was supposed to be temporary until I could figure out my best signage option for the street. Oh well, the chalkboard had seen better days anyways. Never to fear, it will not end up in a landfill. I will chop off the legs and make it a table top model. It wouldn't be the only thing in my shop given a new life by a roll of duct tape. I can feel my Grandpa beaming down on me.

So anyways, the store is open. But everyone who comes in the shop has said they couldn't tell, so I obviously I need to fix this stat. This is why I did a soft opening. Calling the sign guy tomorrow.

My fall music is starting to jump out at me during my itunes scrolls. Fleet Foxes. Radiohead. The Strokes first album. The transition from summer to fall is my very favorite time of year, and it breathes new life into me. Except for the ragweed. It's my personal version of Kryptonite.

Pics coming soon of the new shop. I'll be pimping my wares at the East Atlanta Strut this weekend. Looking forward to it, because it's my favorite festival in Atlanta. Oh, and this too:


New Mama products making their debut, complimentary mar-tea-nis from local tea maker Just Add Honey, yummy sweets from The Cookie Studio and swag bags full of goodies for the first 25 customers. Put it on your calendar and more details coming soon!

Mama update

In the effort to become a better blogger, I'm going to start trying to write some short and sweet posts vs the occasional verbose rant. There will be more of those too, just with some other stuff in between.

I'm currently busy busy getting ready for the Inman Park festival which is in 2 weeks!! Times-a-tickin'and I'm up to my elbows in olive oil, making batches and batches of soap. My mom is making the trek from Ohio in a week to help me get ready and then she will be doing the festival with me, which I'm really looking forward to! She has been an amazing source of support and inspiration in my journey with Mama, and I only wish she lived closer to share it with me more often.

I will be premiering a SPECIAL COLLECTION OF SOAPS at Inman that I've been working on for the past few months, as well as a BRAND NEW PRODUCT! You'll have to stop by my booth to find out what it is. In addition to making the goods, I'm working on a plan to freshen up my booth a bit. I have only done the occasional festival for the past couple of years and this year I'll be doing most of the ones who will accept my application, so I decided it was time to funk it up. I just hope I have time to do everything that I want!

I have also have a new scent in the line called Fresh - it's a delightful blend of pink grapefruit, tangerine & lavender, and has been selling like hotcakes at the markets I've been doing.



I will get Fresh online after Inman. The plan was to do it before, but I'm trying to get better about pacing myself and prioritizing.

Also coming up on May 16th, I will be at the Kirkwood Festival. Hope to see you out and about enjoying our hard earned spring! I'm crossing my fingers for great weather...

Email Marketing and Product Updates - An informational rant

I've been working hard on getting my site updated for the past couple of weeks, so I could do a marketing email. I just looked at my Constant Contact account and saw that I haven't sent a marketing email since February of 2007. So THAT must be why people aren't coming to my site. Which means I spent all of that money for an email sign up box on my website that no one uses because they don't go to my website because I don't send any marketing emails reminding them that I exist. I mean, who can be bothered with marketing, right? I'm a creative person! Business lesson #4832. Remind customers you exist. Check.

A quick note about this. I have about 600+ people on my email list. Some of them are friends who I added to bulk up my list before I had any customers, but most of them are legitimate customers or people who expressed interest in becoming a customer. People who have bought my products and raved about Mama, only to never be heard from again. This goes to show, no matter how good your product or service is, you have to keep reminding people that you're around. There's a lot of competition and people are busy. I always wondered why Coke advertised, because everybody knows about them. But I suppose that could be because they're everywhere, so you can't forget. (especially if you live in Atlanta). Yes, this all seems like a no-brainer. But when you do everything in your company and you have X hours a day to do it, you tend to focus on the tasks that you like. Like the making products, creating new ones, designing packaging, coming up with new scents, etc. The fun stuff.

So it occurred to me, as I send my first marketing email in 19 months, Mama has evolved quite a bit since then, and it might be good to do a product line update for all of my (hopefully) returning customers, who I pledge not to lose touch with again!

1. The most notable change is that I've switched my lotion preservative to a non-paraben preservative called Optiphen, which just recently became available to companies of my size. Preservatives are a controversial subject that I have been researching for years, so at some point soon I will do a post with my research. Until then, just know that parabens are no longer desirable preservatives and we don't use them anymore. For more info about why we use preservatives in our lotion, go to the product info section on our site.

2. Speaking of lotions. My first couple of years in business were a little dicey with the lotion formula. The consistent feedback I got was that it was too hard to get out of the bottle. You were heard, valued customers, and I worked hard to come up with a new formulation that has received rave reviews. I also changed the bottles to one that is a little more squeezy, so if you're willing to go round 2 with the lotion, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

3. I've discontinued using Fragrance oils, which meant saying goodbye to Green Tea and Vanilla. When I started this company, I wrote in my mission that I wanted to offer the purest, safest, most effective products to my customers. So that means sticking with essential oils, which are plant based and 100% natural. I did decide to make one exception for the holidays - Cranberry was very popular last year, so I'm bringing it back as a limited edition holiday scent just for this holiday season. I'm working on coming up with an essential oil blend next year that will be a suitable replacement.

4. Scrubs - I've replaced my salt scrubs with sugar scrubs. They have become my best sellers, and I don't think any former salt scrub lovers will be the least bit disappointed. Sugar is a very effective and more gentle exfoliant than salt. And the coconut, almond oil, and shea butter base stays nicely emulsified and leaves your skin soft without the heavy oil feeling that the salt scrubs left.

5. New sizes - I've added more sizes to the products I carry. Body lotions come in 4 and 8 oz bottles, sugar scrubs in 10 and 20 oz jars.

6. Gifts - my vendor discontinued my snap trays! Such a bummer. I started using chinese takeout containers while I was trying to find a suitable replacement, and these have been so popular, I decided to stick with them! So that's that.

7. Soap! Mama finally has soap! Most body product companies usually start with soap. I tend to do things backwards. My husband Chuck decided to come on board as my soap maker, and his soap is great! Richly scented with a nice creamy lather. I highly recommend!

And there ya go! Head over to our site and check it out!

It's the little things...

I got another mixer! I am so excited! Judi, the designer of Studio 658 and also Mary's sister, traded me her old Kitchen Aid mixer for some Mama products. It is the perfect mate to my other Kitchen Aid hand-me-down-mixer from my mother-in-law. I have been desperately needing a second mixer, but it's on the long list of things that all have to happen NOW, so it hadn't happened yet. This could not have been better timing because I have a big lotion order to make and the East Atlanta strut is coming up. There is gonna be some mixing going on!

Heating the oil and water phases:



2 Batches of lotion at once! So exciting.





We pour each and every lotion by hand.



Ready to go!