Category Archives: Products to Love

Citrus Stocking Stuffers from the Burts and the Bees

Lemon Cuitucle cream, energeinz,

Citrus stocking stuffers that everyone will love.  Available at your local drug and grocery store and online.

The Burt’s Bees brand is synonymous with natural goodness and quality making their products perfect for gift giving.  Here are a few of my favorite featuring our citrus friends the lemon, orange, and grapefruit.

Left to right:Let the healing begin with Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. Chock full of Sweet Almond Oil and Cocoa Seed Butter to condition cuticles and Vitamin E and Sunflower Oil to nourish brittle nails tip to toe.  Also available in seasonal Burt’s Bees Basics gift sets and the classic Tips and Toes Kit or Hand Repair Kit.

An early morning shower with Extra Energizing Citrus and Ginger Body Wash makes waking up a snap.  Not at all gooey, this liquid wash quickly lathers up to cleanse and invigorate.  The scent will remind you of ginger ale and will leave you feeling equally effervescent.  I recommend this product for the man kind.

My favorite of the bunch?  Refreshing Lip Balm with Pink Grapefruit. Bursting with tropical grapefruit taste and scent from Vitamin C and E rich grapefruit oil, it’s like inhaling a freshly peeled grapefruit every time you apply!   Rosemary leaf extract naturally preserves this balm with its moisturizing, protective base of sunflower seed, coconut, soybean and canola oils.  Yum!

All items are easily accessible at your local drug or grocery store as well as multiple online sources.  Stock up, socks up!

To read more about how Burt got his start, read the quirky The Unusual Story of Burt’s Bees: Minding Our Own Beeswax.

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Lemons: They Do a Body Good

Nothing says yummy like The Body Shop‘s line of Sweet Lemon products.  I happened upon these creamy lemon products while killing time during an airport layover.   While I purchased the lip balm, I waited on the lotions.  It’s kind of funny to have a Body Shop at the airport being as any goods you buy over 4 oz. would instantly be confiscated at security.  “We can ship to your home,”  the lovely Indian Body Shop consultant with long wavy black hair reminded me.

Your body will thank you for using the Body Shop’s Sweet Lemon Whipped Lotion, Lip Butter and Body Butter.

Although I opted to pick up the Sweet Lemon Body Butter and Whip Body Lotion on my return trip, I did enjoy listening as she recalled a childhood memory of women in her homeland spending sunny afternoons picking large ripe lemons straight from the trees and squeezing the juice over their scalps to prevent dryness while adding shine to their waist length ebony locks of hair.  The peel of the lemon, she confided, is good for rubbing into the scalp, too.  For more on this home remedy visit Dandruff Treatment Using Lemon as well as the Body Shop’s Sweet Lemon Beautifying Oil.

Once back on my home turf, I couldn’t wait to try both the Sweet Lemon Whip Lotion and Body Butter I had purchased.  I do love body butters and any lotion with the word “whip” in it conjures up something delightfully light, airy, and sweet.  (Wipe out those whipped cream fantasies you thought I was leading up to.  Shame on you!)

Needless to say, these products did not disappoint.  Both are rich and creamy and quickly absorb leaving one’s skin smooth and moisturized.   With a scent that conjures up the freshly squeezed lemons in an Indian woman’s courtyard and the perfume of sweet lemon blossoms, you’ll pretty much just want to inhale yourself all day long!

Lemons.  They do a body good.

Note: The Body Shop’s pink grapefruit scent is also intoxicating in its own right.  The glycerin-based soap with pink grapefruit seed oil, an essential fatty acid that  helps to repair the skin’s moisture barrier, gets my vote for a refreshing way to wake up in the morning shower.

Wake up and smell the grapefruit.

Pearls Beauty Hot Oil Hair Treatment from Indiamart with lemon and tea tree oil cleanses the scalp while maintaining hair’s natural shine.

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Lemony Linens

Fresh fruits by Room Essentials, Target. Pear and lemon tea towels compliment striped terry dish cloths. A perfect accompaniment to this German silver bar cart and tri-citrus blended beverage.

Oh my goodness, it’s been a while!  So many ideas, recipes, and books to share, but alas a two-week family vacation followed by a very scary bout of August pneumonia  left me, well, zestless.  Can’t wait to throw my lemon back in the blogging ring!

So, I’ve been wanting to share a source for these lovely summery lemon tea towels with you… perfect for adding a fresh touch to your lemonade service.  And, it’s not too late as there are two days of August left!  These refreshing 100% cotton lemon slice and pear tea towels are by RE (Room Essentials)  and available at Target in-store only.  My Target just restocked their lot so if these have your name on them, I encourage you to make a visit before the season inventory changes.  They are a perfect kitchen accompaniment to the RE 100% cotton terry cloth dish cloths patterned with a subtle green and yellow stripe.  Super absorbent, soft, stylish and practical.

If you are not so lucky to have a Target or to find these items in stock, there are a bevy of vendors featuring handmade lemony linens on Etsy.com.  My favorites?  The individually hand screened designs printed on 100%  cotton flour sack towels by Cindy Bazor of Bazor Designs in Metropolis, Illinois and Amanda Gray-Swain of Sprouted Designs in St. Louis, Missouri.   Both designers elevate the lemon to its rightful state: an art form.  🙂

Hand drawn, hand screened lemons by the slice.  Bazor Designs on esty.com.

Individually hand screened juicy lemon halves on flour sack tea towels by Sprouted Designs, etsy.com.

 

Phew, it’s great to back!

Citrus to the Maxx

One of my favorite stores is T.J. Maxx.  And yes, it really is a “new store everyday!”  You have to be a certain kind of shopper to enjoy a store like T.J.’s, or T.K.’s as it is known in Europe.  The Maxx is not for shoppers on a mission or those, like the boyfriend, who like to go in, get it and get out.  On one trip into the Maxx, he lamented, “It’s like you’re just looking for things to buy.”   Exaaaactly!    You don’t really go into T.J.’s to buy, say, a specific item like a navy pair of shoes.  You go in and see what clever footwear just happens to be in your size and for a great price.   You feel so lucky when you find that perfect pair of shoes that you didn’t know you needed just a few minutes before.

On a trip to London, I was surprised to find the Maxx logo with a T.K. prefix. T.J.’s is T.K.’s in Europe so as not to be confused with the existing discount chain, TJ Hughes.

In addition to a veritable shoe buffet, T.J.’s features an abundance of body products such as soaps and lotions,  scrubs and balms, hand washes and perfumes, as well as shower gels and shampoos.  And, there are always lots of wonderful scents to choose from–Banana Vanilla and Cherry Almond, for example.  Citrus scents abound as well: Sumatra, grapefruit, lime, lemon, tangerine, kumquat, and more.

In just a few minutes, I gather up these examples to show how easy it is to find items that stand out on their own or look great bundled together for a gift.  While always a better deal at stores like Marshalls, Tuesday Morning, T.K. or T.J. Maxx, some products, or close similes thereof, are available online.   And, when it comes to facial products, be sure to check expiration dates.

Front row, left to right:

1. Body Shop’s Jolly Orange Bath and Shower Gel: a soap-free shower gel containing real orange seed oil with an aromatic scent of citrus and spice

2. Squeeze Eau de Parfum by Lilly Pulitzer. Fragrance Notes: pink grapefruit, lychee, lotus blossom, sun-drenched woods, water musk red currant, wild rose.

3. Lemongrass appears to be a favorite when is comes to hand soaps and T. J. carries several varieties.  Perhaps that is because the essential oils from the leaves of this grassy herb have an intense citrus aroma.  Lemon grass is also used to treat fungal infections and repel insects.  It’s interesting to note that the culinary influence of lemongrass shows up in how it is paired with other ingredients such as these lemongrass hand soap: Burt’s Bees with green tea, Kiss My Face with Clary sage, and the organic Nature’s Gate with Clary sage as well.  Good enough to eat.

4.  Lather up with this moisturizing Orange Jelly Bean Shower Gel and Bubble Bath from Philosophy.  Perfect for Easter baskets, too! The Maxx has a great selection of Philosophy products year round.
 

5.  Finds like this Bon Chic Seda France Orange Sumatra Flower candle are one of a kind’s from season’s past.  Visit Seda France for new luxury candle fragrances in citrus scents such as Italian Bergamot…or keep a look out for your own last season’s find and score a deal on this luxury brand.

6. I love reed scent diffusers to gently fragrance the home and T.J.’s always has a great variety to choose from, especially around the holidays.  Trinity Candle Factory is a nice online source for diffuser kits and they feature a long list of scents, including kumquat.  Kumquat, Chinese for “golden orange,” is exceptionally sweet and fragrant.  Although primarily sought after for their fruit, kumquat leaves and twigs provide oil prized for perfumery and aromatherapy.   Other citrus scents include Florida Orange and Lemon chiffon.  Handily, they have reed diffuser oil refills for order as well.    Another online source for diffusers is  Archipelago Botanicals  with scents such as Bergamot Tobacco, Mango Tangerine, Grapefruit, Pomegranate Citrus and Verbena Basil. 

 Back Row, left to right:

1 A blend of Tangerine and Lemongrass scents this hand soap.

2.  Oh, I wish I hadn’t left this little box of delectable Lavare lemon poppy seed bath soap squares behind.  Lavare products are always nicely packaged and feature botanical prints.  Great for gifts and stocking stuffers.

3.  A whimsical label.  Hand soap in sweet orange.

4.  And back to the Body Shop’s Jolly Orange line, this time in a body scrub.

Expand your search to linens and dinnerware as well.  On this outing, T.J.’s also features rustic  lemon themed dinnerware, “Lemon Sketch” by Maxcera. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So go on…take a stroll up and down the aisles until you find a treasure that you didn’t know you needed.  Your home will look and smell all the sweeter for it.

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