Mask of the Pheonix

 So, here at Pip and Lola's we love the variety of handcraft vendors that are here at the store.  In honor of the season we wanted to start off our vendor introduction with a local artist by the name of Christina Hughes.



Christina came into mask making through her experience within theatre. In college, she studied costume design at Western Washington University. Now she plies this trade at a variety of local theatres making costumes for shows that are produced in the area.  She currently studies non-profit management at the UW Tacoma and works as a union stagehand.

Mask making is a great way for Christina to let off some creative steam. They are also a way to craft something both beautiful and practical.

 All of her masks are made of leather and are designed to be worn instead of just hanging on a wall and looking pretty.  However, they do make wonderful decorations as well.  No matter what purpose you decide upon, we are sure that you will love the look and feel of these wonderful creations.

When was the last time YOU were at the Freighthosue Square?

Okay, for those of you who have not been inundated with our Facebook posts or who have not read previous posts here on the blog and thus do not know all the fun and exciting news, Pip & Lola's Everything Homemade has a retail location!

It all started out in July with a soft opening and about ten local artists in a 600 square foot space. It has now been two months for us here at the Freighthouse Square.  In that time we have added another 20 local artists to our list of vendors and another 600 square feet.  Our number of types of soaps that we have made now numbers 80. We have NO SELF CONTROL!

As the holiday season approaches we are hoping to remind people that Freighthouse Square is still alive and kicking! There is a growing variety of stores here and you are sure to find most of the items you need for all your gift giving (even if the gift is for yourself). From handcrafts to computer repair; resale clothing to chainmail jewelry, lingerie to candles, convenience items to art; and bibles to bakery items you can find just about anything you want. The question we have for you is, "When is the last time you were at the Freighthouse Square?" Don't you think it's time to come and see what is happening in your own back yard?

There is a monthly craft fair that also takes place in the Rainier Room down on the east end of the building. Every second Saturday of the month the craft fair takes place. Come on down and help it grow by either shopping or being a vendor.

 

So, that all being said we invite you to come to the store and see what is going on! Remember, if you like us on Facebook and then come to the store and tell us you can get a free tiny soap as a thank you!

Until then, stay sudsy and keep it clean!

Introducing: Orange You Glad (For The Lakewood Playhouse)

Holy bars of lathering goodness, Batman! It's a new soap!


Today I have the pleasure of introducing a new soap for Pip & Lola's Everything Homemade. It is the newest of our fundraising soaps: Orange You Glad (For The Lakewood Playhouse).

The Orange You Glad is made with one of our favorite oil blends (our Back to Basics soap) and includes rubbed sage along with orange and dalmatian sage essential oils. This combination of scents gives the soap a sweet citrus note with hints of the sage's earthiness behind it. Orange oil has been used to enhance moods, alleviate depression and  promote a general feeling of well-being, while the ancient Romans believed sage to strengthen the senses and heighten memory. (This could all be said of good theatre as well.)

This newest soap is currently on display at our storefront and will also soon be available at the Lakewood Playhouse! As mentioned earlier, this is one of our fundraising soaps. This means a portion of each sale goes directly to the playhouse to help them continue producing quality theatre here in the Pacific Northwest.

Orange You Glad (For The Lakewood Playhouse)

For more information on The Lakewood Playhouse visit their webpage to find out more about this amazing theatre which is now entering their 74th season. Feel like becoming a direct contributor? They are also accepting contributions for their funding here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this today! Please feel free to ask questions, give responses, or even make suggestions. We love feedback!

Introducing: Philip, The Queen's Rogue

As has been said many times at the farmer's markets where we show our soap, we don't make "pretty" soap in the way of many other soapers. Instead we make soaps that are very purposeful.

Philip, The Queen's Rogue is a moisturizing hand/body bar that we find to be one of our most popular. We find it difficult to keep this one on hand as it tends to go quickly. But don't worry, if it's not around when you stop by there is sure to be a new batch curing and on it's way.

Now, being moisturizing is a good enough purpose for most soaps, as so many handmade soaps can be a little drying.  (Note: we tend to "superfat" our soaps to ensure they are moisturizing.) However, Philip has a more ancient purpose. Legend has it that during the times of a bubonic plague outbreak over five centuries ago a blend of essential oils were used to ward off the disease. The blend? Cinnamon, clove, lemon, eucalyptus, and rosemary.

 Now, we all know how "truthful" legends are, so we take the story with a grain of salt. However, all five essential oils have been reported to have medicinal properties, but honestly, we just love the combination of all the oils together. So, even if the legendary oil blend did not help save the thieves, at least we know they all met their end smelling wonderful. (And by "wonderful" we mean something reminiscent of a warm spice cake.)

Introducing: Get The Crud Out!

No, we're not telling you to go away. Rather, today starts the beginning of our Soap Introductions! Once or twice a week we will be talking about the soaps you can find at Pip & Lola's Everything Homemade. Today I have chosen our oily skin facial soap, Get the Crud Out!

We make this soap with tea tree and lavender essential oils, both of which are natural antibacterials.  This is paired with both oatmeal and two types of clay.

Apart from the obvious exfoliating quality of ground oatmeal, it has also been cited as being effective for relieving dryness and inflammation, including rashes and eczema, and for helping your skin maintain moisture.

Kaolin Clay and French Green Clay finish out the soap and add the ability to absorb the excess oils from the skin. The Kaolin clay is reported to help stimulate circulation and gently exfoliate, while the French Green Clay is absorbent and helps tighten cleansed pores.

One note: This is not a soap for those with very dry skin. For some people this will be a daily use soap. For others it may become part of an every-other day routine.

Cabinet for a Cause

At Pip & Lola's we have always made each of our soaps with a purpose in mind: to clean, to refresh, to moisturize or to heal. Now we are able to add another purpose: to give.

At our Freighthouse Square location we have established our "Cabinet for a Cause." Within this cabinet any of our vendors are able to place part of their merchandise with the sole intent of donating a portion of their profits to the charity of their choice.

For us we have chosen Relay for Life. At the behest of a dear friend we created a new soap, Gypsy Rose Lemon. That soap has been identified as our benefit bar. For each bar sold we are donating a percentage of the sale to charity. The scent of roses with overtones of lemon make this bar a pleasure to use and the blend of oils helps make the soap moisturizing to your hands.


Sami would love to donate to local theatres as well. If any local theatre would like to come suggest a soap scent blend that best personifies their theatre, we will do our best to create a bar just for them and be willing to donate a portion of the profits from each bar to their organization.

Please help us help someone else. Drop on by and check out our Cabinet for a Cause. New items are showing up all the time and you never know what you will find.

Pip & Lola's Everything Homemade - A Retail Saga

     Well, here it is July 2nd, 2012, and Pip & Lola's has finally created an actual brick and mortar retail store. In less than two short years we have gone from a hobby to a full scale business. At the beginning of last year we started our Etsy store (pipandlola.etsy.com) and began selling orders online. Then we joined the Tacoma Farmer's Market and began selling directly to the market public on a limited basis. When the Tacoma Food Co-Op opened we began to have a few of our soaps seen daily to the public. As of yesterday, we officially opened our doors to the public 7 days a week at the Freighthouse Square at 430 E 25th Street in Tacoma, WA.

     The theme of Pip & Lola's has always been handmade quality products. The retail location is no different, however we have been able to make many more handmade products available to our customers. With the help of a multitude of local artists/craftspeople we are able to offer pottery, fused glass art, jewelry, photos, cards, handmade clothing, hand-spun yarn, knitting, crocheting, barbecue rubs, shadow boxes, wearable art, photography, paintings and so much more. (My apologies to any artist whose product I may have missed. I blame sleep deprivation.) As much as possible we have focused on Tacoma area artisans, expanding out to cover four local counties. Our number of vendors is still growing and it looks like we will have plenty of varied items to cater to a wide variety of customers.

      We picked Freighthouse Square for a reason. It used to be a destination for Tacoma shoppers and it has been undergoing a phase of revitalization with the intent to make it a destination once again. There are multiple new stores that have opened or are opening up in the very near future. Each shop features its own unique selection of merchandise. With so many new stores coming in, Freighthouse Square will be a wonderful place to get all your gift shopping done. And, with its ample food court, it is a great place to come spend your lunch hour or grab a quick bite after work. When you've finished with your meal, you can simply step into the first shop to the east of the food court and come see us!

Pip & Lola's Everything Homemade is waiting for you. Come on by and make some memories with us!

Stinging Nettle Shampoo - A Testimony

At Pip & Lola's we love to have feedback from you!  One of our favorite people sent us a message about how the Stinging Nettle Shampoo Bar works for her.  We loved the story so much we wanted to share it with everyone else.

"I started using Pip & Lola’s Nettle shampoo about a year ago. I had been using other Pip &Lola soaps for about a year, and really wanted to try a bar shampoo. I have seborrheic dermatitis, which is sort of like dandruff on steroids. I had to use a coal tar shampoo (which smells like sheep dip) for about a year before I got control of the condition. Once I got the dermatitis under control, I was able to use some other shampoos most of the time, BUT about once every week or three, I had to break out the “sheep dip” to clear up my scalp.

I had been using the nettle shampoo for about 3 months when I realized that I had not needed the “sheep dip.” Since I started using Pip and Lola’s nettle shampoo, I have used sheep dip exactly once—in the fall, when the weather changed. Since weather and seasonal changes are the times I am most likely to have an outbreak, I expected to need the sheep dip when winter weather started, and again when we went south to sunny California. Nope. And thus far this spring, I have had not a single twinge of seborrheic dermatitis.

Added bonus: I also love the way the shampoo lathers up, the way it feels on my scalp, and the way it just smells neutral and fresh.

Another added bonus: my husband is a dandruff sufferer. Neither Head and Shoulders nor H & S copycat shampoos have been as effective for him as the nettle shampoo. I am sending a bar to my brother, who has seborrheic dermatitis in his eyebrows, since he has no hair on his head. We’ll see if it works as well for him!"

We cannot begin to explain how happy this makes us that our soap has made such a major change in someone's life! Thank you, Virginia, for sharing this!

If you have a Pip & Lola story, comment, or testimony you would like to share we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to send us a message on our Facebook page or to our e-mail address.

Have a great day!

Featuring: Pip & Lola's "Rose by a Nose"

http://www.heyhandmade.com/listing/rose-by-a-nose-soap/

So this spring we have an item being featured with www.heyhandmade.com, and e-catalog of handmade and vintage items.  Our featured item: Rose by a Nose.

We are proud of all of our soaps at Pip and Lola's, but this one is a perfect soap for the approach of spring!  Scented with natural essential oils of rosewood and geranium along with a healthy dose of rose petals, Rose by a Nose has the wonderful, warm scent of roses without the use of artificial fragrance oils.  Like most of our soaps, Rose by Nose is a vegan soap, using no animal products in its creation. Palm, palm kernel and coconut oils are used to create a creamy lather and a cleansing soap, while the rice bran oil adds its essential fatty acids, which are helpful for healthy skin. Because there are never any drying agents in our soaps, your skin is left feeling silky and smooth, rather than being dried out.

Pip & Lola's: Rose by a Nose

The winter holidays may be done, but Valentine's day is just around the bend. Wouldn't it be nice to surprise your loved ones with a rose or two?

You can always find us at:  pipandlola.etsy.com

Pip & Lola's is back on the blog!

Whew! This last year has been a busy one!  We celebrated our one year anniversary as a company this month!  Okay, well we technically didn't go live until March, but the preparations for our opening began one year ago.

In one year what have we accomplished? Well, we took our six years of experience making soap and started this wonderful company; we opened both an Etsy and a Hyenacart store; we operated a booth at the South Tacoma Farmer's Market; we had a booth at The Puyallup Fair AND the Tacoma Holiday Food and Gift Festival;we have some of our soaps being sold at the Tacoma Food Co-Op, and have attended numerous other fairs and craft festivals.  It HAS been busy.

It's been great being a local company at all the fairs, but it's also been great having our online stores as well.  We have been keeping track of where our soap travels to.  So far the winner for furthest distance traveled has been to Moscow, Russia!  Other places of interest include Nova Scotia, Italy, Canada, and England.  

Initially our intent was to create about ten different soaps.  That seemed like a good number to start with.  It was manageable, yet it offered a variety of types to choose from.  Needless to say, as with many hobbies, we got a little out of control. Ten led to ten more, and then ten more, and then ten more.... (You see where this is heading?)  Now, our meager little ten has grown to around sixty-five different types of soap. We don't make them all at the same time, but out of those, there are at least a good forty that are always in production.

It has been our goal during this whole year to produce a quality homemade soap that we can be proud of and people can be happy using.  All of our soaps are vegetarian, and most of them are actually vegan.  The only ingredients that come from animal products are goat's milk, honey, beeswax, and chocolate. (I know, chocolate doesn't come from an animal, but the milk within it does.)  You will notice that there is no animal fat in our soaps. In addition, you will never find artificial fragrance oils in our products.  We only use natural essential oils (i.e. lavender, peppermint, clove), plant materials (i.e. oats, seaweed, flower petals), and natural earth materials (i.e. bentonite clay, mica, sea salt).  

One thing people have always commented on is how lightly scented our soaps are. Everything is purposefully barely scented. We want to make our soaps both allergy and migraine friendly. Too many soaps are so heavily scented that many people will get instant headaches just from being in a room with them. We want to do the opposite of that. We scent our soaps lightly enough that you can smell them best when you are washing with them.  And some of them aren't scented at all, they are simply wonderfully moisturizing and delightful on your hands and body.

That's about it for now.  New things are happening this year. We will be in new locations and will be offering new soaps (because we have no self control).  Watch this spot for more news and pictures!

In the mean time... Keep clean!  

Pip and Lola say hello!