Sugar Scrub Sale

Have you been keeping up with the new sale program I introduced last week? This week we'll fix your dried out winter skin with 20% off our handmade Demerara Sugar Scrub. The 8 oz jar is $20, and the 16oz is $28.  Bar none, this is the best product to scrub away the winter blahs. You'll have softer hands, face, body and even scalp! The sale is on this weekend from Friday to Sunday so hurry and get your order in!

Why is scrub the most important step in winter skin care? Read on...

Oh winter, it really is the topic of the last few weeks for many of us in places that have been hit hard with multiple drastic weather changes. Many people in this part of the world are scrounging to get south or alternately complaining bitterly about the ice, the snow, the shoveling and the dry cold air. I'm not one of the complainers since I love the snow and just accept all the trappings that go with it.

I think all of us can agree that the dry skin, cracking cuticles and dry hair and scalp that come with the lack of moisture in the air is the worst part of it. The special this week is our ever popular Demerara Sugar Scrub. I've posted about scrub before and scolded many people for not wearing gloves outdoors in the winter over the years.

It's funny though, I read a lot of other blogs and about scrubs both for sale and handmade and for some odd reason people think scrub is only for hands. Do you want to feel like a million dollars? Do you want your skin to feel like you have the best skin in the room under all your winter layers? Then scrub a dub! Book a time, once a week and get to it. Draw a bath, or start the shower and take your scrub and some nice fluffy towels and plan on using 1/2 cup of scrub or more. Get your skin and head wet, put a tablespoon or so in your hand and apply to your dried out scalp. Yes, you heard me, your scalp.... then work your way onto your face, and all the way down your body until you get to your feet. Be careful with sensitive parts of your body or places you break out a lot. Be more aggressive with the drier parts like elbows, knees and heels..... and don't forget those hands and cuticles. Scrub until the crystals all dissolve and wash away.  Rinse yourself well, so no more sugar crystals are left behind.  Now, your skin should be glossy with natural oils, so pat dry or wrap up in our favourite robe and revel in how soft our skin feels. No need for lotion or oils after this product, but you can keep up the feeling all week with a petroleum free lotion, oil or balm.  The scrub is simply helping to take away a layer of dead skin allowing the new, softer skin underneath to breath and drink in moisture.  We even use it in the salon for scalp and hands.

Don't forget, our Demerara Scrub goes on sale this Friday for the weekend of February 7th-9th for 20% off the regular price and you can have it scented any way you like!

Feel free to pre-order on the website or at the shop or by phone to reserve your jar at the sale price, and watch out for my posts for other tips and tricks on how to use scrub.

Stay Warm!

 

   

Unscented Laundry week aka When a hug equals a headache

Unscented Laundry week!

This week we are introducing a new sales feature in the store and on the website. On Mondays I will introduce you to a product that you may not know about and then we put it on sale Friday for the weekend!  Sports Suds and Wool Dryer Balls are the products of the week on sale for 20% off the retail price!  Sports Suds is bar none the best unscented laundry product I've ever tried.  It's a simple white powder that was originally designed to get the stink out of sport and yoga type clothes, and I’ll tell you lots of cool ways it will take stink out of almost everything you own.  I use it for all of my laundry, all of the time. Wool Dryer Balls are a very neat, eco friendly way to get your clothes dry with no static and no scent......

Every day I will mention something good, fun or useful about this product here and on all our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter, linkedIn etc.  On Friday morning the product(s) will go on sale until the following Monday.  You can reserve your product purchase by phone or email or order it online to hold it at the sale price for pick up or shipping starting on the Friday.

Here is why I think you should try them.....

Sports Suds are Canadian, Simple, Earth Friendly, Sustainably sourced and the product does exactly what they say it will. The happy people at Sports Suds up the road a bit in Milton make sure all Sport Suds products are made from naturally occurring ingredients of non-animal origin are non-toxic and hypoallergenic.  They DO NOT contain dyes, phosphates, UV brighteners, bleach or perfumes and there are no additives or fillers to create bulk and weight.   All Sport Suds products are safe for septic and grey water systems, highly biodegradable and certified safe for use in small lakes and streams (OECD 301A).  And of course, they never test on animals.

Moss Creek Wool Dryer Balls are Canadian, Reusable All Natural Wool Balls that last for hundreds of laundry loads.  What's a Dryer Ball?  You use them in your dryer as a replacement for disposable dryer sheets and/ or, synthetic fabric softener to soften clothing, reduce static cling and wrinkles.  Felted wool absorbs water and regulates humidity level in dryer.  The unbleached, undyed balls bounce around your dryer (making a lovely, peaceful bonging sound by the way) separating clothed and helping them dry faster reducing dryer time, saving electricity, time and money.  They work with all clothing types including cloth diapers, blankets, towels and down jackets.  Wool fibres do not come off on clothing.

You can buy these awesome products at an even better discount if you buy them together in the Unscented Laundry Week Special! Save and extra 5% on top of the 20% off I am already offering grabbing this deal!

AND this, is WHY it's Unscented Laundry week!

It's funny you know while I was starting to write this post I found out that today apparently is "National Hug Day" and I was working from home so I was not forced into any random acts of hugging.  You see, I'm not much of a hugger.  Sure, if you've known me for a long time and you haven't seen me for a long time then go ahead, but other than that I don't really get the hug thing.  If you must hug me, ask permission please. I understand some people get joy out of the process; some inexplicable warm and fuzzy feeling or some such.

What isn't funny?  It seems about 90% of people that hug me have some form of synthetic scented product molecule on their person and given my sensitivities that hug means little to me but an immediate unpleasant sinus reaction that leads within minutes to a very painful headache and there ain't nothing warm and fuzzy about that.

If you buy your fragranced products (Body Spray, Cologne, Perfume, Laundry soap, Dryer sheets, Laundry additives, Deodorant, Lotions, Candles and so on and on) in a department store, drug store and yes, a pretty little gift store even a health food store in some cases you probably reek of a synthetic fragrance.  I had a medical procedure yesterday and the nurse who put in my IV and the Doc doing the procedure were covered in synthetic scented yuckiness.  I hadn't eaten solid food in 29 hours and had consumed no fluids of any sort for 9 hours by the time I met the Doc..... my reaction was extra lovely given how heightened my senses are during deprivation like that and they are both darned lucky my stomach was empty or I surely would have made their shoes aware of how nauseous their fragrances made me.  Fragrance free environment my ass!

You should know by now at ellënoire hand makes a huge percentage of what we sell and almost 90% of it is left totally unscented on the shelf and is scented (with only essential oils and truly natural ingredients of course) if you request it.  Finding unscented products on the market is very hard for us sensitive people and I have a tough time finding any to sell other than my own brand.  Many large companies call their unscented products "Scent Free" but in most cases a "Masking Agent" ingredient is used to stop the fragrance receptors in your brain from detecting the chemicals they did not take out.  They may have taken out the scents, but they left the other yucky chemicals the scent was covering up in the first place.

Personally, after finally discovering a world with very few, if any artificial scents, masking agents or yucky chemicals I've found more than ever that I like the scent of real things.  The scent of people is quite pleasant most of the time.   The scent of unscented people wearing unscented cloth is kinda cool too.  Did you know cotton, smells different than wool or silk or....?  I bet many of you have never smelled the scent of totally unscented laundry.

Someday I'll explain why we would all get along better in the world if we weren't all covered in fakey-fake scents all the time.

But for now, try the fun, functional products I mentioned above, or try the unscented laundry week special.

Don't forget, we’ll be announcing a new spotlight sale early each week and start the sale every Friday!

An Angel in Disguise

Hi everyone! Happy New Year! I Hope your holiday season was wonderful, quiet, crazy, and all of the things you needed it to be. The ellënoire staff are back at our normal schedule, inspiring curly haired clients to live natural and frizz free, making fun and functional soap, creating new recipes for awesome skin care creations and scouring the earth for new products to introduce to you.

We have a new curly angel in the ellënoire salon!  We are pleased and excited to introduce you to our newest stylist, Victoria.  Some of you have met Victoria in the salon while she was training through the fall. Victoria is a vibrant, young woman who I attended hair school with. In a bit of a gamble I offered Victoria a job this summer after we had completed the program,  hoping to entice her to come over to the curly side. Thankfully I gambled on the right girl and Victoria has turned out to be a curly angel in disguise!  Right away when we met in hair school I knew Victoria had curly hair. She had over processed, over coloured, painfully over- straightened, curly hair. Each week as I drove her home from Niagara Falls  and we got to know each other she asked me if the products I talked about would help her damaged hair and if so could she still wear it straight. Well of course I knew they would, but she always had an excuse not to try them.

It turned out my job offer came at exactly the right time for Victoria as she wasn’t very satisfied with the salon she was apprenticing at. Victoria started with us in the summer.  In fact we attended our hair school graduation together, myself as a sylist and salon owner and her with a great new job moving her career forward. Now, after 4 months of training in the ellënoire salon and her Level 1 DevaCurl Inspired Stylist course completed Victoria is more enthusiastic than I could have hoped for.  Even better she wears her hair curly every day.  Just last week when asked how she was finding working in a curly specialty salon as she replied “This is so much more satisfying than a regular salon!”  Welcome aboard Victoria!

For those of you who have not visited our salon yet, you can rest assured that both of my stylists are very excited to show up to work each day which is not something I ever recall seeing in a traditional salon…. And yes, we cut straight hair too!

P.S. Watch out on this blog, facebook, twitter and linkedin next for our new weekly sales event every Monday starting January 27^th !

ellënoire Holiday Gift Preview and 2nd Anniversary Celebration or is it 20?

 

Tuesday Nov 19^th  7pm-9pm

Old Dundas Post Office, Dundas, Ontario L9H-2C6

(With a brief chat at 8:15 by Noëlle about the new Curly Hair Salon and the many fun things we create at ellënoire)

Don’t finish your holiday shopping too early!

Join us for a relaxed evening of fun, product demonstrations, gift raffles and treats

Here are some of the items you will get to see, touch, smell and try at this event.

So Local you could touch it: Every day the ellënoire elves produce new handmade bath, body, face and home care products for men and women. Many batches are made and packaged in our glass enclosed scent room, you could come and watch things being made right before your eyes:.  Each product is made in small batches and blended using Noëlles original recipes using simple natural, plant based ingredients.  All products are left totally unscented until you request your product choice to be scented with your choice of pure essential oils.

Curated by Noëlle: There are so many amazing local and Canadian artists making stunning creations Noelle feels she simply must allow you to see some of her favourites. There will be Jewelry, Clothing & Accessories, Framed photographs, Handmade ornaments and cards and lots of other bits and bobs you simply must pop by and see.

Imported and exotic: Since ellënoire began in 1994 Noëlle has imported lots of products from around the world. Candles from Scotland, Soap from France, Shower Gel from Spain,  Paint and pastels from France, Hair Products from New York City, Towels from California, Silks from Oregon,

Scent without the headache: Custom Blended Natural Fragrance and Custom Scented Bath Products are the backbone of the original ellënoire brand. Come and sniff and test some gorgeous essential oils from one of the largest collections of pure oils in the country. Be comfortable with the knowledge that these fragrances are unlikely to give even the most sensitive of customers a headache like you may experience from the traditional selection available at drug and department stores.

 

Curls Night out: Our salon will be open with our Curly Hair Specialty stylists available to answer any or all of your detailed questions about your hair. Are you Curly or Straight?  How can I be Frizz Free all year round? How can I NOT wash and style my hair every day and still be presentable? What are sulfates? How do I tell me co-worker/ friend/ sister that he frizzy hair needs your help? There isn’t a curly question we can’t answer.

 

It’s been 2 years since we opened our doors here at the Post Office.

It’s the 20^th Christmas since I opened ellënoire in my living room.

We’d love to see you to celebrate both of these anniversaries.

Gone Training!

From Saturday July 27th at 3:30pm-August 1rst at 11am the salon and boutique will be closed so Sarah and I can go to a 3 day training program at the DevaChan Salon in New York City!
We will return with certifications as "Deva Inspired Advanced Stylists", which will make ellenoire the only DevaCurl Inspired salon with all the hairdressing staff trained to the highest level.  
Wish us luck! We will be excited to return with even more curly innovation to share with you. Don't forget to bust your butt to get into the store to get any products you'll need before we leave tomorrow! 
 See you soon! 

Hair Draaaaama!

So, here is my dilemma. My hair. Do I keep it long? Or cut it short? I'll explain, in great detail as usual... ;) 
     I have my long curly hair almost totally back to it's original length (mid back length fully stretched out)  since the big chop for chemo in April of 2008. Everyone loves my long hair, they love that it's not frizzy which helps me sell more Deva Curl products and the Curly Girl (aka CG) method that we teach in the boutique and salon. What a lot of people don't know is I have a very serious scalp condition. I have something called Seborrhiasis, which is a yucky combination of Seboriac Dermatitis and Psoriasis. One comes from one side of my family and one comes from the other. 
In the late 1990's when I thought I only had bad dandruff I was so fed up with washing my hair every single day (my hair was pillow messy every morning, no matter what so I washed it all the time) with medicated, sulfate riddled, icky smelling shampoo, then treating it with curly hair conditioner and styling products. One day I  decided to stop all products except for baby shampoo and made my dermatoligist look at my scalp in its raw, cracked, bleeding, itchy as hell state. That's when the Seborrhiasis was diagnosed. I was prescribed a topical corticosteroid (it was the 90's, I didn't know any better) which was a miracle for the scalp issues and not in a shampoo base.... SOOO I happily dashed over to a (sulfate filled) curly hair shampoo (I was very excited that for the first time in memory I could use a nice smelling shampoo that wasn't full of medicine) my scalp got better in some ways, but got worse in others.... after weeks of experimentation I worked out that the shampoo was making certain parts of my head bleed! So, I lived like that for many years until I discovered the holy grail that is the CG method and the DevaCurl line of products. 

The magic of  DevaCurl is what we teach in our salon that sulfate free and in fact bubble free cleansing products are the best way to "wash" your dry and curly hair on those days you choose to wash your hair. For me the CG method and specifically the NoPoo conditioning cleanser is what not only saved my curls from frizz, it saved my scalp!  From the first use NoPoo cleanser and One Condition conditioner calmed my scalp condition drastically and over the years of experimenting I can get away with using my corticosteroid meds about once a month to keep my scalp condition under control and I cleanse with NoPoo every two or three days to keep my scalp calm. 
You see, the CG method and all it's amazing tips and tricks for curly hair has taught me to have my hair perfect for days on end without washing or even wetting it. I put my hair up with rings made from pantyhose to avoid the mark left from tight elastics. I sleep on a silk pillowcase to avoid the puffy hair created from cotton pillowcases. I know what to do if my hair is not quite perfect when I wake up, take a hat off, come home from a workout, get caught in the rain etc to keep my hair perfectly lovely and free of the dreaded frizz that haunts the nightmares of curly girls everywhere.
  
So, I bet you are wondering if I will ever get to my dilemma. This is how it goes. I do my hair on "Day 1" I cleanse with NoPoo and condition with One Condition and set it perfectly with Ultra Defining Gel (a 15 minute process and a 5 hour natural drying process including the CG method of clipping) I go through my day with lovely hair and a non itchy scalp and wake up on "Day 2" with perfect hair and a slightly itchy scalp..... and then wake up on "Day 3" with perfectly acceptable hair and a VERY itchy scalp. I could use my cortisone more often which I don't want to do and so I start all over again with another "Day 1" and on some days I just put it in a simple but boring ponytail and try not to itch my head in public.
If I cut my hair off to a very short style I could do my hair in 2 minutes and I could do it every 2 days without the itchiness and drying drama.
What do you think oh bloggy readers? Keep the long curls or chop it off?

Face owey...

For some unknown reason I have developed a minor rash on my face and a cruddy breakout on my chin. I'm trying out our new Acne treatment product. I'll keep you posted in a couple of days.
 Yay me!
 ;)