Sugar Doll Blogger Award

A good friend did me a great honor and awarded me the Sugar Doll Blogger Award for my business and its blog (this one!). Mariah is an amazing woman with a blog of her own, and I'm flattered that she decided I was an "amazing and crafty" woman deserving of recognition. The award asks that I post 10 things you may not know about me, and so, here goes. I've tried to keep it on topic to blue duckling.

1. I am a lawyer. I started this business, and I run it, in my spare time. My husband helps, obviously!

2. I have no scientific background (see #1), but I came up with all of the recipes for blue duckling products.

3. I drink champagne regularly. It makes regular days feel like special occasions. If I could, I would pour a glass for all my customers when I see them.

4. I'm a stickler for grammar. That one is totally unrelated.

5. I studied psychology in college. And linguistics.

6. I have a younger sister (aka blue duckling's Social Media Coordinator). She is a rockstar.

7. My husband is also a juris doctor (law school graduate).

8. I really did finish law school in two and a half years, like Mariah says. It's supposed to take three. Now it feels like this is getting more and more off track...

9. blue duckling will have a "representative" (I dunno what you call them) at BlogHer 10 in New York City this August. We are very excited. Her name is Gracemonkey, at least, to me.

10. I really do make blue duckling products by hand in my kitchen. From scratch.

Now to share. I'll pass the Sugar Doll Blogger Award on to Miss Grace (aka Gracemonkey), who is an incredible single mom in California. We went to college together, lived together for four years, and she's one of my favorite people ever. Also, did I mention that she's amazing? And a sexy librarian to boot (maybe she's not working as a librarian, but she sure has the credentials). Hi Gracemonkey!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, this is definitely a favorite holiday for the blue duckling elves, since we got married one year ago today. To celebrate this green holiday (we like to celebrate), we'll throw a free bd balm with tea tree oil in every order placed today at blueducklingproducts.com. It's a fitting gift on a green day, since our bd balm is made with ingredients that are eco-sourced wherever possible, and the packaging is more than 30% post-consumer, fully recyclable plastic.

If your order is more than $25, choose Priority Mail and we'll ship it to you for free!

We'd also like to congratulate Jade S, the winner of a drawing for a $10 blue duckling coupon. I met Jade at a fabulous event called Women, Wine, and Wellness, and I can't wait to see what she picks out with her coupon.

Happy St. Pat's!

bd balm

bd balm is our version of lip balm, chapstick, lip butter, or whatever your preferred item is for soothing and moisturizing your lips. Our lip balm is lusciously pure (like all of our products), and is a wonderfully silky product for maintaining a perfect pout.

We start with organic sunflower oil and beeswax, and add a little shea butter and jojoba oil. Shea butter is healing, and the jojoba oil gives bd balm its fabulous texture (silky, but not greasy). We also include a little vitamin e and lanolin to protect. We don't use any preservatives, and bd balm is petroleum free.

If you compare bd balm to some of the major products on the market, you'll find that ours is a more natural, holistic approach to healthy lips. Chapstick brand lip balm is made with petrolatum, a petroluem-derived base. Carmex, though simple, includes salicylic acid, which is in many anti-acne beauty products (I still can't figure out the benefit of having a drying agent in lip balm). Many other products use artificial colors and flavors as well.

I make bd balm in two varieties: peppermint and tea tree oil. Our peppermint is a bit reminiscent of Burt's Bees, using peppermint essential oil to get that cooling, minty effect. Tea tree oil is used to give our other variety antiseptic, antibacterial properties (great for kids!).

bd balm comes in .15 ounce, recycled plastic dial-up tubes. Each is $4.50 on our website.

Charlie the wonderdog (wonderelf?)

Charlie is our super-duper helper elf. He's our little 5-month old mutt, adopted last December from the Humane Society in Boulder. He's part cairn terrier, part pug, and all cuddles. Charlie is instrumental at making sure that his treats get eaten and his rawhides get chewed while we make blue duckling products.

Jojoba Oil

Jojoba oil is the liquid wax produced in the seed of the jojoba plant. Jojoba plants are prevalent in the Southwest United States, and much jojoba oil comes from that region.

blue duckling loves what jojoba oil does for our lip balm. It is a plant oil that adds a great texture, plus it has the added benefit of being softening and moisturizing. Before we stumbled upon jojoba oil, bd balm didn't have the "glide" that we love so much. Now, our customers constantly comment on the amazing smoothness of our bd balm. Jojoba oil is Alex's favorite of the oils that we use, and it was his brilliant idea to put it in the lip balm.

The beginning of blue duckling

blue duckling got its start one cold weekend in December of last year. It's hard to pinpoint just what led Paris to start this venture, but there were a few factors we're sure of that converged to give rise to this fledgling company. One of those is a desire to be more "green" and simple. There are so many harsh chemicals in just about every single product we find and use. Since we're not convinced that these chemicals are necessary, or better, or even safe, we thought that maybe we could do better.

Experiences with other simple, pure products also convinced Paris that she could do this. Arbonne doesn't use mineral oil or parabens, and Paris learned about Arbonne's terrific products from a friend. Inspiration was also drawn from smaller companies that make remarkably simple products, such as Honey House and Lemongrass Spa.

Disappointment with other "natural" products also led to blue duckling. We always knew that "natural" could mean just about anything, and if you pay attention, you'll find that "natural" is truly a subjective term. Picking up "natural" deodorants at Sunflower Farmer's Market in Boulder was quite a surprise, as most contain propylene glycol. Propylene glycol is a petroleum product, and as a variant of mineral oil clogs pores. Several that I picked up also contained alcohol and things like Soyethyl Morpholinium Ethosulfate. Just having a long name doesn't make an ingredient bad, but I have no idea what that is! It's true that the aluminum present in just about all anti-perspirants is the most unnatural, icky ingredient that many of us seek to avoid. But some of these so-called "natural" products aren't as pure as we'd like, either. blue duckling was borne of an attempt to make products with ingredients we could understand and explain, with as few synthetic ingredients as possible (it's not possible to be chemical-free...even water and air are chemicals). When we do use things that are synthetic, we do our best to explain what they are and why.

Many cosmetic products we all use are unnecessarily complex. Paris figured she could take just a few ingredients and make something truly high quality. It started with some beeswax, shea butter, vitamin e, and sweet almond oil in the kitchen. Our solid lotion bars (bd bars) contain a few more ingredients now, but each one of them is in there for a reason (to read more about what we use and why, click here). Paris and Alex both love using and selling blue duckling products, because we take so much pride in the recipes that we've devised, and we think that they produce real results.

Deciding to market blue duckling's products was a natural step, because Paris has always wanted to run her own small business. She got into direct sales, but simply re-selling someone else's product didn't feel entrepreneurial enough. She wanted to create and market the product. blue duckling allows her to do just that. Now we're available online, and at Four Eighteen in Crested Butte. We exhibit at craft fairs, and we're expanding into more retail markets very soon! We hope that you'll find our products to be useful, of uncompromising quality, and just all-around awesome!

Propylene Glycol

Propylene glycol is another ingredient that you won't find in blue duckling products. It is a form of mineral oil, which means that it is a petroleum product. Propylene glycol is one of several cheap, low-quality, petroleum-derived things that you'll find in a ton of cosmetics. It is typically used in cosmetics because of its moisturizing and humescent (draws moisture from the air) properties.

Propylene glycol is a major ingredient in automotive anti-freeze and airplane de-icer. Because of its moisturizing properties, it is used in many cosmetics, from lotions to soaps to hand sanitizer to toothpaste. It is a major component of most deodorants and a whole host of other cosmetic and non-cosmetic products.

We don't use propylene glycol because there are far better-quality ingredients that can be used as moisturizers. Rather than gunk up our skin with a variation on mineral oil (which just clogs pores and doesn't have much real beneficial effect), we use things like shea butter and sweet almond oil.

Avoiding propylene glycol has the added benefit of avoiding support of the petroleum industry, which is another blue duckling goal.