What makes you a Wicked Girl?

And so are you.

I'm a Wicked Girl because I quit a stable (if awful) job to go and follow my passion.

I'm a Wicked Girl because, a few years before that, I got out of a marriage that didn't work any more, one that gave me a place to live, food to eat, and money to spend -- but was killing my soul --  and struck out on my own.

I'm a Wicked Girl because I've stopped doing work that doesn't feed my soul. Because I've rejected the stability and predictability of 9-5 for going to bed when I'm tired, getting up when I'm rested, and letting the money come when it will...because I'm doing what I love, and that's worth more than a million kagillion bucks.

I'm a Wicked Girl because, in a few months, I'm gonna leave behind the idea of even having a stable address or a home that stays in one place, and strike out in an RV, living on the road, travelling as I please.

What makes you a Wicked Girl?

When you buy from an independent artist...

[Image reads: When you buy from an independent artist you are buying more than just a painting or a novel or a song. You are buying hundreds of hours of experimentation and thousands of failures. You are buying days, weeks, months, years of frustration and moments of pure joy. You are buying nights of worry about paying the rent, having enough money to eat, having enough money to feed the children, the birds, the dog. You aren't just buying a thing, you are buying a piece of heart, part of a soul, a private moment in someone's life. Most importantly, you are buying that artist more time to do something they are truly passionate about; something that makes all of the above worth the fear and the doubt; something that puts the life into the living.]

Thank you.

Thank you for buying food that I can feed my cats, gas for my car, popcorn for my nightly snack. Thank you for paying to replace that belt that squeaked every time I started my car, for the medications for Emily's autoimmune disorder, for the special food Chocolate needs to eat. Thank you.

Thank you for paying me to play with scents, to layer oils until the texture is just right, to mix salts and test and mix salts and test and mix salts and test until the bath salts are PERFECT. Thank you for giving me ideas for soaps, and then buying them (by the truckload).

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my money, and live my life, in the way that I want, rather than in working a soulless job for someone else, whiling away the hours until the weekend, until retirement, resenting every moment.

Thank you for helping me put the life into my living.

Thank you.

Wicked Girls. Saving Ourselves.

I really haven't been doing new-product blog posts for a while now. I've had a couple of reasons...

1) When I post a new item it shows up on Facebook and Twitter and on the front page automatically anyways. And,

2) Nobody reads the damn things.

So now I'm doing a new-product post. Only this isn't just a regular 'check out the new thing' post, because I'm also talking about the song that saved my life.

"For we will be wicked and we will be fair
And they'll call us such names, and we really won't care,
So go, tell your Wendys, your Susans, your Janes,
There's a place they can go if they're tired of chains,
And our roads may be golden, or broken, or lost,
But we'll walk on them willingly, knowing the cost --
We won't take our place on the shelves.
It's better to fly and it's better to die
Say the wicked girls saving ourselves."
-- Seanan McGuire, Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves

Overly dramatic, you say? To that I reply: Whatever. This song has gotten me through a lot of ugly stuff, and for that, I'll love it forever.

You've probably seen me talking about Wicked Girls before. But what's a Wicked Girl? What am I on about, anyway?

We're wicked -- we don't follow The Rules just because they're The Rules. We don't blindly do what society says is right, just because They Said So. We do our thing -- which might be what society says to do, or it might not, but it's what we need to be doing, regardless of what anyone else says.

"Tinker Bell says, and I find I agree
You have to break rules if you want to break free.
So do as you like -- we're determined to be
Wicked girls saving ourselves."

We're saving ourselves, instead of waiting for Prince Charming -- or that lottery ticket -- to save us. We're doing it all our damn selves. We're walking our own roads -- not those others have paved for us, confidently expecting that we'll tamely walk down them, tamely follow the rules they've taught us since we were little.

And the rules that we live by are simple and clear:
Be wicked and lovely and don't live in fear --

And from all of this has come...soap. Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves Soap, to be precise. Rose, myrrh, and cinnamon — bitter beauty, with a hint of spice.