Category: Cosmetics (Page 4 of 10)

Today I got a bottle of Mystic Blends, Success Oil made by Sun’s Eye Oil. I got the 1/2 oz bottle off listia.com for 100 credits and boy, was it a bargain!
I just love this oil. It smells of incense mixed with peach and gardenias, it’s just alluring and relaxing. I’ve decided to keep the closed bottle on my desk (the fragrance escapes it), just to be able to smell it. I’m going to try using a little bit of it with the next batch of lotion I make – I can’t wait.

Today I found the Elmer/Scientific Explorers‘ Magnificent Manicure Kit at Thriftown for $2. New it retails for $17 at Amazon. I had been curious about the kit before, mostly because all in all I’ve enjoyed other Scientific Explorer kits (Spa Science, Perfumery and its chemistry kits). But I didn’t buy it because in my experience these kits are waaaaay overpriced. They usually contain mostly the type of ingredients you have at home, plus a couple of small samples of stuff that would be a bit harder to come by. But for that you spend close to $20!
This is definitely the case with the Manicure kit. The kit comes with a 3.4oz bottle of lotion base, 4oz bottle of bath salts (aka sodium chloride or table salt), 1.2 oz bottle of crystal mud (aka sodium polyacrylate), 1ml of sodium melon fragrance, 1 ml green dye, 2 foam toe separators, a small plastic soaking tray, a measuring spoon, a mixing spoon, a small pipette, a toy nail buffer (I can’t imagine it’ll be good for anything) and a foot-shaped pumice stone. There is also an activity guide, which is really what you buy the kit for. My $2 kit did not have the lotion, fragrance, dye or mixing spoon – not a big deal as I have all those things at home. But indeed, I have everything the kit comes with save for the “crystal mud” (and the guide) at home.
My kids enjoyed playing with the “crystal mud” so much, that for me it was a good purchase. But the kit is definitely not worth $20, IMHO.
There isn’t very much science to the kit, though the crystal mud section is used to help kids learn about saturation, which was a concept Mika didn’t know before. There is also a few “fun facts” in the booklet with helpful information, though Mika was less than interested in this 🙁
—
Here are the activities included in the activity guide.
– Making gel with the “crystal mud”. The crystal mud is a polymer which starts as granules which can absorb 300 times their weigh in liquid. They basically become a gel when saturated, and you can use them to soak your hands for relaxation purposes. It doesn’t do anything for your skin/nails, though. But Mika LOVED making and playing with the stuff and holding it in her hands.
-Adding salt to the gel, supposedly to help rub off death skin from your hands. However, this part irritated Mika’s skin.
-Mixing the lotion base with color and fragrance and rubbing it in her skin. We skipped this part, though we’ve done it before with a previous kit and the lotion we make ourselves, and just used regular lotion.
-Buffing and shining your nails with the included nail buffer.
-Painting your nails with the non-included nail polish.
Then you do a pedicure
-Soak your feet in the gel
-Rubbing your feet with the included pumice stone
-Applying lotion to your feet
-Painting your toe nails using the included toe separators and your own nail polish.

My whole (now mostly gone) obsession with making beauty products at home, started last Christmas when I got Michaela a Scientific Explorer’s Spa Science Chemistry Kit. Mika sort of liked it, but I thought the concept of making cosmetics at home was pretty cool. I have to admit that there wasn’t much in the way of “science” to this kit – beyond learning about the interactions of baking soda and citric acid in making bath bombs – but I was happy that at least there was the attempt to make the kit seem scientific.
Well, it seems that Elmer’s, the company which manufactures the kits under its division Scientific Explorer, thinks that attempt may be turning off some: it is now marketing the same kit under the name Totally Glamorous Spa Kit – carefully omitting the word “science”. Other than that, and the fact that “Spa Science” comes under the brand “Scientific Explorer” while “Spa Kit” comes under the brand “Elmer’s”, the packaging is identical.
You can buy “Spa Science” at Amazon, Target and Barnes & Noble. “Glamorous Spa Kit” is available at Walmart and Toys R Us. Does this say something about the demographics of who shops in those stores and how marketers believe they should approach different demographics?
I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that Elmer is cynically assuming that some people (poorer people?) will be turned off by a kit if the word “Science” is in it, if there is even the possibility that their daughters (because this is a set which is marketed towards girls and will mostly appeal to girls) will learn something from it. That’s pretty sad – as is the possibility that they might be right.

Update
I wrote to costumer service at Elmer’s with this concern and this is the response I got:
“The reason that Spa Science is marketed under Scientific Explorer and
Totally Glamorous Spa Kit under the Elmer’s name is not related to whether
buyers at one chain will purchase a science kit while those at another will
not. Instead, it goes back to an old arrangement prior to Elmer’s purchase
of Scientific Explorer, whereby certain stores carried the Elmer’s brand and
others, the Scientific Explorer brand. That has since changed and we will be
transitioning away from the Elmer’s brand altogether for future science
products.”
It’s good to know.