Martha Stewart 2013 American Made Awards

ForGoodnessGrape is an official nominee in the 2013 Martha Stewart American Made Awards

The Contest Deadline for Votes has been Extended to 9/22/13
As of today we have 1,768 votes so far which puts ForGoodnessGrape among the top 10 nominees in the Style Category!!! 

Thank you for all of your continued support!
Lisa :)

ForGoodnessGrape is a finalist in the Martha Stewart 2013 American Made Awards!
Thank you for helping to make this happen for me!!! I am so grateful and honored and without YOU I would not be here.

Please take a minute to checkout my nominee page and cast your votes. You can cast 6 consecutive votes every 24 hours from now until September 22, 2013. I also have a really cute video in there (also on my website) which I made for this award and I do hope you enjoy it.
Please pull out all the stops and show your GRAPE support during this campaign!
Also, please do mark your calendar to cast your 6 consecutive votes every day until 9/2213.
Just click the badge above which will take you to my entry page on Martha.
Thank you for helping me make it this far!

Lisa's Top Twelve Flavorite (Favorite) Lip Balms

Seville Rosa by The Lip Balm Queen

Hi all!

I thought that today would be a GRAPE day to share with you my top twelve favorite lip balms. YAY!  I wanted this to be a top ten list but couldn't do it. So without further ado here they are in no particular order:

Marshmallow Rose

Seville Rosa

Unicorn Kisses

Ghost Farts

Earl Grey

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Banana Whipped Cream

Blueberry Lemonade

Lemon Cupcake

Huckleberry Honey

Chill Pill

Watermelon

So if you'd like to try some of my All Time Favorites here's a link to all of them and a coupon code to save 30% on each one. Coupon code is ALLTIMEFAVS to be used at checkout.

ps-came up with the new word "Flavorite" by way of a typo. who would have guessed?

Thanks for reading and most of all...enjoy!

Lisa :)

Jaffa Lip Balm Review (Miessence Brand)

Hi all!

I'm going to post reviews on specialty lip balms that I find reading lip balm reviews. I purchase them myself with my own funds. There will be no biased reviews nor do I ever ask for free items. The sellers do not know that I make lip balms or that I will be reviewing them. These are blind reviews so that I won't be given and special consideration.

Most recently I purchased a Miessence Jaffa Lip Balm - Certified Organic (however, it is not vegan) in Vanilla Orange flavor off of Amazon. Contains .12 oz in a tube. Cost was $6.60 plus $1.00 shipping with Amazon Prime. Not a bad price for a certified organic lip balm since organic ingredients do cost more than non-organic ingredients.

Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NCRHYC/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Flavor: I love the flavor. I've always loved orange and vanilla together. It does have good staying power but remember, I am not a Lip Licker so it may not last as long on someone who is.

Texture: the shea butter is fractionated which makes it feel grainy when applying it but doesn't impart these grains on the lips. I know this is something that can happen if the shea butter is not heated and cooled properly. It can also happen if it isn't properly stored.

Ingredients: (organic) Sunflower oil, shea butter, beeswax, avocado oil, sweet orange essential oil, vanilla extract, rosemary extract.

Manufacturer: Jaffa is made in Australia and imported to the US. When I looked up the company headquarters in Australia, it appears they are a multi-level marketing company and are offering home based business opportunities. I can not speak on this other than what I read since I am not one of their distributors. Australia does have stringent certification standards however I did not see copies of their suppliers certificates on their site but that's not unusual.

In a nutshell:

Recommendation: yes I'd recommend the item I purchased based on my findings. It tasted great and had very good staying power.

About the ingredients: I like that they are certified. However, please note that I do not know what percentages of the ingredients are used to make up this formulation. The first ingredient is Sunflower Oil which is very inexpensive. Note: Just like food nutrition labels, the first ingredient listed on a cosmetic label makes up the largest percentage of the formulation. The other thing I noticed on their website is that when they talk about Jaffa and list the ingredients for this item, they are not listed in the same order as they appear on the label. I think that may be a little misleading since on the website they talk about the shea butter first which is the second ingredient and they don't talk about the sunflower oil benefits at all which is the first ingredient.

About the manufacturer: Read more about them here in Wiki


Thanks for reading!
Lisa :)

Has anyone else tried this yet? If so what did you think about it?

Growing Pains

It's official! As of March 1, 2013 I will no longer sponsor my shops on Etsy.com

Everything from my Etsy shops ForGoodnessGrape, Lip Melts and The Lip Balm Queen will now be all in one easy location.

HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT: Yes I've been having some Etsy growing pains and have decided not to continue sponsoring my shops on Etsy. As of March 1, 2013 all of my products from all three shops can be found in one easy location! Which means lower prices and combined shipping for YOU.
 
ForGoodnessGrape - Lip Melts Organic Whipped Lip Butter - The Lip Balm Queen

can all be found at www.ForGoodnessGrape.com
 
YES I've been able to lower my prices too since a direct website has less fees and overhead involved and I've been able to pass that savings on to you :)

For instance -
Lip Balms were $4.00 and up - NOW $3.50 and up
Lip Tints were $7.00 - NOW $6.75
Shimmer Lip Tints were $6.75 - NOW $6.50
Sugary Lip Scrubs were $7.75 - NOW $7.50
and the list goes on. Everything has been repriced and adjusted for SALE on my direct site.

THE REASON FOR THIS IS SIMPLE: I would like to be the captain of this ship and chart my own course and see where this magical journey takes me. I must take charge of my own destiny.

Thank you so much for your continued support as I do enjoy chatting with each of you and making your GRAPE lippies!

Here's a coupon code to get you started :)

NEWCOURSE20

Save 20% on your entire order on top of my new lower prices.

Good this weekend only 3/1/13-3/4/13.

See you there!
Lisa :)
www.ForGoodnessGrape.com

Education Series - Buyer Beware of Photoshopped Lip Colors

Photo Courtesy of eHow.com

Like you, I am drawn in by the glossy, rich colors of lip tints, glosses and lipsticks that I see on the internet. After all I love this stuff! I think, "WOW! How did they get all of their photos to have the same pose?" Then I look at the other photos displayed just a little bit closer and I can easily see that all of the examples are from the same original photo and only the lip color or glossy element has changed or maybe its been cropped a little differently. Oh my!

I'm amazed at how many people are Photoshopping images of their own handmade products. I know the big name cosmetic companies and magazines use these "tricks" all the time. Did you know that with an easy search in Google there are lots of free tools to use with Photoshop to change lip color in a photo? Yes I know pictures sell but let's be honest here, personally I don't think it's proper for a handmade item to be Photoshopped in the name of sales just so your colors look amazing or different from how the product will actually look on a consumer. After all, I believe people shop for handmade items for other reasons such as quality of raw materials, craftsmanship, flavors, etc. Then I got to thinking...I don't know if most shoppers even notice that this is going on.  

So in a nutshell what I'm saying is that technology is a fantastic thing as long as it's not deceiving anyone and to please be aware that this practice is being used. We all work hard for our money and we want to spend our dollars wisely and we want to spend it on a quality handmade product that the artist who created it is proud of.

Do you think this practice is deceitful? If you've noticed photoshopped lippies too I'd love to hear how you feel when you see them.

Great Finds is Painting the Town Red!

Great Finds is Painting the Town Red!

New Fall Goodies on Etsy!

Aqua Plum Shimmer Lip Tint - New for Fall

Well the summer is almost over. I can't believe how fast it went by. I did get to take time to enjoy it though so I'm grateful for that. So back to posting in my blog and creating new goodies for fall for my shops :)

My first "Shipping Helper", Heather, started college this week at Towson State. She will be studying deaf languages and how to teach them. I'm so proud of her! National Honor Society and being accepted at Towson State. I know she'll go far. Congratulations Heather!

I was fortunate enough that Heather even found and trained her replacement for me too. What a sweet girl. Let's give a GRAPE big WELCOME TO RACHEL. She will be shrink wrapping and handling all that has to do with shipping out orders. She's doing a very thorough job and I know she's going to be a big help to me so that I can focus on what I do best...Make Lip Balms, Lip Tints, Sugar Lip Scrubs and Perfumes!!! Whew :)

Above is a brand new shimmer lip tint for fall. A gorgeous plum with aqua shimmers and sparkle. Rachel modeled this for me today and it's stunning! Did I tell you how beautiful she is? Very tall and thin, I told her she could be a super model. She's very down to earth and I'm going to see about using her to model some lip tints too.

I've also added a couple of other goodies, Bronze Umber Shimmer Lip Tint, Cupcake Perfume Oil and Cookies and Scream Pie Perfume Oil. Hope you love these as much as I do.

Please have a safe and happy Labor Day holiday this weekend!

Lisa :)