Small Business Saturday: Tarabusi Creek Cosmetics
Posted on October 17, 2020 Posted by Athena Scalzi 8 Comments
Welcome to another Small Business Saturday! In case you missed the last one, this is where I write about a brand/company that I have bought and tried products of. These are not paid promotions or instances where I have been given free items in return for a post about them. These are just things I have bought and consumed on my own time, and liked enough to talk to all of you about. So let’s jump right in to the second installment of Small Business Saturday!
Today I’m here to talk about Tarabusi Creek Cosmetics, a Michigan-based skincare brand that makes soaps, scrubs, perfumes, lotions, candles, and more! All of their products are vegan and homemade in small batches. I actually came across them on Twitter, and you can check out theirs here!
Like I mentioned, they make a wide variety of skincare products, and so far I have tried three of their soaps. I have almost never used bar soap in my life, I always use liquid body wash, but I’m seriously loving the bar life. One thing I hate about liquid soap is when it gets low or close to empty, you have to shake it like a fuckin’ ketchup bottle and squeeze the shit out of it. Bars are kinda nice because they just like, disappear and you don’t have to throw away the bottle, so that’s cool regarding like sustainability and whatnot.
The first one I bought was called Toasted, and I chose this one because it was the very beginning of fall and I wanted something that matched the season, and what better to do that with than soap that smells like cinnamon and pumpkin chai? I was really impressed with this soap! I loved the way it lathered and it also smelled super amazing. It lasted about a month and a half for me before I bought a new one, and the second time around I bought two bars!
The second one is called Sunburst, and it’s a much milder soap that’s not as strongly fragranced. I decided on this one because at the time I bought it, it was on sale, and who doesn’t love a good sale? It’s really simple and nicely scented. The third one is called Ren Fest, and this one has such a fun design! It’s all colorful and marbled, and you can really tell here that they’re handmade because no two bars are the same. This one was a little too “manly” scented for me, but it is a really nice scent if you’re into that! I’m more of a floral or classic clean scent person myself, but I still really like the quality of the third one.
So, yeah, be sure to check them out, try a soap or a scrub, or even a candle! I hope you have as good an experience with this brand as I have so far. Oh, and shipping was really quick, too! So that’s a plus.
Have a great day!
-AMS
My Saturday small business is the Milk Pail Market in Mountain View CA. (Well, it’s an order-during-the-week-pick-up-Saturday business.) For 40+ years, they were an open-air fruit&veggie market with lots of cheese. But the location they were in has gradually been eaten by real estate development (old 1-2 story retail being replaced by 4-story apartments, since we badly need housing around here), and last summer they closed.
After the pandemic started, they started this model nearby, and since I haven’t felt comfortable going to farmer’s markets, and haven’t felt organized enough to subscribe to a CSA, this gets me a big bag of random fruits and veggies the weeks I want it.
My go-to for skin care is Xerion Skin Care, which is a one woman operation out of New Mexico. No soaps, but she does excellent face washes, moisturizers, serums, light bases with SPF – all sorts of good stuff.
Human brains (at least mine) are weird. The longer I was looking at those soaps, the more I was seeing shapes in them. Like the Nome King from Oz as portrayed by John R Neil; and a woman (whose legs were actually a lizards) squatting down watching her chubby child play.
Skin care products are my downfall!
Since they’re vegan and in MI, I’ll promote them to our Vegan Kalamazoo group! And probably buy a few myself.
Are any of these products good for people with rosacea? I have it and have to be incredibly careful. Thanks.
ellid – I don’t know about the company Athena is promoting, but Xerion has a line called Skin Zen, which has done very well with my rosacea.
Jane’s Rustic Ranch Soap is a local small business outside of Lincoln, California, which is north and east of Sacramento. I first met Jane and her husband at the Sacramento Arts Fair several years ago (the annual arts fair, usually held the first weekend of November at the Sacramento Convention Center, is planning a virtual event this year). Having no previous experience with soap other than standard bar soap, I was looking for hand-made soaps to give as Christmas presents, as a change of pace from the kinds of things I had given in previous years. I liked their wide selection and the way the soaps looked—they were fun and good-smelling, not overly floral. I ended up getting enough soap bars that I had a couple left over for myself, and I enjoyed them very much. I found that I couldn’t go back to regular bar soap (isn’t that always the way when one finds something really nice?). In each of the subsequent years I bought soaps from them at the Arts Convention.
A couple of months ago, at the end of July, having run out of Jane’s soap, I put together an on-line order of soaps for Christmas presents and for me, but wanted to get out of the house instead of having it mailed to me, so I wrote to Jane asking if I could come by to pick up the order. She was fine with that. The “ranch” is an actual ranch, although perhaps not a huge one, but the home and other buildings are quite a ways from the neighbors. I wore my face mask and lathered my hands with a proper sanitizer right before exiting my car. I was greeted by their friendly old dog. Jane, her husband, and their granddaughter were sitting outside in a covered patio, so it was easy to keep social distance while we chatted. They are very nice folks. They also offer lip balms, body lotions, and “bath bombs,” very much.
As a side note on the effects of the pandemic, Jane told me that a few of the vendors from whom they had been ordering some of the ingredients for her soaps had gone out of business, and it was not easy to find replacements.
Belatedly responding to your “Dark Pop” – liked it. Have heard it before, but not sure where (not Voltron). I do like its anthemic nature. Back in the old days, “Dark Pop” would be Goth. If you haven’t checked out your dad’s copy of “Disintegration” by the Cure (he must have it!), I’d recommend that for those times when you just feel a bit moody and melancholic: