E-tailers I love – Moonalisa

Moonalisa, a Supernatural Clean. This etailer is a wonderful woman who makes all of her own stuff and puts an amazing amount of love and care into everything she makes. She doesn’t stay open constantly — instead, she opens for short periods with a limited stock, then closes up and makes all of the orders and sends them out. After that, periodically throughout the year, she opens again.

Part of the reason that making everything and sending it out is a lengthy process is that she makes everything a completely beautiful artistic endeavour. Not only are the products amazingly high quality and the fragrances beautiful and complex, the packaging and presentation is first rate. Here are some pictures of my winter order placed on 1/1/09 and received on 3/4/09:

First, this is what you find when you open the box and remove the top layer of tissue paper:

This is my full order minus the individually boxed items:

And here are the individual boxes:

Bombs and solid lotions (the Queen Bee solid lotion didn’t photograph too well, but it’s very pretty. It’s scented with clary sage essential oil, and has a wonderful combination of very moisturizing ingredients. It’s a little soft — apparently she also makes a version in summer that’s less melty, but because this was a winter order, it’s softer. I really like it.):

Dr. Bombay bomb (Blood orange, patchouli, and ginger — it smells so good!):

Stone Cold bomb (this bomb has a rune soap inside it — you can see the rune chart in the picture):

Man in the Moon Bath Fizzy (scented in Winter Solstice, which is a blend of different Frankincense resins from around the world, Nutmeg and Labdanum Absolute):

Art House scrub, Bubbling Bubbles 4-in-1, free gift lip balm, and underneath that, the Winter Solstice soap:

Art House scrub, and a close-up of the card that comes with it. I LOVE the painting on it, and the scrub smells amazing!:

Bubbling Bubbles 4-in-1 — this is a bubble bath, shower gel, shampoo, and fabric cleaner, although I can’t bring myself to use it for laundry ’cause I’m too greedy. It comes in a lot of different fragrances — I got it in Eclipse, which is one of Moona’s signature scents, with the ingredients kept secret. It’s incensy and sultry, and is really, really good:

Freebie lip balm in Chocolate Dipped Bananas (omg yum!), in its own little organza bag — it’s a very melty balm, but it’s very nice! I’ll just have to make sure not to leave it in the car when it’s warm!):

Winter Solstice soap (my camera isn’t good enough to get the details of the soap itself, but it’s rubbed with shimmer powder, and topped with mica flakes, and is so incredibly gorgeous. It’s also HUGE — I think I’ll cut it in three parts when I can finally bring myself to use it…:

On to the individually boxed items, first we have the box that contains one of the best moisturizing creams I’ve ever used, Herbalist’s Gold. It’s a rich cream made in small batches from made from the finest almond and coconut oil, infused herbal distilled water, essential oils of Lavender and Rose Geranium ( not to be confused with rose oil), beeswax, Grapefruit seed extract, rosemary extract and aloe vera gel:

Then my two perfumes — one in Winter Solstice and one in Eclipse (they were in the gold package):

And finally, the most amazing product of all, the Egyptian Royal Jelly. This stuff is a jelly type moisturizer with the most amazing resin/incense smell (made with Red Sandalwood, Amber resin, Alkanet root, Apricot kernel oil, Borage oil, essential oils of Vetiver and Nutmeg among many different resinous essential oils). It is SO good, and although it’s highly pigmented red, it doesn’t seem to discolour even my pale skin. It’s a lovely, surprisingly light moisturizer and I love using it on my hands at night — not only does it do great things for my skin, it also smells so good while I’m drifting off…:

First, the box:

And now the little jar of wonder itself, with its gorgeous card attached. It’s in a clear glass jar — the red colour is the jelly itself:

And finally, some of the amazingly beautiful extra stuff that Moona puts into every package — lovely vintage images and beautiful cards:

So, keep an eye on her site, and sometime soon she should reopen with new products/scents for spring, and some old favourites. I’m eagerly looking forward to it!