Charlotte's Bum Butter and Cosmetics

The most overused words of 2020? Or maybe not used enough? I think the perception is that in order to commit self care, we need to have loads of alone time and lots of money to spare. But self care can be a multitude of things. Sometimes a clear resolution to sit down and ignore the universe for 5 minutes while you get to enjoy your hot coffee is self care. At other times it’s that long overdue phone call to your best friend. Yesterday my self care was taking a long hot sho...wer and buttering up my body. Then restorative yoga session on video. All of this was interrupted a whole lot of times by my grade one student at home, while she was supposed to be in front of the computer. Still counts as self care. And I can tell you that hot water and then oil on my body were amazing. A great ritual to do to start the first and most uncomfortable day of my period. Without it, I would feel down and miserable, not able to be productive. I focused, as much as a mom with a virtual first grader at home possibly can on my self care in the morning, so that I may be productive in the afternoon while feeling great in my body even on a day when I usually feel like crap. And it worked! What’s your small, time and space permitting self care go to when you are overwhelmed and need a little self love? See more

Our new 911 butter is here! No matter how much I explain that you never need to do thick and heavy barrier creams on your baby’s bum when you use our other butters regularly, rough days happen. New food, stress, too much busyness and babies react with an angry rash. For those days, we have a solid tool for you. This beautiful butter is not only made with 11% Zinc Oxide (and no beeswax or fish oil to ruin your cloth diapers), we have added some healing botanicals like Aloe ver...a and Calendula, Hemp oil to help rebuild collagen and loads of organic, nutrient dense oils to nourish, soothe a d protect the skin. This butter does not sit heavy on the skin, we are not relying on the thick wall of Zinc oxide to protect the skin alone. If the natural moisture barrier of the skin has been broken, this needs to be replenished and repaired and for that, skin needs nourishment and fatty acids. And those don’t come from Zinc Oxide or water. These fatty acids need to penetrate the skin and nourish from deep layers as well as stay on the skin and protect from further irritation. And we have found the perfect balance of oils and butters to do just that! See more

This is what keeps me going every day. After a few years of investing time, energy and my heart into this business, this still sparks joy in my soul and this is why we keep evolving and going. Thank you @kait.lin02 and all of our amazing mamas! Check your email if you are on our email list!

Walking through the isles of a drugstore you would think lotions are the only moisturizers to use. But if you are like me and like to look at the label for the ingredients, you will see water, or Aqua as the first and main ingredient. And we are talking 80-90% of the formula being just plain water. Water sadly has no nourishing properties for the skin. And because of the water content, which is where mold and most bacteria thrive, these lotions also need a substantial and ver...y potent preservative a d antifungal. The water is there as a filler, to bulk up the volume of the product. But as a result, the product is not very potent in its nourishing effect on the skin. You are getting a highly diluted version and your skin will know. In my philosophy less is more when it comes to taking care of our skin, and oil nourishes and protects, while water washes, but also dries it. By using waterless skincare, you get to bypass the preservatives, that can sometime be very intimidating and their true effect as they accumulate in our bodies over time has not been fully studied yet. But the other advantage of oil based skincare is its potency. Here you are not diluting the product with nutrient lacking water and get the full effect of the nourishing oil and phytonutrients in them and the added botanical extracts, to better serve your skin and feed it what it needs to stay healthy and happy. I wanted clean and safe skincare for our babies. In real life babies squirm, wiggle, touch and then put every part of their body they can get to, into their mouth. And the fun part is, there is no stopping this activity. Nor would you want to. How great can you feel knowing that your baby can feel free and happy while still having wonderful healthy skin in a safe and fun way. Yes I say fun, because our butters all have light chocolatey smell, babies love!

This beautiful green tin and it’s contents is our love letter to all expecting moms. You’re doing hard work! You deserve pampering. There is no snake oil that will work 100% on preventing or making stretch marks disappear. This is a genetic precondition. But some work can be done to reduce the intensity. I am very proud of this formula. It’s keeping safety in mind with oils like Apricot kernel oil rather than more allergenic Almond oil and offers phytonutrients from amazing ...botanicals like Gotu Kola (read more about this botanical few posts back). Nourishing the skin and offering ingredients to support the elasticity of skin is the goal of this butter. Nourish deeply and ease the itch as the skin stretches to its limits and then some more. Still primarily food grade quality, we added loads of Meadowfoam oil loaded with vitamin E, the beauty vitamin. The Amla extract (also few posts back) brings a little boost of vitamin C, an antioxidant and Argon oil and especially Hemp@oil to boost production of collagen to help the skin expand. Plus the smell! Vanilla and Frankincense is calming and smooth to help a mama relax. See more

When graphs like this excite you, you know formulating skincare is a true passion. Errr, guilty as charged! But if you look at the graph closely, you will see no water in any of the areas that help to improve any problematic conditions of the skin. You know what else you don’t see? Petrolatum, mineral oil, Vaseline or any other motor oil industry byproducts. Makes you wonder, why does a vast majority of cosmetic businesses insist on using these ingredients along with water... as the first on their list, which also means in the highest volume in their products? They’d call it cost effective, in translation, cheap. You are overpaying for cheap or downright free ingredients. A d do you know what the worst part of this is? The fact that products with these Ingredients require substantial amounts of preservatives to keep them from molding and being a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria. If you take a close look at the skin barrier repair section, which is the primary area to concern yourself with when it comes to your baby’s skin, you will see fatty acids as the first and most important solution. That’s right fat. That’s what growing and developing skin needs. It may take you a few weeks to train your skin to be happy with waterless skincare, but once you do, there is no looking back. Well, your baby’s skin will love it right away. Stop wasting money on water in lotions. They routinely contain 70-80% of water and further fillers and preservatives. By the time you make it to any useful fatty acid content, your skin is dry and hungry, because that percentage does not cross the single digit line. Compare that with our natural skincare. 100% natural and in many of our products even 99% organic content. You would need 2-3 liters of your conventional store brand lotions, no matter how eczema friendly they claim to be, to be able to match it to one tin of our butter. Bottom line, your skin will feel happy when you take care of it with nourishing skincare, and you will save a lot of money and the environment with it, because you will have recycled one tin of metal that is in high demand, rather than wasted 10-12 plastic bottles of another motor industry byproduct.

Growing up in Europe I watched many of my little cousins being brought home from the hospital after birth and pampered with the best and latest in everything. Then I moved to Canada and got a job as a nanny. It was a major shock to me to see that anything an everything made for children was made from cheap materials with pretty poor design and quality. And that was the norm. Polyester clothing, plastic toys, and copious amounts of things that really did not have any decent qu...ality. I could not understand why this was the take of North American mothers on what their children wore, ate, played with. KD and canned pasta in tomato sauce were the staples of the diets of the children I was a nanny to. I mean, the parents had enough money to hire a nanny, sometimes even with the mother at home, yet their children slept in polyester and ate garbage. No wonder that mineral oil was passed as baby oil. When truly that is not what should be put on baby skin. I was young and didn’t have any interest in researching or analyzing the situation, but it always rubbed me the wrong way. All these mothers wanting the best for their kids just went with the mainstream and did as told by nurses and doctors, loosing their mind as one recall after another for anything and everything was snowballing and making them feel horrible as moms. So when my baby was to be born I spent months researching. And the day she was born I had European skincare for her, not the usual Vaseline you get to take home and told to use as diaper cream. While the small print on the packaging says do not apply to genitalia. But this is the 21st century and we don’t have to rely on what our mothers and grandmothers were limited to use. We have research and knowledge and can make educated decisions. When I formulated our butters, I did so for my own baby. And that meant give her skin the best and most nourishing of ingredients in a way that would be enjoyable and a pleasure for us both to use. And above all, safe and effective. My baby is my little princeling and just as I wouldn’t feed her crap, I wouldn’t put things on her skin, I wouldn’t want in her mouth either. Truly made for my royal heir. See more

When looking through the oil shelves in a supermarket, you can see this expression on bottles for mainly olive oil. This is a descriptive term that communicates the quality of the oil in the bottle. Extra virgin is the oil derived from the first pressing of the plant and also the highest quality oil you can get. The reason this term is used is because the plant matter is then pressed again for more oil, which is called virgin, rather than EXTRA virgin, and contains less nutr...ients. This process is repeated for as long as the plant matter will yield any oil. After that depending on the plant, it will be cooked with solvents and pressed again to produce oil that is technically labeled as PURE. When it comes to our diet, the pure oil is not only unhealthy, it’s downright dangerous. And contains next to no nutritional value. Our bodies were not built for empty calories. We know now that a lot gets past the skin barrier and will absorb into the skin. So it is important to feed our skin healthy nutrients, not just empty calories, just the same. This is why we search for and use ingredients of the highest quality we can find. Because nourished skin will be able to battle the assault of harsh weather, imbalances in your body, the overwhelming amount of environmental toxins and a lot more you choose to expose it to, if it’s nourished well and has the building blocks to create and maintain its own moisture barrier. Pure quality is still offering emollients, sure. It’s a lot lower in cost, sure. But it also comes with residue of solvents and as mentioned above, sad lack of nutrients and lack of ability to not only support the skin, but also heal it. Skin of babies needs to be nourished as it is growing. And skin suffering with conditions like eczema double so, because it’s ability to maintain a moisture barrier has been disrupted and needs to be healed before reestablishing a healthy moisture barrier to stay protected. Sure it’s more costly to buy higher quality. But when it comes to our skin, opting for low quality will be seen and felt. And your royal heir deserves the best and so do you! Quality sleep thanks to a happy baby! See more

We are so proud of our new facial serums! These have been in the works for over a year now. Considering that we have been living 2020 for nearly 10 months now and the need to reduce the wasteful living we have all been guilty of until now motivated this wonderful partnership with our friends down the street. I honestly can’t even grasp how small my circle of research has needed to be in working in this little business. Not more than 5 minute walking distance, we have an ama...zing shop with all that is needed to formulate a natural skincare formula and even closer is my favorite cafe that offers makers an opportunity to create just what they have dreamed up. It took a few weeks and several cracked or exploded bottles, but the results are so worth it! Here you have our Rejuvenating facial serum in a custom laser etched and gold painted bottle made locally right here in Toronto. So proud to be supporting local businesses! @themakerbean See more

I was going to post something hopeful and positive. You know, the same bla bla bla everyone else is posting with the hope that it will make them feel better and appear special. But laughter does a lot better job at improving your mood that any hopeful quote could. Here is to drinking cold ! Hope yours is at least lukewarm by the time you get to it!

Amla is loaded with skin-friendly Vitamin C which can do wonders for all your skin woes. It is said that fresh amla juice contains 20 times as much vitamin C as is present in orange juice. Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant, which means that it protects you against the harmful effects of free radicals. It helps in slowing down the aging process and is needed for collagen production hence keeping your skin, healthy and supports the immune system. Amla is the store house of vit...amin C and anti-oxidants. While vitamin C gets rid of pimple and acne causing bacteria, anti-oxidants help in retaining the natural glow on the face while allowing the skin to breathe. Researchers have analyzed the effects of amla on various processes within the human body, finding that it enhances immune function, slows down degeneration of the skin and other organs due to aging, protects cells against mutations that can lead to cancer, relieves respiratory infections, helps maintain balance in the face of stress, and provides an overall rejuvenating effect. We love it in our 911 butter along with Zinc Oxide to soothe babies bums on tougher days.

What is whipped butter in cosmetics? It’s a dessert for your skin. No really, it’s a treat. When I formulated our butters, I made them for my baby. I wasn’t concerned with production, shipping, longevity and so on. I just needed something safe and healthy, nourishing and emollient first her eczema and for her cloth diapers to keep them from getting destroyed. But as time passed and more stores started to carry our butters and places like California and Texas became some of... our most demanding states, all that frothy whipped goodness became too hard to ship. The air in the butter allows it to be softer and more mailable than dense base of cocoa butter (which is naturally very hard and brittle) and liquid oils. So we have a solution. Still whipped, but a lot less than we had before. The air whipped into it still allows easier use, but with lot less air, the density is higher and our new tins fit now double the amount of butter the old ones used to hold. And the tin will also last twice as long as the old ones did. Whipped butters are decadent, because they are not made like lotions, with lots of water. They are fluffy, yet just as deeply moisturizing as balms are. The air whipped into the butter makes the color a lot lighter than the mixed formula is before whipping. So should your butter melt, pop it quickly I to the fridge for a couple of hours to solidify evenly and avoid crystals of Shea butter from forming and giving it slightly gritty texture. The color will become more yellow as the air escapes, but the quality or effect will remain the same. Conventional skincare companies resolved this issue with fillers, stabilizers and preservatives, all of which only add more synthetic materials into and I to our bodies. Why fight nature? For appearance? We want to offer safe and clean skincare solution to you, not another run of the mill lotion that works only marginally. See more