Part of the problem with being a journalist and exposing yourself to people doing interesting and extraordinary things is that you can start being convinced by your own stories. I’m pretty good at maintaining a good distance between me and my subject matter, but some subjects — mainly, people making good food and products — just beg to be experienced and remembered long after the story is written.
Take, for example, my new obsession with Salem’s burgeoning Etsy community, specifically, one Janell Mooney, whom I featured as one of Salem’s Top Tweeters this month.
Salem has quite a few lovely ladies on Etsy.com at this point, but Dancing Mooney is one of those cottage operations that regularly makes it to the site’s desirable front page listings and whose product photos are imminently consumable.
Mooney makes soap that looks and smells good enough to eat. And unlike corporations like LUSH, which sometimes charge $10 or more for a simple bar of glycerin soap with some junk in it (which will likely clog your drain and which you just might find in one of your own dark canyons later that day), her stuff is sexy and earthy without the sticker shock.
Okay, so this soap costs more than a bar of Safegaurd. But as I have shown with the Slab dude in downtown Salem, a house filled with beautifully, locally-produced, hand-crafted-by-one-person things can make living in Salem and working from home all the more bearable.
It helps that the soap I got my hands on looks like giant pink sugarcubes and smells of grapefruit and sweet revenge.
I waited to put three of these little cubes out on my guest bathroom sink (ha ha, only bathroom sink) until my guests arrived recently. Is it a selfish act to hope that your guests feel exactly as you do when they use your soap? Totally femme-tastic, plucked from a tree, baked in the sun, and blushed first thing in the morning?
Yowza! Thanks so much for the mention Emily!
You’re the Best!!
♥
Janell
I wish there were an emoticon to end my emails and comments, but I don’t think that people would understand if I slapped an em-dash before my name…
Walking into your bathroom and seeing pink cubes of soap, made me think of my Grandma Spicer. She kept a jar of fancy soap by the sink. When we visited we were allowed to pick a soap to use during our stay. I liked the pink seahorse ones.
I also have an aunt who keeps pretty soap by her sink, but you’re not supposed to use it. There is a second hidden soap under the butter dish you’re supposed to use. The cute pink cubes had me wondering, “am I supposed to use this?” Then I thought, these are not the kind of hosts who have a hidden soap dish.
I used the soap. It smelled like grapefruit.
“grapefruit and sweet revenge” – oh, thank you, that was hilarious. I rarely use solid soaps, but I’m so tempted now to buy a bar of this one just to find out what sweet revenge smells like. All I can think of is smoke, or maybe the emergency room…
Your Etsy search with the link of “Salem has quite a few” brought up all kinds of sellers from everywhere with items tagged or titled “Salem”
http://www.etsy.com/shop_local.php…. This link is more appropriate in bringing up all 37 Etsy shops located in Salem Oregon…. Like mine.. Joyousworld…..just fyi
Thanks for the update, I should just make this blog a wiki.
Newsflash, Janell just added vintage items to her shop. I just purchased a fabulous milkglass bowl from her (for an early birthday present) and got free delivery! She even was sweet enough to give me a gift of her scrumptious soap and seed packet. I’m thrilled to get to know this talented Salem transplant and look forward to purchasing more of her treasures in the future.