a little piece of the puzzle

Last week, I ran a contest for a Dot & Lil Grapefruit & Bergamot soap and a Grapefruit perfume. The only thing you had to do to enter was comment on the blog post and tell me how you felt about skincare, safety and synthetic and natural ingredients. The contest was lots of fun, and I was happy to send off the soap and perfume to the lucky winner. But what really turned out to be wonderful about the contest was the little grains of need and truth that I saw between the lines in the comments left. You know what stood out to me as an underlying theme across all the comments? That people wanted to know more about the ingredients they were using on their bodies, but they were overwhelmed by the vastness of the subject and had no idea where to start. It seems you all feel guilty about not knowing what you're using, and all wish you could find an easy way to learn more!

I totally understand the overwhelm. I remember when I first started making bath and body products and looking into ingredients, the panic I felt about using the right things and learning what was safe and what wasn't. It just seemed like there was so much out there that wasn't true, and so much material to sift through, that I would never get to the bottom of knowing what choices to make.


I have been thinking about this non-stop all week, and I just wanted to put it out there that I am committed, extremely committed, to helping anyone I can to sort through all this. I've said it before, but now more than ever it is clear to me that Dot & Lil should stand for truth in skincare, and try as hard as possible to make information about what we use on our bodies fun, easy and accessible, with no scare-mongering and no guilt! I'm going to really get to work on a video project I've been planning and dreaming about forever, to make the science and facts behind skincare fun to watch.

The comments on that blog post (which you can see here) ended up being just one more little piece in the puzzle, a little insight into what I want Dot & Lil to be like, the need I want it to fill.

I want to make the world smell great. And also? I want to make it a better place.