If I explained this before, I think I might repeat myself a little, just because, some people don't like scrolling back and I don't mind a certain amount of a certain type of repetition. The concept for my "From Faerie" line came from what I perceived as a lack in the genre. Maybe it's because fairies and high fantasy and all that aren't very "en vogue" at the moment. I had a lovely little rant some where before I decided to just go off and make my own on how I wanted more myth in my mundane, wanted more fantasy based things to look at. I believe my exact line was "DAMMIT! I want magic socks!"
So, after much frustration, I decided to start really brushing up on my research into C
eltic mythology and fairy folklore in specific. I wanted products that would be like they were from Faerie. Daily, ordinary, mundane things, like bath salts, from Faerie that mortals could possibly get if they could find their way to a goblin market at the edge of our world and theirs. So, that's where the ideas for From Faerie started - and it's still a concept in its infancy.
So, that said, I should explain that Seelie and Unseelie are the names of the two courts of Faerie. Now, the fae have very different concepts of "good" and "evil" when compared to moral man. We tend to label the Seelie court as the "good" court, as they are often of light and live above ground and tend to be more benevolent to humans; and likewise, we tend to label the Unseelie court as the "bad" court, as they are often dark and live underground and can be very malicious to humans. However, whole books can be written - and have been - dealing with the categories of fae, their own morality vs our own and the courts themselves. But I wanted to make a bath salt to nod towards both courts.
I reformulated the Unseelie Salts and listed a new bottle, omitting the fizzing powder to stop the clumping problem I had with the first batch when mixed with the dead sea salts. So it contains a blend of Dead Sea and Epsom salts infused with whole sprigs of Rosemary (from my own garden) and dried poppy flowers.
The new Seelie Salts are a blend of Himalayan pink salts with a good bit of fizzing powder, whole Lavender sprigs (from my own garden) and dried rose petals. (pictured)
I'm still mostly playing with prototypes and looking for feedback, but my sample baggies are all sold out, and before I listed these today, I was down to just the original "Fairy Milkmaid" milk bath soak as unsold. Even my reformulated "GreenWoman Scrub" got shipped off today. I have to admit,
things will move better and faster once spring is fully here and I can get my herb garden back into its previous splendor. And I still have to release the final prototype versions of my Urisk salts for men, and haven't even formulated my Daoine Sidhe or Unicorn blends yet. But so far the reception has been good, so I'm hopeful!
I even have some thoughts of building a Goblin Market website. . mmmmm. . .
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Well, we already know I've searched on etsy for "seelie" and "unseelie" and not found much.
Oh, and as a side note i
n case anyone was curious about why I spell "From Faerie" that way but then go to "Fairy Milkmaid." The best I can suggest is that you look up the non-fiction essay J.R.R. Tolkien wrote called "On Fairy-Stories" where he talks about the common misspelling of "fairy" cropping up and where it originated. The way I always explain it to people is with the sentence, "The Fae from Faerie was a Fairy." Faerie = place, Fae = anything or one of that place, Fairy = little winged person-looking creature from that place.
So, all things considered, I thought I'd look through one of my street teams on etsy, "FAE" (Fantasy Artists of Etsy). I've already plugged a lot of them, but there's bound to be lots of new members with new goodies!
Moon Glow Wishes I think fits right in with her collection of miniature fairy wands. Adorable little wands made out of glass, gemstones and/or wire wrapping, some are earrings, some are pendants, some are just tiny little fairy wands. Very cute!
Plus, it's always nice to see a shop with a good variety of their product, and the most expensive item is $15, and several options are under $10. perfect little pick me ups for a little magic in your day.
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