theHotness

December 7, 2012

Category: The Goods

#ShopSis: Emily Jayne Butters & Fragrances

For quite some time I’ve had this idea to highlight my favorite products especially the ones made by women because I really respect the risk-taking courage, smarts and stamina it takes to be an entrepreneur. I feel more and more that we as a community do not celebrate our small business entrepreneurs the way we should. With the big box business boom of Starbucks, WalMart and H&M, I’ve seen so many of my favorite small boutiques stores shutter—Xukuma in Harlem, Georgia’s in SoHo, and Pieces in Brooklyn & Harlem to name a few. I really miss the unique products, the warm welcomes and intimacy I experienced every time I entered these stores. Now with the massive potential of online shopping I believe that mom & pop spirit of entrepreneurship can and will live on.

Enter #ShopSis. Just in time for the holidays, #ShopSis will highlight some of my favorite women entrepreneurs and their wares– theHotness of the mix. Today I’m launching the series with Emily Jayne by Joan Morgan– an accomplished author, journalist and current grad student (who incidentally created the super fly hashtag on Facebook last month #ShopWithSisterhoodandPurpose, which inspired #ShopSis.

It all started two months ago when I got an email advising, “Winter is coming. Get Wenchified.” Wenchified? What is that, I wondered? Sounded sexy and scandalous like a candlelit backroom of a private Moroccan lounge in Marrakech around midnight. I needed to know more. Immediately. I soon discovered that getting Wenchified was Joan’s way of introducing one of her new scents in her recently launched line of body butters and oils collectively known as Emily Jayne. Inspired, if not totally possessed, by the spirits of her ancestors to reach back to her Jamaican roots and rediscover the essence of simple pleasures, Joan created Emily Jayne this past summer. Emily Jayne, named after both her grandmother and her great grand, is a back-to-basics combination of coconut, jojoba, grapeseed and Vitamin E oils, shea butter, aloe vera, rose water, rosehip and other fine essential oils and it’s all made by hand, one batch at a time.

All of that is great to know, but to be honest, she had me at WENCH. Joan first tagged me with Wench oil one hot, dark and spooky night in August as we bewilderedly meandered to SummerStage in Central Park. I just couldn’t stop smelling my wrist, over and over again. I soon forgot about the mosquitoes who were feeling my Wenchified skin as much as I did. The fragrance is dark and rich like a cigar dipped in Zacapa rum. I felt like I was falling in love with myself, which for an Aries ain’t no cheap thrill. It requires nuance and Wench is nothing if not nuanced.

And then there are the butters. If you love the Wench oil, its butter counterpart will freak you nasty good. Smelling it is like smelling the lingering scent of lust on still warm sheets. It’s familiar and yet it still curiously engages like something new. And it really does linger, both the scent and the sheen.

Emily Jayne’s new Ginger series features oils in Ginger Spice, Ginger Lime and my personal favorite Night Bloom. Joan describes Night Bloom as such:

“This is where ginger willingly surrenders its heat to the mysteries of cedar and the never failing, catch-me-if-you-can, seductions of jasmine’s night blooms; but it may be more useful to talk body parts instead: the nape of neck, a supine wrist, an inner ear freshly tickled by a promise of things yet to come.”

Um, yeah you could say Night Bloom is special! And when I’m really swerving into Bad Grrrl Town I moisturize with Wench butter and then rub a little Night Bloom oil on my wrists, neck and down my breastplate. Owww, sexy in full effect!

My latest unexpected fling has been with Emily Jayne’s Ginger Lime butter. Not one to check for anything citrus in the winter months, my olfactory senses are usually attracted to the warmth of scents like cinnamon and ylang ylang, but you see EJ is a tricky dame. She has taken the sunshiny tartness of lime and infused it with the kick of ginger, but then she lays that bad boy down on a bed of cloves. Relaxing and warming the scent. It’s the perfect thing for these dreary cold days.

Spoil yourself or someone you love this holiday season and get yourself some Emily Jayne. You will feel the love!

SPECIAL DEAL!!! For all purchases over $50 Joan is gifting theHotness readership with a FREE travel-size bottle of Emily Jayne fragrance. Choose from Night Bloom, Wench or Ginger Lime! Pow! All you have to do is type “TheHotness & #ShopSis” in the “Note To Seller” box when placing your order on the website. Click HERE for the Emily Jayne Store:

** This offer ends on Saturday, December 15, 2012. **

Tags: #ShopWithSisterhoodandPurpose, beauty, body butters, Emily Jayne, fragrance, Ginger Lime, Joan Morgan, Night Bloom, NYC, oils, shopping, theHotness, Wench, Xucuma