Substance Mother and Baby Care

We've carried Substance products for many years and we love them! Soothing and protective without being too greasy. They are minimally scented with natural essential oils and come highly recommended by parents!

Here's what the Substance folks say about their principles...

"ETHICS & PRINCIPLES

• We use only high quality oils, plant extracts, herbs and pure beeswax for our products.
• Our products do not contain parabens, mineral oil, petroleum bases, phyllates, or artificial colouring.
• We use pure essential oils, and stay away from harsh perfumes.
• We do not use animal based ingredients and do not test our products on animals.
• We slow cook our herbal oils in a water bath to gently extract the delicate properties of the plants.
• We use only recyclable plastic and metal packaging.
• We respect and consider our environmental impact in all aspects of our business practice."

And all of this care creates products the whole family can take comfort in.

Microplane

By now, cooking aficionados worldwide are familiar with the story: A Canadian housewife commandeers one of her husband’s favorite woodworking tools and discovers it effortlessly produces the lightest, most wonderful orange zest she could have ever imagined. It’s 1994, her Armenian Orange cake is a huge success and her husband’s Microplane® rasp has morphed into a must-have kitchen grater. It seemed as if a star was born overnight, but it didn’t happen quite that fast, in fact, it took over thirty years.

 
With just a few modifications, and a slight change in our marketing plan, an entire new product line of graters for home cooks and professional chefs was introduced. The response was extraordinary. Since that time, Microplane graters have distinguished themselves from other graters by using that signature chemical process to create ultra sharp cutting edges. Unlike stamped graters, they effortlessly cut through hard and soft foods without tearing or shredding.

Demo! Saturday February 13th Giddy Yo Yo

We are doing a Giddy Yo Yo product demo on Saturday February 13th, just in time for Valentine's Day! They even have a limited addition chocolate bar for the occasion (see photo). Their bars are raw, gluten & dairy free and fair trade and so delicious! They also have spirulina powder, chaga, maca, dried bananas, raw cacao beans, nibs, cacao powder, coco butter...the list goes on and they are all ethically sourced and wonderful. So come in for a sample and fall in love with Giddy Yo Yo!

Marvindale Greeting Cards

Cori Lee Marvin is the artist for Marvindale art. We now carry her greeting cards! They are water colour prints with wonderful whimsical themes and beautiful designs. Cori Lee lives in Port Hope, Ontario and attends many one of a kind art shows and more. Check out her website for more info and products!  marvindale.com

The Ultimate Bean Coffee

Stephen Armstrong (owner of The Ultimate Bean company) knows coffee. He also knows electronic music, food and fair trade — and is keen to chat about topics as far-ranging as women’s health and colonialism — but he really knows coffee.

The owner of Speakeasy Roasteries, located in a warehouse in east-end Hamilton, Armstrong is part of an exclusive club of coffee-tasting experts. As one of 32 people in Canada with Q-grader certification, he can tell good beans from great beans and reliably detect hundreds of potential tasting notes in a cup of coffee.

In coffee circles, it’s kind of a big deal.

To read more, copy & paste the link below!

http://www.hamiltonbusiness.com/dir/2014/09/speakeasy-roaster-one-of-canadas-best/

Feature of the Month for December 2015: Cognitive Cards

Cognitive Surplus is owned and run by Kristen and Geoff Zephyrus in Portland, OR. (Kristen is the science-nerd, Geoff does the designing).

We are fascinated by and curious about the science in the world around us. We love everything from physics jokes to the exquisite beauty of early scientific etchings and illustrations. We're inspired by a sense of wonder for our universe and a desire to look closer. Everything from gazing up at the night sky to the way magnets work is both intriguing and a little magical, and we hope that we're able to share some of our excitement through our designs.

We got started making science products in a little apartment in NYC because we got a periodic table shower curtain one day that had terrible mistakes on it (it listed Carbon as a noble gas! The horror!!), and thought we could do better. We do our very best to source the most sustainable materials, and to make things locally wherever possible.