‘Come on out and get in the Christmas spirit’
‘Scrub Inspired’ demos to be part of Glace Bay Heritage Museum annual bazaar and tea, Sunday
A Glace Bay woman has found the formula for life after retirement.
Joan McNeil, of Glace Bay, a lab technologist for 34 years, including at the Glace Bay Hospital as well as in the microbiology department at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital, is now using herbs she grows and locally sourced products to make scrubs for her daughter Jessica McNeil’s business, Scrub Inspired.
“The scrubs are really unique because they are homemade, we just use food ingredients so the sugar scrubs are actually edible,” she said.
McNeil said her daughter comes up with the recipes for the unqiue products.
“They are wonderful for your skin.”
McNeil, a musician who is also involved with a spiritual association, will be giving demonstrations of some of the scrubs during the annual Old Town Hall Christmas Bazaar and Tea being held at the Glace Bay Heritage Museum on McKeen Street, Sunday from 2-5 p.m.
McNeil said people can make scrubs in their own kitchen, but don’t.
“We can make bread in our own kitchen but we don’t, we go out and buy bread. Like bread companies, this company has the edge, people like to have a product made for them but with the confidence it’s wholesome, it’s fresh, it’s local ingredients.”
After retiring more than six years ago, McNeil had gotten into selling her woodworking at the farmer’s market.
However, one day her daughter Jessica McNeil, now of Ottawa, who has a degree in commerce and studied marketing and human resources, had a rosemary plant and through research on the computer made a sea-salt scrub with ingredients that included grapefruit and rosemary. She shared it with her friends, who came back for more.
“People were telling her, ‘You have something here,’” McNeil said.
“My daughter gave me the recipe and showed me how to make it and asked if I’d make it here using locally sourced ingredients and things from my garden from the summertime. I said, ‘Yes, that sounds lots of fun.’”
McNeil said the product amazed her.
“It exfoliates and moisturizers the skin,” she said.
Since that time McNeil’s daughter, along with her business partner, Kiersten Hanly, also of Ottawa, have formed Scrub Inspired, offering a wide variety of unique sugar and body scrubs.
The names alone are appealing such as apple pumpkin pie, which includes ingredients of brown sugar, grape seed oil, almond oil, pumpkin seed oil, and apple-cinnamon tea, cinnamon and ground cloves.
Then there’s pom pom, a mixture of sugar, grape seed oil, fresh pomegranate seed puree, and sweet orange essential oil.
Other sugar scrubs include coconut almond, oatmeal coffee, sweet lemon grass, grapefruit and rosemary. Body sea-salt scrubs include lavender and vanilla, as well as lemon.
McNeil said her daughter and her business partner come up with the concept of the scrubs but she has used her skills as a lab technologist in helping develop the end stages for some of the products.
Scrubs are available at the Glace Bay Town Hall as well as the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design in Sydney, Defiant Darlings in Sydney, Kreative Designs, Sydney River and La Quaintrelle in North Sydney.
McNeil also goes to most of the local Christmas craft shows.
There are premium and regular scrubs and so prices can vary slightly but many range from $10.99 for a small to $34.99 for a large.
The business can also be found online, with additional products, at www.scrubinspired.ca
Elke Ibrahim, vice-chair of the Glace Bay Heritage Museum Society, said it’s hoped people will come out to the Old Town Hall museum Sunday 2-4 p.m. for their annual bazaar and try a scrub demonstration and enjoy hot cider, entertainment, book signings from local authors Teresa O’Brien and Donna Troicuk, shopping in the Old Town Hall Isabelle Harris Gift Shop, a silent auction and much more.
“Come on out and get in the Christmas spirit at the Old Town Hall.”