I decided to try it myself, in the hopes that I could tell her further into her process that “YES!”, she could use her favorite product afterall.  Well, I was adjusted to the Wonderbar at that point, to say the least, so I bought some CE Ferulic.  The first thing I noticed was that my skin soaked it up like nobody’s business.  It felt like a different product to me!   Now, after using for some time (in between removing the Wonderbar and applying my moisturizer (I’ll get to that next)), I love it.  Just adds a little extra oomph to my already glow-y skin.  And from what I understand, it adds extra sun-protection as well.  Gotta love that.  So, this is my official product recommendation.  Go get some CE Ferulic, it’s definitely good stuff.

Now on to the moisturizers- certainly a lot of great ones out there.  I bet I’ve only skimmed the surface, but for the time being, I’m not looking any further.  Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream is working very well for me.  It is not too greasy and it keeps me very hydrated, even during the brutal Winters we have here in Houston.    So, add this product to your list of moisturizers that work very well with the bar and do not break you out…

That’s all!  I am going now to host a baby sip-n-see for my adorable friend Adrienne and her newly adopted baby boy, Braden Rivers.  He is beautiful and looks just like his new family!!!  God works in mysterious ways!   I’ve been cooking Italian chicken salad for two days for 50 people- I’m up to my ears in toasted almonds and lettuce leaves and just found out only 25 people are coming!  Oh, well, guess we’ll be eating chicken salad for a few days.  Please give me feedback on any products you have found that work well with the bar!  Love to hear your thoughts!!

I guess it’s good news when other companies out there begin using the words “wonder” and “bar” in their advertising and marketing campaigns more and more…..different combinations like Bar-wonder, Wonder-bar, Wonder Bar, Bar of Wonder.  When we first started, you could google the word “wonderbar” and the only thing that came up was a bar in Asbury Park.  It’s been pretty exciting to watch from my viewpoint, actually, because it means we at WonderbarUSA are making an impact and leaving a strong impression in the market place.    That leads to name recognition, which leads to stronger sales.  We are seeing all of that, so we are very grateful.  :)  These days, my inbox is FULL of questions regarding Eumora and Cor Silver, so I thought I would just briefly respond here. 

Eumora is not the same as the Wonderbar, as seen on our website, wonderbarusa.com.  The two bars are made by the same manufacturer.   The Wonderbar is an improved and more effective version of Eumora.  The ingredients are the same, but the composition is different.  The distributors of Eumora are prohibited from selling the bar here in the United States, as we are prohibited from selling the Wonderbar in Malaysia or Singapore.  There, I said it and I mean it with all due respect. 

Secondly, people want to know about Cor Silver and why and how the Wonderbar is better or different.  They are both “bars”, hence the curiousity, but I think the similarities end there.   As far as I can tell, people love Cor Silver and while  it seems like a good product, I have never tried it myself and cannot speak from an educated standpoint on its effectiveness.  What I can say is that it does not contain the Chlore’nahre, which is the microalgae component that “heals” your skin.  Also, the advertised pH level of the Cor Silver bar is 7.2.   The pH level of the Wonderbar, as you’ve heard me say here before, is around 5.65.  Just to be clear (no pun intended), normal skin surface pH is between 4 and 6.5 in healthy people.   Lastly, the Cor Silver bar does not contain the Heilmoor Clay that detoxifies the skin.  As you can see, the three things that really make our bar wondrous, as they say, cannot be found in Cor Silver.  The two bars are different animals altogether.

SO, as my favorite blogger, Lainey, likes to say…..this is like a big buffet with lots of choices and YOU get to choose what you want.  WE just get to put it in front of you and hopefully……..you’ll make the right choice!

Sorry, I haven’t posted in a while!  Someone actually noticed and emailed me. (I’m sure my mother put her up to it.)  Anyway, things are getting a little busy around here (in a great way!) and it’s getting harder to keep up.  I’m not complaining, though…..I’m very happy to be occupied with something as exciting as this.  Seriously, I am answering emails from my bed at 6:15 am because I am so excited to see what the day brings and who has emailed……How many are we going to sell today?  Which reviews are going to come out? What great news the day will bring???  It’s been thrilling to watch it grow and I never had a doubt it would!  I got an email recently from the buyers of a very exciting store in New York (remember that day I schlepped all over NY dropping off samples to anyone who would let me in the door? You are supposed to have appointments for these things, I guess), well they took it home and tried it and loved it!  Soooooo, hopefully, soon we will be taking orders from a few of these retailers we have been talking to.  Send good vibes please…

Speaking of good vibes, the Wonderbar has been selected as a Finalist for the Reader’s Choice Awards on JuliB, in the category, “Best in Moisturizers & Cleansers 2010″….can you believe it??  I mean, you submit your own application to be a nominee, but there are HUNDREDS of nominees!  We are very honored over here to be named as a finalist and I hope you all will rally and VOTE for us!  We have some good competition, but still nothing quite like the Wonderbar.  Just my opinion…..hopefully shared by a few thousand others.

You will need to register with julib.com in order to vote, so please do so. There is no cost to register, of course.  julib.com is a free lifestyle and luxury e-mail publication that goes out to over 750,000 people.  AND you’ll have until midnight on Friday, April 16th to vote !

Thanks everyone!! 

p.s. Keep the questions and calls coming!  I’m learning a ton through all of the correspondence and conversations!

Dear Wonderbar,

“What a ripoff scheme you have going. I was shocked that I paid $40 for a sliver of soap. I have been using it everyday, and all I get is burning eyes. I would love to have my money back!” KW

Dear KW,

I am very sorry you are not satisfied with your purchase.  You are welcome to return the product and we will give you a full refund.  I do want to take this opportunity to clarify a few things.  The Wonderbar is not a bar of soap and if thought of that way, the size would be very deceiving and disappointing. It is made of clay and algae and lasts at least six weeks.  As an all-in-one product (cleanser, toner, exfoliate), it comes out to less than a dollar a day, which makes a lot of sense economically speaking.  Most beauty regimens are much more costly, as you probably know.   I am concerned that you are experiencing “burning” in your eyes.  It should not be used in the shower.  It should be applied before or after you shower in the morning and night, and left to permeate your skin for 3-5 minutes.  Then you should rinse off and apply a plain moisturizer.  If you lather too much and apply too close to your eyes, it might get into your eyes and sting.  If you are using any other products in conjunction with the Wonderbar that have anti-aging properties such as retinol or aha’s, it could irritate your skin and sting.  If you wouldn’t mind sharing with me how you have been using it, I would really appreciate it.  It is very good for us to hear people’s experiences and we welcome it.  The testimonials on the website are genuine. The overall acceptance of the product has been fantastic, but it has to be used correctly.  Please let me know if you get a minute.   We appreciate your business and would love to identify what exactly is causing the problem.  Sincerely, Wonderbar

no response……..flash-forward several weeks:

Dear Wonderbar,

I really love the wonderbar now! I guess I didn’t give it a chance before writing to you.  You are so right about the benefits using the wonderbar. (correctly, not using in shower)  I now see how it is not soap, but as a skin treatment! I have really changed my mind about how great this clay treatment really is! My skin is really looking great! People keep complementing me about how fresh my face looks. After wearing my makeup for more than 5 or 6 hours, people have asked me if I just put on makeup, which I have not!  Love , love the Wonderbar..Thanks so much for following up with me, and making sure I was satisfied with my purchase.   God Bless You!! KW

BEAUTY IS WELLNESS

“That’s right- this little grey bar with its minimalist brown packaging is my first natural beauty hero of 2010! Don’t you love when good things come in small packages?

In the few weeks that I’ve been trying out Wonderbar, I’ve seen changes in  my skin that support all of the product’s promised benefits: overall balance in oily/dry spots; smaller pores; soft, glowy skin and reduced redness and breakouts. Which leaves me wondering, what makes Wonderbar effective where other products are not?

Quite simply, the genius behind Wonderbar seems to be its pH level. The Wonderbar has a pH of around 5.65- a perfect level to maintain the natural acidity of our skin, which has a pH between 4 and 6. What does pH have to do with beautiful skin anyway? Regular bar soaps and cleansers (that commonly rate between 9 and 11 on the pH scale) are likely to make the skin more alkaline-  resulting in an environment suitable for acne-causing (p. acnes) bacteria. Maintaining the skin’s natural pH  strengthens its defenses against environmental stressors and keeps away dryness and irritation.

Wonderbar also boasts some notably wondrous ingredients, specifically Chlorey’nahre, an algae extract blend, and Heilmoor clay, a 3,000 year-old therapeutic clay from Austria that detoxifies and heals beyond the skin’s surface.

It’s important to note that Wonderbar is not a soap. It’s essentially a treatment that you apply for a few minutes after cleansing and removing makeup.”

About Jolene Hart

Jolene Hart is a freelance writer and natural beauty and health editor, and in 2010 will become a certified Holistic Health Counselor via NYC’s Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She has worked in fashion and beauty editorial at People and InStyle and currently contributes to publications like Natural Solutions, Healing Lifestyles and Spas, Coco Eco and Organic Beauty View. Jolene has long been fascinated by the link between health and beauty and is passionate about natural beauty and the influence that our daily choices have on our appearance.

I’m learning as I go, but did you know that we absorb environmental toxins through our skin and if you don’t draw them out, they’re absorbed into the bloodstream?  These free radicals not only age our skin, but mutate DNA so that it can’t be replicated properly, causing problems such as cancer, migraines, exhaustion, irritability, and more.

We can’t completely prevent it, obviously, because we have a lot of skin, so let’s just start with our face.  Toxins that we absorb from the environment, and even from various skin care products, can be so dangerous.  So it stands to reason that the Wonderbar could potentially reduce the amount of free radicals we contain in our bodies, greatly reducing our chances of significant problems.  What’s not to love about that??  It’s a no-brainer.

And…any product can claim to remove toxins through deep-cleansing….but don’t believe everything you hear.  The product needs to contain mostly natural ingredients, as these are the best and most healing for our skin. Also, a synergistic mixture of ingredients is important.  For example, Heilmoor clay is really effective at pulling out dirt from the skin, and when combined with quality moisturizing ingredients and one or two quality antioxidant ingredients, you have a good detoxifying product.  This is how these ingredients work in synergy: the clay absorbs oils and pulls out the toxins while the moisturizing ingredients protect the skin from the drying effects of the clay. Then the antioxidant ingredients absorb into the skin to fight the free radicals from the toxins left over.  In the case of the Wonderbar, though, all of these ingredients work even better because the added micro-algae has the ability to literally “heal” your skin deep down and the PH level of the bar is around 5.65, which is balanced.  The name Wonderbar is well-deserved…….getting the picture, yet?  I’m gonna pound you until you do…. (Has anyone else noticed my Texas accent coming through in my writing?  Please don’t let it disturb you, I write EXACTLY like I talk….)

SO, buy a Wonderbar, get the toxins out and enjoy the “healthy skin” look.  Foundations and powders are SO 2009.

I know, it’s really incredible and exciting…..but maybe not for everyone.  The nine “top-selling” skincare products on the Sephora website claim to each do one or more of the following things:

fade pigmentation, shrink pores, improve clarity, treat acne, control oil and blemishes, improve appearance of age-related skin issues, reduce stretch marks, restore elasticity, firm and tone skin, reduce the appearance of wrinkles, moisturize, conquer skin damage……

They might do some of these things, but NONE of them do it all at the same time.  Which means of course that you aren’t getting out the door without two, three or even four products!  That is actually fine for some, people do like products.  The problem comes in when they spend all of that time and money and don’t get the results they are expecting.  At least this is what I’m consistently told by our clients.

Also……on the Sephora website, they have a list of ten areas of concern for the face, which can each be clicked on to show multiple product solutions for each area of concern.  They are as follows:

Enlarged blackheads and pores, breakouts and acne, dryness, oiliness, fine lines and wrinkles, hyperpigmentation and uneven texture, loss of elasticity, redness/ rosacea and sun protection! 

Hmmmm, that’s all sounding a little familiar, and for good reason.  The Wonderbar addresses NINE out of ten of them- the tenth is a sunscreen and we just don’t do that- but a simple, effective one is easy to find.  SO, you can choose from HUNDREDS of products which may or may not address one or two concerns each, OR you can just buy a Wonderbar and a plain moisturizer/ sunscreen and be done.  

For now, let’s keep it between us that the Wonderbar is also a shampoo and scalp equalizer on top of everything else, we do NOT want to sound like we’re bragging!

	Sun Protection

with every purchase of a large bar, we will include a complimentary,

travel size Wonderbar!

February 11th- February 14th

Happy Valentine’s Day from WonderbarUSA!!

“love is all you need……..and one tiny Wonderbar”- anonymous

“cause I think we all know that beauty fades and what you’re left with at the end of the day is….how you’ve treated the people around you.  This post is dedicated to my sweet husband, who, incidentally, has strangely youthful, albeit beautiful skin, but more importantly, always acts kind.  (Is that a run-on?) Anyway, he has been incredibly helpful while I’ve worked on this Wonderbar thing.  Even when people were saying to me that this might not work, there would be my sweet husband with a big ‘ol smile on his face, saying “it’s going to be a huge success!”  Secretly, he probably didn’t always believe that, but he was always nice enough to say it.  This should tell you that his beauty is FAR deeper than his skin.  Just a really great guy!  And even though Mission Wonderbar is not quite complete, I know that I could not have done my part without him.  You see, launching a product in this country is much more than you might think.  In fact….it is hours and hours of dedication, days and late nights on the computer, month after month of unwavering focus, thousands of emails (four thousand to be exact), tons of disappointment, lots of trial and error, educating hundreds of clients, stalking beauty editors, blogging,  traveling, perseverance in the face of the nay-sayers, being away from my husband and kids and sometimes even acting a little bitchy (I know….SO hard to believe ) ….but he put up with all of that- and with the biggest freaking smile on his face the WHOLE TIME!

So, here’s to the best husband and father anyone could ask for!  I happen to know six people who would whole-heartedly agree…

(yes, he is the very proud father of six!)   

Happy Valentine’s Day, honey!!  I’ve got the babysitter lined up, so get busy and make a reservation!!!

(I prefer pizza, if it’s not too much trouble)