She Was One of a Kind

Our good friend Helen Morita died on March 17. She was 94. After her obituary appeared in the Honolulu Star Bulletin (the Star Bulletin lets you leave comments; the Advertiser has a ridiculous "guestbook")a former "cabbie" wrote this post:
Mrs. Morita was one of those truly great people that the general public never gets to know and apppreciate. She was a living part of an older Honolulu that fewer and fewer of our neighbors remember. Back then taxi drivers (especially at Charley's) were not immigrants reaching for a dream, they were local folks who knew the town (and people!) "Mango Tree / Mailbox." This haole girl from da east coast cherishes my days as a Charley's driver with great pride. In a very real sense it provided a better education about Our Town than the four years at UH Manoa that the taxi helped to finance. Mrs. Morita, or G-1 as EVERYONE at Charley's called her was not what you might call an "aloha personality" on the surface. She was busy and she accomplished a lot every day. She didn't have patience for sentiment - but she did give a Haole girl, new in town, a chance to work. I will always be greatful for that first REAL job in Honolulu. Years later when I was working at a local foundation, I dropped into the Charley's office (the "New" one on Ala Moana) to thank G-1 for the "leg up" she gave a malihini. You might have thought she'd seen me the day before: She didn't have time to talk story. But that's OK. I think she knew that I was genuinely fond of her and grateful. My grandfather, dead for decades, was a taxi driver. For years after he died we looked under every cab dome for his face out of habit. I have long been in the habit of asking Charley's drivers at red lights or convenience stops: "Hows G-1 doing." They'd smile everytime and essentially say that she would live forever. And I will always glance into Like Like diner any morning I pass it at 5 a.m. so see if my boss is in there having miso soup for breakfast. At least in my heart, she will be. Mahalo Boss! Rest in Peace (at last) "April" 787 -- Cloudia Charters

Aloha Mrs. Morita! Everyone will miss you.

We Love You Soliah "Charlie" Parker!

This Easter morning, without any of my grandchildren around, and children spread all over the place, I have been spending some time thinking about what other people are doing. The news is filled with Dick Cheney's Easter visit to Jerusalem, Obama's family on vacation and Hillary enjoying time with her family.

We have closed our store today, and also the kiosk at Ala Moana, so all of our employees can spend the days with their families and friends. I hope they are having fun.

Most of all I hope that this Easter season brings a new peace around the world and that people everywhere start to realize that we are all in this together. Bucky Fullers metaphor of being on a ship and then shooting holes in to the side of it was/is a real good one.

We especially send our love to everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan, everyone who is away from where they want to be ... Aloha no e au especially to Soliah "Charlie" Parker, father of Jayden and Donovan, husband of Heather, son of Randy and Zita, brother of Everett and Wilder, nephew to Dave and Brook and so much more -- we love you and can't wait until you get home!

Tub Surfing

Lanikai Bath and Body has all of the great stuff you need to tub surf. Maybe you won't get out on the ocean like our Lanikai girl, but you can set yourself up in luxury.

All you need is a MEBath "ice cream" scoop. It's a 6 ounce blast of relaxation and indulgence -- and Oprah favorite that will make any bath tub a dream-like spa.

Choose a scrub or soap in your favorite scent-- all natural, of course -- and soak until your heart's content.

Dry off with one of our microfiber towels -- wrap your hair in a microfiber head wrap -- and treat yourself all over to a lovely lotion or beautiful body butter.

Everything you want -- life's necessary luxuries -- check it out at Lanikai Bath and Body!

Missing Hawaii? Bring it home!

Even if you aren't visiting you can bring Hawaii home. If what you need is a virtual vacation, go to lanikaibathandbody.com and treat yurself to the scents of Hawaii -- ours are true to the real thing, and our collections of luxurious bath and body products are full of the good stuff from Hawaii ... macadamia and kukui nut oils, aloe vera, noni.

For our body butters, add shea butter to the mix.

For scrubs, Maui sugar or Hawaiian sea salt.

Our shampoos leave your hair shiny and soft.

And our body washes feel like a tropical rain.

Bottle Your Own

Everyone who is anyone knows that Hawaii has the best tap water in the world. All Hawaiian Tap water “taps into” the great Hawaiian aquifer. Filtered by ancient volcanoes, it has all of the qualities of Hawaiian Spring water and more.

Hawaiian Tap is more than just the convenience of carrying your water from place to place. Hawaiian Tap shows you've committed to support and help preserve Hawaii’s environment simply by drinking the best tap water in the world. Bottling our own Hawaiian Tap water is a pledge to stop buying plastic containers of bottled water and enjoy the pure and fresh water of our island home.

Did you know that each day an estimated 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away? And it takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce plastic water bottles for Americans every year. Eliminating those bottles would be like taking 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Just because ours is a small state doesn’t mean the problem is any better here. We have warm weather year round, and millions of tourists who buy and drink, and throw away millions of plastic water bottles.

It's ironic that Hawaii’s number one export is bottled water – primarily deep ocean seawater from Kona on the Big Island. Bottling and shipping water is the least efficient method of water delivery ever invented. The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes.

P.S. Soon you'll be able to buy your own Hawaiian Tap water bottle online and at Lanikai Bath and Body in Kailua. After that, t-shirts. Let us know if you're interested and we'll save one for you: info@lanikaibathandbody.com

Hawaii is Hot

Especially at Kilauea -- affectionately known as the "drive by volcano" because of the many years since 1980 that you could easily see an eruption from your car. Off and on during that time, Kilauea has flowed across the roads, limiting and even cutting off the drive by potential.

At this particular time, it is flowing again through a vent into the ocean --- making its way from Pu'u'o'o through a lava tube. Viewing has been variously good and bad, with the folks at Volcanoes National Park doing everything they can to make it possible for us to view nature's heat.

Coincidentally, it IS hot in Hawaii -- beautiful, sunny Hawaiian days with the sun baking down -- and it is before the middle of March.

Fire is part of our aromatherapy collection -- Fire is Energizing! Not unlike our Kilauea, it is a synergistic combination(of orange, ginger, clove and cinnamon essential oils) thats create a stimulating and revitalizing effect on the body and the mind.

P.S. Check out the volcano update from Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/

As Desperate As Ever...

For entertainment that is ... not us .. but tout Honolulu, attending a department store opening! Yes, that's right ... all three floors of the new Nordstrom were awash in high Honolulu society -- for all we know, people flew in from other islands for the event of the 21st Century (as opposed to the event of the 20th Century, the opening of Neiman Marcus.

So we did the only thing that we could do for a department store opening! We arrived and departed in true department store style. Thanks to Dale Evans and Charley's Taxi for the absolutely best part of the evening!

We're Working on It!

You saw the vision --- mokuluas + kiosk -- now you can see the real thing
in its second day -- an infant Lanikai Bath and Body, really, a tropical
island set to grow -- an outpost of the beautiful store in Kailua.

And there's Cheri, one of our favorite nieces and original employees --
charming and beautiful as ever!

Not Your Usual Kiosk

Our second day as a "kiosk" at Ala Moana Center and it is clear that everything we thought about how people react to "kiosks" is really true. O say it's not true. But it is! If it looks like a duck ...

That being said we are getting a lot of people who are a) from Kailua and recognize the "kiosk" as Lanikai Bath and Body immediately or b) people who remember reading about it in the paper and recognize it from pictures or c) people who have been intending to visit the store in Kailua but just "never got over the mountain." We
need to get the word out that we are not the usual kiosk, but a small, en plein aire outpost -- a tropical island, as it were, in the middle of concrete giant mall ---and that we offer the most incredible, true-to-Hawaii collections of bath and body available. 5 stars on Yahoo! shopping all the time.

We will be shifting shape over the next few weeks so that we can communicate more thoroughly who we are and how we're different. To all of those people who have refused our offer of a free sample --- big mistake! The lotions we're giving away in 1 ounce bottles are a perfect purse-sized, hand-loving, oooh-aaah-aaah scented treasure.

Lanikai Bath and Body: Now at Ala Moana Center, in Kailua, online and hopefully in your purse, bathroom, kitchen and bedroom. We love our customers...Mahalo for loving us back!

Ala Moana Hired MC Escher for its New Addition

The "kiosk" is finally open at Ala Moana Center. If anyone on the mainland is reading this and you come to Hawaii, you can now buy our amazing beautiful stuff on both sides of the island of Oahu, as well as online.

We opened today for our first day of business after a hellish week trying to get the "kiosk" organized and open. In the first place, the firm 3D Creative which is from Atlanta had done for General Growth properties a rendition of our store which involves a Nantucket dollhouse preserved for no apparent reason inside japanese tea house. As one of our friends said, to some people one seacoast is the same as another.

After a mini battle royale and the hard work of the very nice Erlinda Gabriel, we were allowed to dump the dollhouse in favor of a pretty beautiful glass and glass block set up which is sufficiently reminiscent of our store that several people commented on and recognized it. Stil, lacking any supportive publicity from the landlord, a lot of people didn't know that we are the famous and fabulous Lanikai Bath and Body (and 3 years old at that!).

Anyway, there will be more to come about our adventures in the world of gigantor retail, but for now, suffice to say that Lanikai Bath and Body is alive and well on the new third floor off of Nordstrom's women's section and is near Chico's, Ann Taylor and Williams Sonoma.

And in order to fit all of this new development in, Ala Moana is more a product of MC Escher than ever. It is all stairs, long and short stairs, escalators going up and down, small corridors with no way out...

Once again, please spread the word of our arrival on the Honolulu side of the Pali and do come and visit. Brave the new world of Ala Moana cum Escher and ride the escalators in the sky