19 posts tagged “soapy hollow”

So, I've really been neglecting my blogs of late.  Much reality is leaking into my time. ;)  On the plus side, my microbes have arrived.  And chests, and ducky pirates, and puzzles, and new oils and flavors for making massage oils and edible body glitter....and all kinds of good stuff for making the new gift baskets.  Hooray!

I'm still waiting for the giant organza bags that everything goes in, but when they arrive, I'll start putting stuff together for pictures.  

So; here's the contents of new baskets I'll be introducing (I think.  Feel free to suggest more or other stuff):

Get Well Soon: Cold Microbe, Spicy Mint Soap, Good Morning Sunshine soap, Menthol Aroma Beads,  antibacterial lotion in Ring around the Rosie, selection of Stash brand teas.  

Bag of Black Death: (Perfect for people who are exposed to germ carriers...like teachers.)  Black Death Microbe, Two Gargoyle soaps in Ring Around the Rosie, antibacterial lotion in Ring around the Rosie, and a bottle of RatR essential oil blend.

Say Goodnight Gracie:   Sleeping Sickness microbe, Sachet of Lavender Buds, Lavender soaps, and a bottle of Lullaby Essential oil blend.

Brainiac: Brain cell microbe (how adorable is that?), Sudoko rubix cube , wooden pocket puzzle, Wake Up Soap and a bottle of Energize essential oil.  

Come Together: Mono Microbe, Aphrodisiac essential oil blend in Bath salts (for a nice soak together), fractionated coconut oil for massage, edible body glitter for decorations, and a  refreshing scrub to get it all off afters.

Bath Booty (aaaar!):  Black Pirate chest filled with Pirate Bay golden skull and crossbones soap and Pirate Duckie Guardians.  It's a manly gift! Aaar!

Pick Your Loot Pick a microbe, pick some other stuff, get it all wrapped up and add a gift card.  

I may also just carry the microbes by themselves on the site.  I really wanted to figure out something to do with the flesh eating microbe and the ebola microbe...but darned if I could figure out a basket for them.  I may just carry them by themselves.  They are the cute.  

I'm still figuring out pricing, but I think the baskets will range from around $20 to around $50.  I think they're going to be super groovy, and hopefully they'll be a big hit, and I can think of new and interesting ways to add more microbes and baskets to the site.

Forbidden Fruit is back in stock!  It's cured, trimmed and waiting to be adored.  Whoo!  (Pomegranate, apple and spices...yum!)

Spicy Mint is also restocked.  Yay.  Just in time for summer allergy season. ;)

Today I'm making Spiced Orange Tea, and if I have time, Fire and Ice.  But, considering that I'm wrangling repair guys for my stupid Maytag Neptune....gods what a waste of money that thing was...and due at a three year old's birthday party with Boy and toys...Fire and Ice may not make it into production until tomorrow.  Which is ok, that one is really more of a winter product anyway.  It never seems to sell well in the summer, and I really could use the shelf space for other stuff.  I'm running out of room to stock products as I keep adding to the line. 

Which reminds me, I need to go put the body butters on hiatus until Fall.  The temps here are starting to climb towards 100 degrees, and the butters will just melt into a gooey mess if I try to ship them.  Nobody wants a box of goo.  Well...almost nobody. Hee.

I've also gotten a ton of evaluation ingredients in from P&G, Dow, and Lambent, so gods and time willing, I'm going to try and perfect my liquid soap and I've been asked to help formulate a new mango butter moisturizer, so I'm pretty excited to go play with those.  It'd be really cool to have one of my formulations listed in the big chemistry database of cosmetic products, but in order to do that, I have to be able to replicate the recipe over and over, and I have to have measurements that are so precise that I'm a little worried my equipment isn't quite accurate enough...but I'm going to give it the old Girl Scout try.

I've figured out how to do discounts and coupons in my database, I think.  So, stay tuned for upcoming specials and seasonal sales.  Yay!  The only thing better than Soapy Hollow soap, is Soapy Hollow soap on sale. ;) 

Sorry I haven't been commenting much on f-blogs.  I'm reading most everything, but I'm doing it in spurts. . I pulled Boy out of preschool for the summer.  One, because I was really unhappy with where he was, and two, because kids deserve to have a summer break, even if it does cut into soapmaking and writing time. :)  So, we're going to the city pool every morning for his swimming lessons, then 3 or 4 times a week we go to our neighborhood pool, and once a week we have a field trip to a museum or a ranch or the Farmer's Market, or whatever.  I'm not neglecting his academics though.  Every day we have a new letter of the day, and he thinks up words that start with, or include, that letter, and I write the words in highlighter pen, and he practices his handwriting.  He's gotten so much better in just a couple of weeks of doing that.  Then, we either try to write a story with those words, or I try to find a mythology story that has some of those words.  About 3x a week, we break out the paints and he paints pictures of the stories or the words.  Yesterday, we read the Native American myth of how Spiderwoman sang the world into being, and he painted a really cool picture, then spent the rest of the day making up songs and telling me what he was creating with his song.  He's such a great kid. 

Plus all the normal day to day activities that all of us share; keeping the chaos at bay and feeding the masses that congregate at our tables.  But even when I'm too brain dead to comment, I am trying to keep  abreast.  So many of my friends do such amazing things that I'm often at a loss to say anything other than "Wow!"  Which hardly seems like an intelligent contribution. :)

Some one on my friends list must be, or must know, some marketing gurus. Also packaging designers would rock.

Soapy Hollow is sort of at the cusp point where I need to either make the commitment to growing it into a full fledged manufacturing company, or I need to scale it way back before my house is subsumed under a mountain of bubbles.

In discussions with major retailers like Sephora, I need provable larger manufacturing capacity. They love the products, but I can't meet initial order minimums. They also want "more professional" packaging. The style editors at a couple of publications I've spoken with also want better packaging/labeling before they'll consider doing write-ups on the company or the products.

Manufacturing capacity I know how to do, I know where to get the space, and with a little help from the SBA small business clinic, I can write a business plan that I think will interest some venture capital to help make that happen.

But packaging? I've got no idea where to go with that. I don't know the industry, I don't really know all the various options, I don't have the design skills, I'm just sort of out of my league there. And marketing? To say that I don't understand it would be a classic understatement.

So, who's got recommendations for finding/hiring/qualifying marketing people, packaging people, and perhaps business coach people?

Today I made a 7 pound batch scented with the essential oils of Lavender, Rose Geranium, and Ylang Ylang.  Yum!  The Rose Geranium was the perfect addition to the Lav/Ylang I'd been making.  This scent is much more complex.  It's like taking a deep breath in a damp garden.  Yum. 

Quite pleased with this new blend. 

Man, Boy, and I spent yesterday with Thomas the Train engine.  It was pretty cool.  The antique train museum refitted some marvelous old passenger cars so everyone could ride on the train.  They had an actual steam engine kitted out like Thomas.  The Boy couldn't have been more excited.  Some quick pics:

I have more, but this computer doesn't have photoshop installed, and trying to work with batches of photos without photoshop is just an exercise in futility and aggravation.  

There were people wandering around in character suits, like Bob the Builder and Sir Tophamhat, which was all fine and well, except for the fact that as we were waiting for the train, we realized that they'd left the back of the changing area open to the train loading area, so Boy saw the empty Bob the Builder suit, with a head on the ground.  He was a tad concerned at first, but then the train pulled in and he forgot about it.  

All in all, it was a fairly fun, albeit crazy expensive, day.  More pictures after I find my PS CD. :)

Also, the new Soapy Hollow is now live.  Hooray!

So, they took the vast majority of cast type stuff off me today.  I'm still supposed to wear the funky walking boot if I'm going to spend much time on my feet, but I'm allowed 1 hour a day of tennis shoes.  Hooray!  (I know...who knew you could be excited about tennis shoes?)

So, this weekend, we're going to get a bunch of dirt and stuff, because next weekend, Paul of The Esoteric Science Resource Center has volunteered to come help us put in our new veggie gardens, and move the Killer Attack Rose of Evil Doom.  Seriously, that rose lives on human blood, so I've decided to put it out by the fence where idiots who climb around our fence to get to Boy's fishing spot will now have to contend with  KARED as well as the weeping willows.  (There's two perfectly good parks where they can fish, they don't need to climb into my yard where *I'm* liable if they fall in and drown.)

So, veggie garden...not sure what I'm going to plant this year.  The melons did incredibly well last year, so we're going to do those again.  The squash and zucchini did well at first, but the drought, and bad planning on location killed them before they really gave much fruit.  I also think I may plant Loofas.  They're easy to grow, which will make Boy happy, and I'm sure my friends and Soapy Hollow customers would love to have freshly harvested loofas.

I've never had much luck with tomatoes, usually the birds get them all, but I may try again.  I think it's too hot here for carrots, so I may do green beans and corn.  Corn will make the neighborhood association insane...which, ya know, is an added bonus.  Also, sunflowers.  Not so much as a crop, but as goodies for the songbirds.  Any other suggestions for a backyard that gets insane amounts of full sun for 14 hours a day?  

Soap stuff:  I can finally start making soap again, now that I'm off crutches.  Hooray!  Just in time too, I'm running out of some stuff.  The new website is almost finished, but I broke the checkout cart, and I can't really fix it until I go live, because it's an SSL authentication issue, and I can't set the certificate to the sandbox without buying an additional cert, and I don't want to do that.  So...I know the cart worked before I set up the security...I'll just have to pray that it still works *with* the security, I guess.  (And go live in the middle of the night, so I can fix any broken stuff before the next day.)  

I still need product pictures.  I am the suck at product pictures.  And you would be astounded, astounded, at what real photographers get paid.  I'm not saying they're not worth it...they are...but a product shoot would cost me double what the company made (gross sales, not even profit) last year...so, that's out.  I'm hoping that the sun will come out tomorrow so I can get some good natural light, and I'm going to try again.  I just don't seem to have any flair for "staging", ya know?  

Time to snuggle with Boy and read "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", then I think adult snuggle time may be in the plans.  Yay for recovery!  Whoo!

So, I've changed hosting companies, have the database connections set, have the core template concept defined, and have started entering data into SQL. 

Theoretically, I should have it all done in a couple of weeks.  Keyword there, theoretically. That said, if and when I get it all ready to roll, I'll finally be ready to offer the "make your own soap" kits and the essential oil line, so Whoo!

But, I'm going to need some beta testers.  If you're interested in banging on the sandbox site and trying to break it, I'd be most appreciative, and will send you a groovy bar of soap.  Just send me a vox message indicating your interest, and when it's time, I'll give you the url, and password. :)

Sandalwood vanilla poured.  The sandalwood from Australia isn't quite as rich as the sandalwood from India, but they're also not harvesting ancient trees and creating a culture of murder and crime...so I can live with it.  Once the vanilla bourbon is added, I think the bars smell identical.  I'll have to wait until they finish curing, as scents tend to change as the soap cures, but thus far, I'm pretty pleased.  If it doesn't work, then I'll probably investigate using a fragrance oil instead.  I just can't, in good conscience use non-sustainable harvest methodologies for one of the most valuable ayurvedic healing trees in the world. 

I made the batch big enough that I had extra to pour in my new silicon logo molds, and those look *so* very cool.  Hooray!

Man, that took longer than expected.  Counting remaining product was a breeze, and counting packaging was really simple, but counting the essential oils...wow, that was harder than expected.  I finally had to calculate the weight of the bottles they were in, and weigh each one to get an accurate measure of what I had.  (With the exception of still sealed 5kg bottles...that was pretty easy.  Anyone need some orange oil?  I've got tons.)

Found a couple of cases where I thought I was out of something, so I ordered significant quantities, based on thinking that I used twice as much as I did, only to find the original bottle when I got to the back of the EO cabinets.  But it's all good, I think I may just plan on having some spring sales. 

So, inventory done.  Things that I'm running low on have been ordered.  Soap batch lists have been prioritized, and after I go pick up more essential oils at the warehouse tomorrow, soapmaking will begin anew.  I've not made soap in almost a month...I'm jonesing to get back to my pots. ;) 

So tomorrow I think I'll be making Sandalwood Vanilla with the new sandalwood I'm picking up.  Gods I hope it's good.  I thought I was going to have to eliminate sandalwood from my recipes, because the harvesting methods and the industry around creating it are horrific in India.  But I've found an Australian supplier that does renewable growing and harvesting methods, so I'm pretty excited to try it.  Real sandalwood is so much better than any synthetic I've tested...I just hope the Australian sandalwood is as good.

I was going to get super ambitious and try to get two or three batches done tomorrow, but I think I'll take my time and get back into the swing first.  Also, I have no idea how long it will take me to get out of the warehouse, and I have to fit the batch in between when I get back from there, and before I have to go get Boy. 

In other news, I'm still trying to come up with a redesign for Soapy Hollow.  I am, apparently, inspiration-less.  I got nada, nothing, bupkiss.  I do know that I'm going to rewrite all the text.  It's silly for me to memetically load the site to appear as though it's a big ol' business, when in fact, it's an artisan shop that creates whatever I feel like creating at the time.  I mean, obviously, I'm not going to sell off the big molds and quit taking business to business orders, but I also need to stop trying to compete with companies that have a much bigger budget and purchasing power than I do.  I can't compete on price with the Walmarts of the soap business, like Aveda....which used to be such a great company before they got bought out...so I'm just not going to try for that business level any more.  I'm happier dealing with individuals, and trying to make a product that means something to them, than I am creating thousands of bars for companies that rebrand what I do and sell it for three times what I sell them for.  It's silly for me to work that hard for  pennies, so I'm not going to do it anymore. 

But now, I'm off to catch up with everyone's journal, if I can.  Be sure to ping me if there's something you want me to know, and you think I might miss it. :)

Hugs to everyone!

I realized I was running out of some stuff and was getting ready to batch a bunch, then realized that it won't finish curing before the final drop date for getting stuff to people for Christmas.  I'm still going to make them, but I can't believe we're that close to the end of the year.  Spooky!

So, on the batch list:  Sandalwood Vanilla - an amazing blend of EOs, that create the darkest soap you've ever seen.  It's almost black when it's done curing.  Vanilla is the culprit there.  Real vanilla is a deep, dark brown and the more it's exposed to air, the darker it gets.  I think it's gorgeous, but many people are surprised at how dark the soap is. I  need more, someone cleaned me out of those, I think I only have 2  or 3 bars left.  Eeep!

Fire and Ice:  Mints and Cinnamon.  Such a pretty soap, red and white.  :)

Got the Spicy Mint done, and it's almost completely cured, thank goodness.  It's the cold and flu season, and that soap is so great in the shower when you feel icky.  I'm not sure I could make it through winter without a stock of that soap near to hand. ;)

Deadlines:  If anyone is considering getting soaps as stocking stuffers, you'll want to get your order in before the 20th for any traditional soaps or other products that are in stock, and by the 15th for anything that needs to be made, like glycerins, lotions, or salts.  I'm taking the bath bombs off the product list for now.  I'll figure out how I'm going to manage that product and put it back up after the first of the year, but I don't have time to make them between now and the end of shipping schedules. 

Also, at the first of the year, I'll have the pomegranate soap ready (assuming I can't get it on the site before then), as well as some sales and discounts on any of the Fall/Seasonal soaps that may be left.  (Mmmmm, a sale at Soapy Hollow...who could resist? Hee.)