Pics and Notes

Hello! Okay, so I have been churning out ... nothing. For the past month and a half I have been looking at restructuring my business and focusing on what I really love doing, which is fragrance crafting. I did promise pics so here you go.

This is my Bloody Mary, Not So Bloody Mary and now named Orange You Glad? soap. I had envisioned a blood red base with a middle to light green for the celery look. Yeah, didn't happen. I was warned that tomato juice will turn the soap brown so I added some red oxide to hopefully achieve my sought after red. Nope! I forgot that orange essential oil turns anything Orange, so when you have Sweet Orange and Blood Orange as part of your mix and then add Lemon (slightly yellow) and Lemongrass E.O.s you get a bright orange color.

Now adding to the mystery is why my Green didn't come out for the celery portion. Don't know. I used Fresh Bamboo F. O. and added Lime color to the M&P. It came out turquoise. I will leave this mystery for Scooby and the Gang to figure out. What I do know is that is smells wonderful, has a nice lather and a neighbor is swearing that it is clearing up her bad skin. Tomato juice is acidic so that could be partially why her skin is beginning to clear and tone is evening out.. Add to that all of the citrus e. o.s and you have a strong astringent and bleaching agent. I am not going to delve too deeply into this one because it is selling well, hasn't turned nor has it broken anyone out. I am happy.

This is my revamped design for my Coffee Shoppe: Chocolate Almond Biscotti soap. The other design had people wanting to bite the bar of soap. Can't have that! So I decided to mix the Chocolate and Almond Biscotti F. O.s together rather than layering them.

I chose to take the photos in the early morning with the shadows from the blinds because I love the concept of a shadowy pic of a coffee soap. This is still my favorite soap, hands down.

I am still learning how to take attractive pics of my soaps. Coffee beans seemed to be a no-brainer for this pic.

This past Christmas season my Coffee Shoppe: Chocolate Almond Biscotti was my best seller for my soaps. Kentish Rain for Men was my best selling for shower gels.

Last month I sent 7 fellow soapers some of my personal blends for them to test out for me. What I wanted to know was: how they liked the fragrances overall, which one worked best in which medium (soap, lotion etc.) and which they thought would be a best seller for them. Each one received 2 fragrances. Most got the same ones. Overwhelmingly the Patchouli based Midnight Wishes was the favorite. That surprised me. See, I first made it last year around this time and I didn't like it at all. Then, approaching Autumn, I decided to clear my shelves of some of my massage oils and body oils and rediscovered the fragrance. 6 months later the oils melded and turned into a delicate heady perfume. I fell in love.

Unfortunately, it doesn't sell well here in Columbia, SC. So I sent that one along with 2 others to soapers in the Southeast region to see how they liked them. I even had 2 takers in Texas. Two fellow soapers approached me about selling some of my fragrances. My thoughts are this, just because it is not doing well for me doesn't mean that it won't do well for someone else. So, over the next 2 weeks I will be pouring over all of my retired (sold for about 4 years but am now tired of smelling) fragrances and some that just don't sell well for me. These will be up for grabs soon. I will post which fragrances I want to get rid of soon. Thanks for reading and I will have more to show soon.