|
Well I am semi-recovered from surgeries, vacations, and looking for retailers to sell my soaps and I am just about ready to start making soap again. There is, I think, one more back surgery in my future but I am trying to ignore that and soldier on. You may want to check out my felt ornaments that I made while I was recouporating. They are on my "so crafty" page
0 Comments
Bet you thought I dropped off the face of the Earth. Well maybe a little. First there were the holiday shows, then relatives, oh yeah; then 2 back surgeries, yep two. I am also negotiating for a both at a local flea market and still working on getting my store up and running which turns out to be more complicated than at first thought.
Trade shows always seem like a good idea in theory; and o.k., I had no idea which of my soaps would be the best sellers ( spoiler alert- Budha soap) so I over packed and a challenge to fit into my space allotment but I did walk away with money in my pocket and a better sense of my market segment. My Saturday show got rained out, bummer. I thought my market was wanna be hippies and allergy sufferers etc. Nope my market was definitely "tweeners". Surprise, 12 year old girls are super knowledgeable about natural bathing products. Who knew? They are also really good at talking their parents into buying handmade soaps. I discovered that people in general are attracted to handmade details in soap like carving or embeds or hand painted details but they don't want to pay any more money than for the plain soaps. Yeah right. I am at a loss why I had to explain that concept to people. Hand carved soap that I had to buy carving tools and then spend about 30 mins. with each bar, not to mention drying the apples for the embellishment should cost as much as the pine tar soap I made in a milk carton? I like talking to customers, always have. Selling comes natural to me and I love to make my customers feel at home but is a trade show worth all the work. Probably not. When I did scrapbook trade shows I usually made good coin but not as much as if I had a special event in the store, however I always had a rush of new customers from the exposure that more than made up for the work. With this show I made some connections as well. I am hoping to merchandise my soaps in other trade show booths so I don't have to break my back (again) loading merchandise and leave that up to the wonderful people that do shows every weekend, crazy fools. Why is it so many of us feel the need to make the same childhood holiday menu we remember. In recent years I have made new dishes more suited to my particular health needs but I still dream fondly of those childhood dishes.
My mother made the same meal my entire life and heaven help the person who would try to alter that menu at my daughters house.- Mom's menu- My menu- Daughter's menu- turkey and oyster stuffing turkey turkey & stuffing apricot and sweet potato gratin cornbread dressing cornbread dressing purple hull peas apricot & sweet potato gratin apricot % sweet potato gratin rutabegas purple hull peas purple hull peas salad salad salad black olives black olives apple pie (her specialty) mince meat pie pumpkin pie custards pumpkin pie pumpkin pie orange & grapefruit slices green bean casserole orange & grapefruit slices angel biscuits angel biscuits angel biscuits roasted veggies orange & grapefruit slices mashed potatoes & gravy mashed potatoes au jus mashed potatoes & gravy asparagus some new veggie dish mac & cheese So this year Maggie is having a Thanksgiving party so the menu may vary but she will still insist upon her core recipes and she can't find any purple hulls ( and no black eyed peas are not the same). Mom doesn't make Thanksgiving anymore but I still have her whip up a thing or two. I like to try a few new dishes every year but I will still make my cornbread dressing and we have figured out how to make the sweet potatoes and pies without sugar. Tim loves the angel biscuits so he will get those and Mom and I love our roasted veggies. I think Thanksgiving should be called Traditional Day and I am positive that you feel the same way. Yep you never know what will come out of my phone calls to and from my daughter. I have often thought I should write a book but then no one would probably comprehend most of what we shorthand to each other. Maggie called me while at the park walking her pet pig Truffles and suddenly she very calmly said the pig ate my purse. Evidently sitting her purse down on the ground with a tangerine in it was a bad idea. Truffles had ripped off the handles and eaten the zipper before she got it away. You think she would have been screaming but owning a pig is a lesson in acceptance. Blaming the pig will accomplish nothing, better to blame oneself. Pigs are really smart and easily trained but pigs are more stubborn than smart so Maggie copes. Now her cat needs sedation because she hates her new food bowl. Cats are also stubborn. Better to lick all the hair off your stomach than accept a new eating utensil. Which brings me to why Maggie called. She needed her Mom to tell her it is not her fault. She is an excellent pet parent,(she took very good care of our dogs over the years). Dogs are not nearly as stubborn as pigs and cats I pointed out. Maybe it is just her choice of pets, not her ability to care for them. I mean, she built a ramp so her pig could get up and down the stairs and bought a special bowl so her cat would eat slower and not hack up her food. This is why I am a dog fan. Maggie never learns, she has had snakes, lizards, hamsters, and fish- all with their unique issues. Fortunately for me I can give advice from a distance. Well it is hard to hate a pig with Elizabeth Taylor eyes and a turned up nose and a premature cat with a big butt and hypnotizing stare.   It would be nice just to play with soap batter all day long but at some point business stuff will catch up to you. Now that holiday craft fairs are getting into gear I have to make labels, set up booths, package and price my soaps. This is not my favorite thing to do, nor I imagine it is no soapers favorite thing but work I will!
I am also setting up my first online store; only slightly less tedious but a little more creativity involved. I am struggling finding a balance between casual sales and full blown retail. I am attempting a "sell it when you got it" mentality. Finding that balance is difficult but I am determined. Pacing yourself in the soap world can be difficult but I plan on having the creativity part be more important than the business side. That isn't to say I wouldn't like to make some money. Money is good, I like money. Two things that have changed my thought process; silicone molds and leftovers in the fridge.
1. silicone is amazing when it comes to modern soaping. Nothing better! The cost of silicone molds is another thing altogether. There are basically 3 categories of silicone molds: baking, chocolate making, and finally soap making. Anything that is labeled as soap making will usually cost the most. Why? beats me. I usually find the cheapest cupcake molds or discount baking sets. When making embeds I find cheap chocolate molds the least expensive. Honestly though the cutest most awesome molds are always soap molds and they will get me eventually. I am sort of ashamed to say I have a large hamper full of molds. I will be 90 years old before I make my money back from all this rubbery goodness. Well you can't put a price on happiness. Mine is about $8.00 a bar. (On a side note cheaper doesn't translate to not as good, sometimes I find cheap is even better. Cheap molds tend to be thinner and easier to release.) 2.Recycling takes on new meaning when your a soaper. No longer do soggy cucumbers and mushy fruit go into the compost pile. We have an entire shelf of baby food which wouldn't seem strange if we had a baby. Flat soda and beer never sees the sink drain and empty milk cartons bypass the recycling bin completely. My mom saves me her Pringles cans,(haloed by soap makers). Tim now wonders why the half & half disappears so quickly and why the used coffee grounds are in a cup next to the coffee maker. I now have 1 lb. sacks of salt and have started buying sugar again ( I'm a diabetic). I even have taken to pulling Spanish moss out of our trees and stealing water and sand from the beach. Yes I'm a soapaholic and I have a problem. So now I have a large portion of my freezer dedicated to frozen "this and thats", for my soaps. I'd like to think I am doing my part to reduce landfill, at least that is what I tell myself... I just wanted to try my hand at soap making cause I was bored. It seemed like a good way to pass some time and maybe make some gifts for relatives. I think my favorite thing is hunting down recipes. I am truly recipe obsessed. I see no reason to make my own recipes since there are so many wonderful recipes on the web and in books but I do a lot of free styling when I am happy with a basic recipe. Yes I agree that people should get credit for recipes on line; but really are there any original ideas? Not sure- There are complicated and easy recipes; old fashioned and modern recipes; sophisticated and rustic recipes but original, hard to say. Some soapers have very distinctive styles, and yes, no one should rip them off blatantly and bad, bad when someone steels a photo, very bad. There are some styles that will just pop up all over the place spontaneously so soapers need to be realistic. no one ever steels from me cause I rarely make the same soap twice. That is just to boring for me and not why I started soaping.
Some 5 months and some 900 bars of soap later my husband wakes up with the scent of lavender wafting out from under the bed. Who am I kidding the soap has now filled up our book cases and boxes stacked to the ceiling. We are down to one bathroom since the other one has drying racks in the shower and a work table over the toilet and the laundry room has soap displays piled in the only available space. Long story short, I have now started selling soap. It was either start selling soap or ask my husband to move out 'cause I need the space. His half of the walk in closet would be perfect. I tell you all this not because I am discouraging anyone from making soap but if you are the creative type think twice. If you are artistic, the skies the limit on your ideas; if you are a baker then soaping is just like baking except for the lye; if you are the anal retentive type then the exacting formulations will appeal to you. If any of you get into soap making then be prepared to have soap making take over your life. If however you are the more contained type of individual that would like to make a healthy product for your family and soaping is no more important than dusting or laundry then this is yet another skill you can add to your knowledge pool and boy was soaping made for you. |
Soaperwoman
|
RSS Feed
