Actually, what I want to write about is a new shaving soap for men (and women) that I finished last week. There aren’t many men who use razors to shave with anymore, and probably even fewer who use shaving soap with their razors. However, I have a very good customer who does. I’d like to tell you a little about him because, well, because he likes Anna’s EsSCENTials Bodycare products so much.

This man (we’ll call him Chris since I have not asked his permission to mention him on this blog) is an interesting guy—well-educated, friendly, intelligent, and in his profession he has traveled widely throughout the world. Chris and his wife appeared at my soap table several years ago with an interesting story. They had bought my soaps several times, although I hadn’t formally met them. But what they told me made me sit up and take notice. Chris said that in his travels, he tends to look for high-quality local soaps and likes to test them out. (There are people out there like us, honest!) He said that he had been using my soaps for some time, and he wanted me to know that although he has tried soaps from all over the world, he felt that few compared and none were better than mine.

Well, that meant a lot. Over the years I’ve determined not to make the compromises (lower quality oils and ingredients) that many soapmakers make and which might bring in more profits, but this is something most of my customers do not consciously know. And I’m not pointing fingers at other soapmakers…there is a lot of competition and costs keep going up. But I’ve resisted, and so when someone who has the experience to tell the difference makes a statement like that, it makes all those decisions worthwhile!

A New Manly Man Soap
In the past, I occasionally made round soaps that would fit into shaving cups, but there is not a big market for them, so I had run out. Chris said he is using my hemp soap bar as a shaving soap, but of course it does not fit into the shaving cup. However, he said, it is superior to any other shaving soap he’s tried so he makes do.

Well, I can’t have that! If this customer wants a round shaving soap, and thinks mine are the best he’s ever used, he will have it!

And not only that, he made a few suggestions that I thought were good ones. He likes patchouli, which I mix with hemp seed oil for a softening, moisturizing soap. So I used patchouli and hemp, and mixed that with soothing lavender, for a round shaving soap. He also suggested using a bit of rhassoul clay for a good “slip” and to help the razor. Again, excellent suggestion.

So into the soap lab-OR-a-tory I went, and emerged a few hours later with my latest and greatest shaving soap in the mold. I haven’t decided what to call it yet, but it’s a nice combination of patchouli and lavender, and has a good dose of rhassoul clay as well. It will be a few weeks before it’s ready to go to market, but I intend for Chris to have the best shaving soap I can produce!

Well, that’s all the more reason to come up with a really good product to keep them away, and using only essential oils to do it. I cannot imagine hordes of little critters in areas to the north, but I can say it works remarkably well here in Kentucky. And not just for me. I have a nurse friend who has been my best salesperson this summer. She has a good part of the staff at her hospital using my Bye Bye Bites products and coming back for more.

In fact, she requested a companion spray for the soap, so I did them one better. I did a spray and then a lotion as well, all scented with the same essential oils bugs don’t like. And the good thing is that my recipe does not use citronella, so you don’t go around smelling like that. It has a combination of essential oils that I think are somewhat medicinal but still pleasing. And again…it works! Hooray.

P.S. A friend at my local market was raving about Bye Bye Bites to another customer, and she insisted they kept her husband from getting chiggers. I can’t verify that myself. As someone who has suffered horribly for a week following chigger attacks, I’m too chicken to test it. I’ll just take her word for it, thank you very much.

Yay! I love summer. Being a warm-weather, open-window aficianado, I love living where I don’t have to hide in air conditioning all summer. Of course, everybody around me does, but I think it’s overkill. Welcome, summer 2010.

Well, we’re into the market season for sure now, and crowds are returning bit by bit as green, leafy produce, yellow summer squash and red tomatoes come on. It’s always good to see friends from last year. I now have customers who plan their fall purchases to cover all of winter, and several of them report in on whether they had soap to last until now. I wonder if they realize that for me this goes beyond a commercial venture, and their kindness is remarkable and appreciated…a very personal compliment.

Market Blues
In spite of the good news, however, I thought I’d take a minute to complain. Have other soapmakers ever had experiences like this? It happens to me very occasionally, but when it does, it strikes me as odd enough to notice. For example, last Saturday I felt like a pariah in my favorite market. At the Frankfort market, I have many friends and regular customers. But for some reason, on this particular Saturday, the crowds just walked past my booth like they didn’t know me or care to. For the entire day, sales were just pitiful. I walked to the front of my table to check and see if it just didn’t look good or something. Actually, I thought it looked better than normal. But I rearranged a few things anyway, moved some signs and made sure soap displays were standing straight and proud.

I could have stood out front and tried to engage people and encourage sales, but that’s not my style. I do not like to force sales. I know that’s not good salesmanship, but it’s the only way I can work it.

All I can think of is that it rained hard that morning until about 9:30 or so, and selling soap in the rain isn’t easy, even if you are under a pavilion which we are (thank you SO much, market planners). Really good soap attracts moisture, which is OK in the shower but not at point of purchase. The rain could have cut our crowds too. Not a good answer, but that’s all I have. Sometimes it just happens, and you have to write that week off and plan for next week to be better, which, usually, it is.

And Another New Product
I don’t know why but it seems to me I’ve been especially busy whipping up body care products this spring. I have a couple friends who are expecting babies this year, and so I did a batch of stretch mark oils for them. In doing so, I went to a favorite vendor’s Web site for supplies, and discovered they have a sale on Tamanu Oil. This is a Polynesian nut oil that is remarkable in its antibiotic and cell-regeneration properties. It’s excellent for repair of skin problems such as acne, sun damage, aging and stretch marks. It’s a little pricey, but I’m going to give it a try.

Actually, I have been thinking about which body products are most valued by my customers as I decide where to put my efforts. Stretch mark oil isn’t something I often get a call for but it does seem to me it’s something I can offer which is uniquely good, given my access to exotic or high-quality ingredients. At least, I’ll give it a try.

Happy summer, everybody.
Sharon

This week I switched from the soap pot to the melting pot. Soapmakers need to multi-task too, and at Anna’s EsSCENTials I’ve tried to hone in on products that are compatible with the good soaps that go through our doors. I’ve done excellent creams, lotions and other goodies. But this week I did a spring-time batch of Anna’s All-Natural Deodorant.

I’d researched this product for a while before coming up with a recipe that looked good to me. I looked for something that was both effective and safe, and tried a couple options before settling on this recipe. Some of my faithful soap customers agreed to give it a try, and I held my breath. People often have strong feelings about their deodorant. When reports came back unanimously positive, I figured I had something worth taking to market.

The problem was with packaging, however. The product was well-received, but the little pots I used weren’t. People wanted a container that would twist up as the deodorant was used and didn’t involve fingers in a container. This year, I found some nice, transluscent containers with twisters on the bottom. I think that should solve the problem.

So what’s in it?
The final recipe contains a number of essential oils that soothe, fight bacteria, and reduce odors. They include white thyme, tea tree, lavender, rosemary and others. I also included baking soda in a base of shea butter, sweet almond and other nice oils.

Other melting pot goodies

And other melting pot goodies
Also this week I did a new batch of the muscle & joint massage cream that my customers like so much. I’ve really had rave reviews for this one from people with knee and hand problems, among others. This special cream is designed with essential oils that reduce swelling and a special ingredient from Thailand, plai oil. So with that and the whipped shea butter cream I finished a couple weeks ago, I guess I’m as ready for spring markets as I’ll ever be.
Sharon

Last week it got a debut which is important because you never know how a soap scent will be received until you watch your customers’ faces as they take the first whiff. This one got rave reviews from those folks who like a spicy fragrance, and not everyone does.

And that leads us to an interesting point. It seems to me I encounter waves of interest…for a while customers will respond to calming, soothing fragrances like lavender. Then I’ll see more interest in uplifting, wake-me-up combinations. Usually the spicy soaps are especially good around the holidays, but this year it seems to me I’m still getting calls for the spicy options, and I wonder if that means something. Could it be that the pall of economic collapse of the last few years is shifting, and people are exhibiting a bit of cautious optimism? If so, that might be good for us soapmakers!

Whipped Shea Butter
I said I completed two new products for spring, and the second is a whipped shea butter. It is almost pure shea butter, and I tried a new recipe that was supposed to whip up without getting grainy, as shea butter is prone to do. It did not. I tried again and got the same results. I’m using unrefined shea butter to get as close to the original as possible, but I don’t think that should make a difference. Finally, I went back to the tried-and-true method of heating followed by cooling the shea butter in the freezer, and it worked just fine. I’m using it at home and I like the product a lot. But will I spend the time and effort to do it again? Hmmm. Not sure.

And good baby news
Some of you will remember that last year my granddaughter, Eva Leilani, was born, to my great elation. She’s over a year old now and is the light of my life. This spring I was very privileged to spend two solid weeks with her, and it was pure joy. I am reminded of what hope and trust look like in that little girl’s eyes. It’s the same hope and trust I take to the soap pot in spring, but this time it is reinforced by two weeks with Eva! Here’s my sweet girl!

Sharon

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a brief note about one of the best parts of soapmaking, and that’s the interesting, literally fascinating, people you meet along the way. Recently I got an inquiry from one of those bright and shining stars, a woman named Jessie who lives in Shallop Cove, Newfoundland—an island 90 miles from the mainland in the Atlantic. She was trying to hunt down a body butter someone had sent her as a gift, and came across my Web site, http://www.annas-soaps.com. We corresponded a bit, and she sent me these photos of cranberries they’d picked along the seacoast because she noticed I make a cranberry soap. I thought my readers would enjoy seeing them as well. Imagine picking fresh, wild cranberries…along the Atlantic seacoast!

With her permission, I hoped you might enjoy a few comments about Newfoundland Jessie sent to me in the following e-mail.

“Sharon, Holy smoke what a wonderful e-mail. Our island sounds like a horrible place, but it is one of the world’s best kept secrets. Yes we take the good with the bad when it comes to winter and wind, but I can tell you that the people here are like no other crowd under the sun. Sharon, the people of Newfoundland are like no others. People come here and never want to leave. We have a wonderful university here called Memorial that is known far and wide for it’s oceanography programs and it’s science programs and students come from all over the world to study and many don’t want to leave because of the culture here.

“When our tourist booklets come out I will sent you one. One day this month it was warmer here than in Florida!

“Newfoundlanders are warm, caring, give-the-shirt-off-their-backs kind of folks. The Newfoundlanders are known for their hard working ethic, and splashed in there is their humor and their music and their rum. The only great ruckus that they can cause would be over their dart games—man, do they take darts seriously.

It takes 13 hours to drive from one end of here to the other (as they say here), with a population of only 500,000 souls. There are many artists here, but we are very spread out. I left a larger art community in Nova Scotia, which has turned out to be a good thing because with our rural community I am much more artistic.”

Well, that’s just a taste of the kind of correspondence I get and I thought Anna’s blog readers would appreciate the images it contains, as well as those beautiful cranberries. Thanks, Jessie!
Sharon

This year I decided to combine two of my popular but similar soaps…Almond Goat’s Milk and Oatmeal Honey. So…introducing…(drum roll please)…Goats Milk Honey Almond & Oatmeal soap.

And this one I actually nibble on as I make it. It contains almond butter and goats milk, with honey and oatmeal, so you have rich, buttery ingredients for moisturizing, honey for healing and oatmeal for exfoliating. It’s on the drying racks and I can’t wait to try it myself.

The idea came to me because I usually make the almond goat’s milk soap only in the fall because it is so rich. But I really wanted a goats milk soap I could have available all year around. It seemed like a natural combination. I’ll let you know about the response when I get it out there around the time for holiday sales.
Sharon

Today I made the second batch of Moments of Happiness, my new sesame oil soap inspired by a trip to Thailand last spring to visit son Eric and new grandbaby, Eva Leilani. The first batch is nearly gone, so this time around I changed the essential oil formula, but only slightly. I added a diffusion of calendula which is known for skin care. I also have a request for a vetiver soap, and since this soap contains it, I upped the amount of vetiver I used and will see what difference it makes. Vetiver is a very earthy, woodsy fragrance, but quite expensive. Well, it is for Eva after all, and you know about grandmothers and their granddaughters!
Sharon

In a recent e-mail, Charlotte came up with this concept and most of the wording, all in jest. She said she was on her way to the LR soap studio to produce her mythical herbal elixir to cure all ills. She was kidding, but to me it sounded like a plan, so I hit my own soap studio and, voila, a new brew, not yet perfected, but the first phase is finished and in the tins.

Introducing Sweeter than Heaven Infused Herbal Elixir, Skin-softening, stress-relieving, miracle-working, youth-restoring, weight-reducing, money-making, handcrafted (by elves) herbal infused elixir for skin, lips, joints, aches & pains.

For this batch I made an infusion of calendula in olive oil and almond oil. I added shea butter and a few other ingredients including essential oils. It was a quick-and-fun inspiration, but Charlotte and I now have concocted plans to make it even better with additional herbs and essential oils. So watch for phase II, and look out world!

Wedding, anyone?

I’m pretty sure we do not celebrate nearly enough. But last weekend here in Owen County, Kentucky, we sure did.

There are some places and times that hold value above and beyond, and I tell you, I sit in the middle of magic. All around me are people with extraordinary gifts of laughter and appreciation and art. Here in the hills of north central Kentucky exists a network of people and places that exude creativity … so many different abilities … music, fine art, crafts, food … it’s all here and I’m privileged to be where I am.

Another New Beginning
Hazelfield Farm is known hereabouts for its organically grown flowers and vegetables (see www.hazelfieldfarm.com), and my friends Teresa and Raphe have become the first choice of brides, receptions and other events where flowers are needed. Everyone knows they will have fresh, home-grown, and absolutely gorgeous blossoms. Over the years, the farm has become a destination in its own right. People come from miles away to see the acres of peonies and lilies and other flowers they grow.

This year they completed a new gift shop built on the farm to accommodate this growing trail of people who appreciate the uniqueness and beauty of Hazelfield Farm. And this past weekend was the gift shop’s grand opening. Several artists gathered to exhibit their work and participate in an event which will happen a couple times a year from now on.

A great place for Teresa’s antiques

And Anna’s soaps too.

We had Stamper Stained Glass, Larkspur Press books and cards, Leslie’s hand-bound books, Jan McKenzie-Keene paintings, Stacy Fitzgerald jewelry, Chance Mobley Massage, Angie’s hand-dyed and hand-spun yarns, and Anna’s EsSCENTials Bodycare soaps and products. Teresa finally has a good place to display some of the beautiful antiques she’s collected over the years, and for the opening, she made a table of her favorite bulbs. You’ve got to know Teresa’s choices will be spectacular, so I have to say, I gorged myself on the bulb table. Now to find time to get hundreds of new bulbs into the ground.

Just Fun
Some events a soaper attends are pleasant and some are work. This one, of course, was downright fun as I knew it would be ­— good, creative people getting together and celebrating what’s best about being alive on a fall Sunday in Kentucky.

I took a few extra photos for my friends scattered across the country who miss the turning of the seasons. Of course, leaves are only beginning to change here in spite of recent cold temperatures, but you can get the effect anyway. So here you go, Shari. And if anyone has a chance to make next spring’s Hazelfield Farm festival, I can confidently promise you a good time!