Shows to Sell My Wares

Last year I did a Pop Up Shop in December with Up From The Roots. It was a spur of the moment decision to participate as I had never done this before. It was great fun and, while I only managed to just cover my costs in sales, it was a very worthwhile experience as I met some great people and did learn a lot. If they do another one this year, I hope to go back.

For 2013, I planned to do more shows to help move my business forward. And this past week I signed up for 3 upcoming shows!

The first one is the Big On Bloor show in Toronto. On July 20th and 21st, Bloor St. will be closed down from Dufferin to Lansdowne for a festival! John and I have gone a couple of times in the past to see some of the vendors and wander down the street. Since it takes place so close to us, it would be a shame not to participate. So I have signed up and now have a few weeks to get ready for that show!

The second application is for a juried show in October. Made By Hand is a show that takes place at the International Centre in Mississauga. They showcase and promote Canadian artists, artisans and designers. You do have to submit an application for them to review and then accept (hopefully!). The application is in. The deadline isn’t until August 15th so I have a bit of a wait to find out about that one. But fingers are crossed.

My third hoped for show is the Yuletide Fare in Brockville at the end of November. It looks like my schedule will allow me the time to participate and I plan to book a table as soon as they start booking. This is my hometown and the show is held at my old church. When I was growing up it was called Craft Showcase. I bought many of my parents Christmas presents there! Here’s hoping there are more kids like me there this November looking for gift ideas for their family members.

I love these kind of shows. At least I do as a buyer. It is definitely a different experience as a seller! But hopefully at least most of that experience will be fun. For now it is down to the hard work part – making product so that I’m not in danger of running out of something that someone wants and promoting my participation in the shows so I can get all of you out to be the buyers!

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Making Soap … with Chocolate!

Tags

castile, chocolate, soap

When I started exploring natural products, not surprisingly I quite quickly came across many articles about making soap. Equally as quickly I decided I did not want to make soap from scratch without an actual person to show me how it is done. I love to experiment but experimenting with a caustic substance like lye was not something I wanted to do!

In my searching I found several old books with recipes for making soap from soap flakes. There are lots of fun recipes out there that use ends of your current soap bars or grated soap bars. I also found some eco friendly soap flakes at the health food store and started trying some of the recipes. They were great and I enjoyed making a few different soaps. I discovered that you can add a lot of different things to your soap recipes – like ground loofah or ground almonds, warming spices like cinnamon, skin softening agents like ground oatmeal, natural colouring made from oils infused with turmeric or paprika, and even things like cocoa powder.

Along the way I started altering the recipes and I eventually came up with a Chocolate Spice Soap that I love. Along with soap flakes, it contains ground oatmeal, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and the essential oils of nutmeg, cinnamon, and orange.

Last fall I finally had a chance to make soap from scratch using lye! While it still makes me nervous every time I make a batch of soap, it is actually quite a simple and straightforward process.

But now I had a problem. Should I really continue to make and sell a soap made from store bought soap flakes even if they were organic? I really wanted to use my own soap to mix up the Chocolate Spice Soap. So I decided to give it a try. Well the first few attempts didn’t work out so well. The regular soap that I made was just too soft and when it was grated it didn’t have the same kind of texture and look as my previous bars. Nothing really wrong it, it just wasn’t what I was after.

And then I had a revelation! Castile Soap!

Until last fall I hadn’t heard the term Castile soap and definitely didn’t know what it was. Castile soap is a very hard soap that is made solely from olive oil, water, and lye. We had made some in class and I had made several batches since then on my own. As it dries, it gets very hard. And it makes great soap flakes for my Chocolate Spice Soap! It takes some time to grate enough of it for a recipe but it is worth it. It has taken another couple of test batches, but I do believe that I have now managed to recreate my Chocolate Spice Soap using my own soap flakes!

Why You Can’t Keep Your Product Labels Simple

Tags

cosmetics, labels

I am a label reader and have been for several years. It started off with reading food product labels and looking at food ingredients and just naturally expanded to other products. When I first had the idea of starting a company and selling body care products, one of my first thoughts was “Finally! I can create a product and have a label that is straightforward and easy to understand.” Oh the things we don’t know about when we start out!

I have a wonderful graphic designer, Suzanne (http://www.tickingtimebomb.ca/), and I love the look of my labels. And, if it is possible, I became even more impressed with her work once I knew how much information is required to be on the label!

Label requirements were one of the things we talked about briefly in the classes I took last fall. And Jan gave us a link to the site for the Canadian regulations for cosmetic products. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/cosmet-person/index-eng.php Here I found 5 different documents (a total of 150 pages) that outline what you have to include on your labels, a ‘hot list’ of things you can’t have in your products, and what advertising claims you can and cannot make. A bit overwhelming the first time through!

It was at this time that I was also introduced to INCI names! INCI stands for International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient. When listing ingredients for your products they must be listed in order of the amount used (from highest to lowest percentage) and the ingredients must be listed with either their Latin name or their INCI name. Not an easy task if you are using an ‘uncommon’ cosmetic ingredient – and sometimes the simplest natural ingredient is ‘uncommon’ for the cosmetic industry.

Aside from just not having enough hours in a day to experiment with new products, labels are one of the reasons why it sometimes takes me longer to launch a new product. Aside from the work involved in the actual label, you also have to file paperwork with the government for each product. It is a 2 page form (with a 29 page guide on how to fill it out!) that lists what your product is, what it is for, who it is for, and what it contains. And as with most government paperwork, it is never just straightforward. You have to search their list so you can choose the corresponding number to go with your product type. That’s right – you can’t just say Body Lotion. In one box you put ‘28 – Skin Moisturizer’ and in another box you put ‘10 – Lotion’. Never straightforward.

And all of that is just for cosmetic products. I’m still working on finding the regulations for household products!

Pest Control with Essential Oils

Tags

essential oils, insects

I’m so glad that the weather is getting warmer! I know I’m ready for some sunshine and warmth after this cold, dreary winter.

But with the warmer weather comes the bugs and small rodents that many people don’t like. I’ve seen a few posts on facebook this week from friends already starting their yearly battle with ants! And on just after midnight on Wednesday night (Thursday morning), I woke up to the familiar sound of a mouse scratching under the floor boards in our loft. With that in mind, I thought a post about EOs and insects might be worthwhile this week.

Citronella is probably the first oil that comes to mind when people think about keeping the bugs at bay. And indeed it is one of the most common and most effective. It deters moths and insects as well as being disliked by rodents.

Peppermint is another great pest deterrent! It is great for keeping out mice, mosquitoes, and ants. Because we live in an old building, we do get the occasional mouse, especially since we no longer have a cat in the loft. With my midnight mouse wake up, I grabbed a bottle of Peppermint EO and put a couple of drops in the area where I could hear the mouse. He left shortly afterwards.

I have a blend of Citronella EO and Peppermint EO that I use at home and at the office. I place a few drops of the mix on a piece of cotton fabric or a cotton ball and place it on the window sill. We live in a loft space on the second floor with very large windows so most of our pests are small flying ones. If I remember to add a few drops every 2 months or so, it keeps the bugs out. I can always tell when it needs refreshing – as soon as I find a fly in the loft! Generally at the first signs (or sounds) of a mouse, I place a few drops of the Pest Deterrent Blend at the back of the cupboard under the sink (generally where they come up from the neighbours downstairs at our place). Within the day, the mouse is gone.

At the theatre where I work fulltime, we have an outside side door that doesn’t quite seal along the bottom and in the past we have had some ants wander in to check out our hallway. I try to place a drop of the blend on the entrance carpet every couple of months in the spring and summer to discourage the ants. It does make the small hallway smell very much like peppermint so I try to just use 1 drop and generally do it at the end of the day so that the strongest scent has dissipated a bit by the next morning.

So far all of the things I have mentioned have been household solutions. One of my next projects is to work on an insect repellent that you can wear. For that I hear that Lemongrass EO is pretty good. I have read lots of possibilities for various combinations. Now I get to experiment and test!