November 2014 Soap News and Special

Hi Everybody!
I am putting the newsletter out a few days early to let you know about two shows THIS weekend.  See the show calender below for details.  

October went by in a whirl of activity.  Rod and I took a few days off and spent some time at our favorite place, Key West.  We weren't able to stay at our favorite place, Eden House, because it was booked with a wedding.  So we ended up staying in The Old Customs House Inn right on Duval.  The reviews were pretty dicey, but, in reality it was a pretty good spot for a quick trip.  There is no front desk service to speak of, you had to find your own parking, the shower was teeny tiny and the TV only had one channel that worked.  BUT, that was all doable...especially when you throw in a cute parrot named Pickles who greeted us every time we came and went from the room.  

Back in Orlando, we have the whole "moving to Illinois" thing on our minds, so Rod and I got a head start on things by cleaning out the shed and the attic a week ago.  We had enough stuff to have a one day garage sale.  We got rid of lots of Christmas stuff, a couple dressers, under-used kitchen applicances and some home decor and pictures--everything big except the Nordic Track and a bunch of books.  The books and a couple small boxes of leftovers went to the Salvation Army and the Nordic Track got posted on Craigs List.  So, now we can actually stack up the next bunch of things to go up to Illinois in the big van.  I will go up for a week right after the New Smyrna Beach show.

We had a cardiologist appointment at the beginning of the month.  Rod was able to come off his blood thinner and the doc suggested cutting his statin in half and changing up his blood pressure pill for another medicine that handles BP and two other things he was concerned about.  It should help to even out his heart rate so there are fewer missed beats and the resulting BIG beat that occurs after a missed beat.  All in all we feel very good about how all this is going--he is eating to our plan and doing his walking, so, what we can control, we are--the rest we are putting in bigger hands than ours!

P.S.  We are going to get down to temps in the 50's and possibly lower this weekend!  FALL IS HERE!

  

SHOW SCHEDULE

November 2014 

1-2          Fiesta in the Park, Lake Eola Park, Orlando FL  AND

1-2          Micanopy Fall Festival (my friend Eve will be doing Orlando and I will be in Micanopy--thanks for the help Eve!!)
8-9          Flamingo Follies, New Smyrna Beach, FL--Booth #106
15-16         

22-23    

29-30

December 2014 

6-7          Tallahassee Market Days
13-14      Holiday in the Garden, Washington Oaks Garden State

               Park, Palm Coast, Florida--sorry, it looks like they will not be doing a craft show this year.

20-21      Merry Christmas!
27-28      Happy New Year!

INDUSTRY NEWS

You know, I am all about SCENT.  And what is more irresistible than "New Baby Smell"!  Turns out that the scent and the phenomenon are being studied.  Blogger and Real Simple Associate Editor, Julia Edelstein, reported on the findings in this article.  What I found fascinating is that they identified the scent as being made up of roughly 250 chemicals.   The combination of these chemicals lights up the rewards center part of the brain.  The same area that would recognize you were partaking of a piece of Godiva chocolate!  I wonder how long it will take the perfumers and formulators to come up with this wonderful scent?  And speaking of scent, check out my third quarter bestsellers, below.

My Great Niece when she was little!

COMPANY NEWS

So this is a big weekend for shea butter soap in Central Florida.  My artist friend, Eve Silverbach, who you may recognize from the picture below, will be manning my booth at Fiesta in the Park at Lake Eola this weekend.  I will be up in Micanopy doing the Fall Festival in my usual spot across from the Herlong Mansion.  Eve will have the incense rack with her in Orlando along with the soap, soapdishes and other bath accessories.  I will have the bath accessories,  eye pillows and giftbag stuffers with me.  We both will have guest soap samplers and oils.  IF THERE IS SOMETHING YOU NEED, PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP SO I CAN MAKE SURE IT WILL BE AVAILABLE.  We think we have the credit card situation worked out--cross fingers, please!  

Nautical Painter, Eve Silverbach

The best sellers for the third quarter are as follows:

1.  Lavender Oatmeal 100% Natural

2.  Oatmeal Milk & Honey Goatmilk

3.  Jasmine Goatmilk

4.  Lilac Goatmilk

5.  Beach

6.  Sweet Earth

7.  Lemongrass Scrubby 100% Natural

8.  Gardenia Goatmilk

9.  Sandalwood Vanilla

10.  Black Raspberry Vanilla Goatmilk

Congratulations to Crystal M. of Illinois who won last month's Facebook Special--a free log of Everything but the Kitchen Sink.  Head over to Facebook and chat with us on the wall for your chance to win our great yearend specials.  Every order in November and December will be in the Facebook contest--even if you haven't had time to friend us there!  I love chatting with everyone, but, it is those of you who continue to order that pay the bills.  A HUGE thank you to you all!

SPECIAL

For the month of November, every soap order will receive a free bar of Everything but the Kitchen Sink Soap with every three soaps ordered.  I have an abundance of these in stock right now and they are very popular with new and old customers!  And remember if you need to stock up, all orders of $50 or more receive FREE SHIPPING!  This time of the year is a great time to take advantage of this deal!

I have a couple bags of endpieces that have been around for a long while.  IF you are a shaving soap user, a Patchouli lover or a Lavender Oatmeal lover--go to the Specials page NOW and get a great deal on the ugly soaps.  The Lavender soaps I just put up are what happens when I take an important phone call instead of getting the soap in the mold quickly.  It ain't pretty...but you benefit by getting a great deal on these bars.  Hey, and there are just a few bars of Split Personality 100% Natural on there too.  Really, you need to go take a look at these specials!!

The Specials can always be ordered by going to my website, scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking on the big green leaf. This will take you to the "secret" members’ only page so you can place your order. List members' pay actual shipping and tax if applicable, so disregard the shipping charge my shopping cart will show on your receipt. A correct invoice will be mailed with your order. Please put the words NOVEMBER SPECIAL in the comments area of your order. You may also call or email, but be sure to mention the NOVEMBER SPECIAL; otherwise, you may not get the special price.

With Regards to you ALL, 

Jackie the SoapLady

Website:
www.JackieSoap.com

Facebook:  Become a fan by liking “Handcrafted by Jackie Turbot”.   Post on the wall for chances to win a free goodie monthly.

October 2014 Soap News and Special

Traditional Harvest Festival

OCTOBER!  Oh yes, Fall is here!  Even in the heat of Florida we have the orange, red and brown decorations up in the stores, the pumpkin patches are open and we start to believe that night temperatures now lingering at 70 or above, might soon bring cooler days...sometime, soon hopefully.

Florida's version of Fall...see the leaf colors in the back!!!

This weekend I was at the Deland Craft Show, mainly helping my artist friend, Nautical Painter, Eve Silverbach, who had double booked shows.  So, I was set up with half of the booth filled with painted switchplates and photography and the other half with my soap trays.  Here's a heads-up for you Central Floridians:   Eve will be doing the Orlando show at Lake Eola the first weekend in November.  I will be setup in Micanopy.  I will not have the incense with me...Eve will have it in Orlando.  So, if you need incense at Micanopy, please call me no later than Wednesday  October 29th, and I will pull what you need and bring it with me.

I made it back to Orlando in my new-to-me Ford 3/4 ton 2006 cargo van.  So, for those of you wondering about the poor Mercury, it is now the Illinois back up vehicle.  Not sure how it will weather the Illinois cold winter, but, hopefully it will start if we fly up sometime in December or January.   We had so much room in the van, we didn't even reach the halfway mark...which left Bonnie-Dog plenty of room to roam.  She happened to roam through my box of ripening tomatoes, BAD BONNIE, but I still had plenty to make Rod  BLT's, a couple Mexican dishes and a few plates of fresh tomatoes to enjoy. 

I ended up staying an extra week in Illinois as my Aunt Patricia was very ill and in hospice care.  She ended up passing after a very hard 10 days for my uncle and cousins.  I stayed to be with my Mom and attend the funeral.  You will be missed Aunt Pat...

Next up for us is a quick four night trip to Key West.  After that we will begin to get the Halloween decorations out of the attic and get ready for the trick or treaters at the end of the month.  Rod suggested we also use that time to sort through what we have up in the attic and start clearing it out now.  That will help out a lot when we do make the final move to Illinois in 2016.  The Fall shows are detailed below.  I hope to see you all out there!

Show Schedule 

October 2014 

4-5          11-12    Coconut Creek--the Promenade on Lyons Road

18-19

25-26       

         

November 2014 

1-2          Fiesta in the Park, Lake Eola Park, Orlando FL  AND

1-2          Micanopy Fall Festival (my friend Eve will be doing Orlando and I will be in Micanopy--thanks for the help Eve!!)
8-9          Flamingo Follies, New Smyrna Beach, FL--Booth #106
15-16         

22-23    

29-30

December 2014 

6-7          Tallahassee Market Days
13-14      Holiday in the Garden, Washington Oaks Garden State

               Park, Palm Coast, Florida--tentative

20-21      Merry Christmas!
27-28      Happy New Year!

Industry News

Hats off to Dr. Bronner's soap who sometime in the last 10 years finally decided to list ALL of their ingredients on the Peppermint liquid soap.  Some of you may remember when I "outed" them for only listing the vegetable oils, not the full ingredient list.  I know I had used their soap a lot in my early days as I hiked and camped.  So, I am happy to announce with full authority that they are NOT using SLS's in the production of their pure castille soaps!   So what's actually it there?  Here ya go (in English):  Coconut, Olive, Hemp and Jojoba Organic veggie Oils, Potassium Hydroxide (the lye in liquid soaps), Organic Peppermint Essential Oil, Citric Acid and Vitamin E.   Way to go!!

Company News

I made this year's Christmas soap last week and this year it will be a fruity, wine scent called Christmas Cabernet and it will be marbeled with red and orange.  I am still working on a name, but, for now I am calling it Wassail.  It will be available starting at the Coconut Creek show and some wholesale accounts are already starting to stock it!  So, look for it at the next show you are able to attend.  

I also stocked up on the wood soap decks and the netty soap-on-a-rope bags for the giftbags.  There will be plenty available at shows for those of you needing giftbags.  I will also be doing a limited number of special $50 giftbags with the more expensive soap dishes, herbal eye pillows and the other goodies usually found in the $20 bag.  

I just did a batch of Simply Shea soap for the waitlist and since it was gone really fast, I will do another batch if there is any demand.  Those are $10 a bar, but, you get the whole bar with the bumpy top so it is actually close to 7 ounces in size.  I will be catching up on the Pet, Bug and Hunter soap waitlists over the coming few weeks...if you know you want a few bars, please email me here.  

Special

This month the special is just that--special!  For every six bar order, you will be able to pick out a free soap (the scent is your choice) and you will receive a half-guest soap size sample of the Christmas soap to go along with it.  You might also take advantage of the $50 free shipping special, details are on the secret page on the website.  Follow the green leaf to get there!  And always check on down that page a bit.  I will be putting up a bag of Patchouli soap endpieces at a discounted price!  

Have a great month, Everybody!

Jackie the SoapLady

P.S. the overhang over the back door of the new cottage is from an Mazda RX7 automobile!  No one guessed correctly!!  Any guesses for what heats the water in the outdoor shower?  A free soap to the first correct answer!