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!