A Great Night

Tonight I was at The Valley golf shop selling some soaps to the ladies of the Cliffs communities. It was a great success. The ladies were so sweet and seemed to be very enthusiastic about my products. Thanks to everybody for coming out to shop. So much fun!

New Scents!

I just unwrapped some new creations and I'm so excited to see how they are received. My Frankincense and Myrrh is to die for (if I do say so myself) and the sweet pea came out beautifully with a light baby pink swirl. I also added calendula petals to my plain oatmeal bar, for those with very sensitive skin. Calendula is known for its healing properties to the skin so it will add to the effectiveness of the bar. My husband made me an awesome display for my lip balm, which I will ever-so-proudly be using tonight. He has really come through on building my molds and displays. Thanks Mike, I love you! I will try to post a picture soon. We wanted it to be as natural as possible so we went out to the park and found an old piece of wood to make it out of. Can't wait to use it!

Headed to The Valley!

I am very excited to be visiting The Valley tomorrow evening. The ladies of the community will be there to do a little Christmas shopping. I have spent today in the kitchen working on my inventory and preparing for the event. It's always a pleasure to visit with the ladies from The Cliffs, can't wait!

Thank you, Blairsville!

It was great going back to my old hometown for the Holiday Market. I was lucky to have my sister helping me at my booth because we had a lot of setup to do. When we drove through town on Saturday morning it was 9 degrees and still dark! The morning was very cold. Understandably, there were not many shoppers out until around 10:30, when it was actually bearable. Our day went so well. It was great to see old friends that I hadn't seen in years. Many people were enthusiastic about my products and it reall made me happy. Also, I was approached to be advertised in the Local Food Guide, since many of my ingrediants are purchased locally. This is great news because they are going to be printing 33,000 copies to be distributed throughout the southeast region. Wow, that's cool! All in all, the market was a success. Sales were great and the day was beautiful!

Holidays are here!

I have been busy as a bee preparing for the upcoming markets that I will be participating in. My lip balms are selling like a charm. Funny, because they were kind of an after thought that seem to be really catching on. I have to go mail an order from Etsy today. On Saturday, Nov. 22nd, I will be in Blairsville, Ga. They are having a Holiday Market and I can't wait to be a part of it. I spent half of my life there, so hopefully I will see some old friends. Also, I am proud to say that I am an official member of the National Association of Professional Women. I got my notice in the mail today! Yay!

My latest creations!

I had to post some pictures of my new babies!

Twitter Bug!

I have just created a Twitter account. I have heard about this new thing, but really didn't see the point. It is a site where you have 140 characters to update what you are doing at the moment. These days I don't really have that much time to get on the computer, but I'm going to try it and see how it goes. I think it will be fun if some of my other friends are on there, too. If it's just me doing it, not so much! I made some pretty little cupcakes yesterday that I can't wait to photograph them and put on my blog and Etsy. My sister helped me make some more soapsicles and I cranked out a few jumbo lip balms as well. I think these are my favorites at the moment. I like chunky little things like that! Anyway, if you want to check me out on Twitter here is my address, twitter.com/peacelovesoap (my entire name wouldn't fit). I am going to commit to try it for 30 days and see if it catches on. Feel free to join me!

I have two markets coming up. I will be in Blairsville, Ga. next Saturday for the Holiday market. On December 6 we have ours in downtown Greenville. Can't wait!

Peace, Love & Soap makes Etsy radio!

I was very honored to find out that Peace, Love and Soap was mentioned on a blog radio show on November 10th. The lady who broadcasts the show had purchased some of my soap and a couple of lip balms. I just listened to the broadcast and it was really neat to hear her talk about how much she liked my products. She is a member of a group called Artists Helping Animals and her Etsy store is called Dogonwear. She makes adorable clothes and stuff for pets. It was so nice of her to give me a shout out! It brought a smile to my face!

Peace, Love & Cupcakes!

I wanted to write about the cute little cupcake soaps that I made up and brought to the market last Saturday along with some hand poured lip balms. I wanted to have something geared toward the children because so many come up to my table to look at my soap. I made up these cupcakes that look like they have strawberry icing on them. They smell like cupcakes too! I was so happy that the kids loved them, I actually sold out! The lip balms were really popular, too. They are made of cocoa butter, beeswax and olive oil. They were fun to make and I think they would make great stocking stuffers. I will post the picture I took from saturday. Hope you like them.

Plans for Fall!

It is so beautiful here in the mountains at this time of year. The changing leaves are so bright this year, some of them almost look neon! Last night I made 2 new batches of soap, english rose and nag champa. Nag Champa has been such a great seller, but it's kind of like patchouli- some love it, and some hate it. I love it! December 6th is our last market of the year and I'm so sad that it's over. I have a few appointments with people interested in carrying my soap in their stores, which I'm really thankful for. I got my tax ID number the other day so I am official and ready to go. That will make it easier for the bigger retail stores to set up accounts with me. I'm also going to be working on my hand poured lip balms. Those sold so well, I was kind of surprised. I have learned that you can never really tell what people are going to like. I enjoy being pleasantly surprised when I'm sure somebody is going to love a certain scent and then they go for the opposite. It keeps me on my toes. I am also going to always have completely natural products as well as my mostly natural ones. For some, it is merely a preference, but there are many who have such sensitive skin, they cannot handle even cosmetic grade products if they are not natural (by that I mean "from the earth- natural" not what the stores call "natural"). I know this from experience. My baby has such sensative skin, I have noticed a difference since I started bathing him with natural soap.

What's in a name?

Today was a great day at the market. I met so many interesting people. That is one of my favorite things about doing it. I had a few people comment on the name of my business, which was funny because nobody has ever said anything before. Back when I was trying to come up with a name, my brain was racked. I disected any and everything to do with soap, bubbles, and cleanliness. The funny thing is, Peace, Love & Soap was one of the first things I came up with. I was sure that the real name would take me much longer to find, so I went on to ponder against my first judgement. My husband liked it, and that is what helped me stick to it. Looking back, I'm so glad I did. I met one of the coolest guys ever, today, and it all started with Peace, Love and Soap. He came up to my booth and asked me if I was some kind of hippie! I assured him that I wasn't around long enough to be a real hippie, but I do agree with most of the ideas that came out of the era. We both said that the one thing that ruined the hippies were drugs. (not saying that all hippies used, but I'm sure most did!) He went on to tell me that he loved the hippies because they taught him how to love like a mother and a father. When his 3 children were little, he lost his wife to cancer. He went from daddy, to mommy and daddy. He was a man's man who had been in the Korean War and raised to be "tough". Now he had to be a nurturer. It was the hippies who taught him that it was ok to be a man and be loving and hug his little kids. Many people in his generation thought that it was the mother's job to do the hugging and kissing and the father's job tell their little boys to "suck it up" and be brave. He said that he was freed of this stereotype and it made his life better. He was able to enjoy his love of art and music without feeling like it was wrong because he was male. We had a long, great conversation and I hope I see him again! The last thing he said to me was that if you love somebody expecting something in return, then you are not loving them at all! I think that is so great! I'm sad that it was my last week, but I'm looking forward to December 6th when we have our special holiday market. Until then, I will be looking for festivals and working on my marketing and displays.