Coastal Carolina Soap Blog

Peter and I were invited to attend a Derby party Saturday night.  Unfortunately, our sitter had a family emergency of her own, so we weren’t able to attend.  Despite that, though, I was determined to make my hat nonetheless, and I could always wear it to church.  So, this week’s blog post will be showcasing my non-soapy creativity.

I started off by placing whisper pink tulle over a white hat I’d bought.  I was originally going to put silk gerbera daisies in raspberry and light pink around the brim with some feathers thrown in for fun.

After stitching the tulle in place, I created a little poof of tulle to fill in around the crown.  This would provide a nice backdrop to the flowers.

All the tulle is now in place.  Now it’s time to figure out the placement of my showcase flower (a large gerbera daisy-type number) and perhaps some feathers.  After all, what’s a Derby hat without feathers?

This is the tentative placement of the feathers and the flower.  Don’t you just love that huge, funky flower?  My older daughter suggested the yellow feathers should go into the arrangement, too, claiming they’d look good with the flower, since they match the center.  She has such a good eye, doesn’t she?

This is me showing off my new creation (of the non-soapy variety).  The dark feather tied it nicely to my white shirt and brown-and-white skirt.  It wouldn’t have mattered; I’m bold enough to wear a hat regardless.  I wore it to watch the Derby at home (and I would have lost if I’d placed a bet, unfortunately), then wore it to church on Sunday.

Did you watch the Kentucky Derby?  Were you pleased with the outcome?  If you watched it, what did you do special ?

Image via WikipediaWe spent yesterday visiting with my parents, paternal grandparents and aunts.  It was a lovely visit and well worth the drive there and back.  My grandpa served in the Army during WWII, and it’s only been in the past few years that he’s really begun to speak of that time in his life and to share his pictures and memories.
                                                                                       
Yesterday, he had Grandma bring some of his treasures out to show me – a letter he sent to her in 1945, some pictures and some centavos, the Japanese-printed currency in the then Japan-occupied Philippines.  He told me that the Japanese had introduced this currency when they went into the Philippines, but once the war was over and Japan was ousted, the money was worthless.  Citizens would throw it out into the streets and soldiers would pick it up for souvenirs.  Grandpa has nearly 200 centavos, their monetary worth likely equal only to the paper on which they’re printed.

Grandpa went on to tell me that, when the U.S. troops went into the Philippines, their primary objective being to liberate them from Japan, they took the new Philippino currency in with them.  Go back and read that again.  It gave me pause.  Do you hear what he said?  I looked at Grandpa and said, “There’s a lesson for small business in there,” and the lesson is this:  March forward as if you know you are going to succeed.


Why in the world would the U.S. Army have carried all this newly minted Philippino currency with them if they didn’t have utter and complete confidence that they were going to succeed in their mission?  Obviously, they wouldn’t have.  It would have been a waste of paper to print it and just excess baggage to carry.  When Grandpa’s unit entered the Philippines, they were going in to win.  Not try to win, not negotiate with the Japanese for more favorable conditions for the Philippines, not lose, but to WIN.

This is how small businesses should drive their businesses – like a liberating army that is going to win the battle.  Of course, there will be set-backs.  Some American soldiers were injured, captured or killed during the Pacific War of WWII, including Grandpa.  However, the divisions, squadrons and platoons kept advancing, kept driving the Japanese back.  It was this steady forward progress that enabled the U.S. to defeat Japan.

This same steady forward progress helps small business be successful.  Like most small business owners, I have had set-backs.  I have made mistakes… and I have learned from those mistakes.  I have lost some squirmishes – made business deals that ultimately weren’t beneficial, was poorly organized for shows and forgot to ship a customer’s order.  Like some soldiers do, I’m sure, I’ve also wondered what the crap I was doing, why did I want even to go on, why didn’t I just give up.  Then I look at my daughter and young apprentice who has fully embraced soapmaking and running her own segment of the business, and my husband who really likes making swirled soaps and think, “No man left behind!”  They’re counting on me to keep us motivated and driven.

My Twitter friend @ThatRikkiWebb posted today

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

Business pains…  Business growing pains…  All serve to make for stronger small businesses and stronger small business owners, which serve to make stronger communities.

If you haven’t heard by now, IT’S HERE!!!  It’s bright!  It’s sunny!  And it’s made especially for little girls on the go.  What is it?  It’s Sun On The Go, my daughter’s fabulous new set of girly essentials.

This set is made for little girls on vacation.  My daughter said that little girls needed their own products when they’re traveling, and that was the catalyst for this epiphany.  She doesn’t really like the soaps and shampoos available at most commercial hotel chains, and who can blame her?  Usually what they are passing off as soap is a very drying detergent bar, and the shampoo has no conditioning properties at all, making hair brushing after a day in the wind and water a truly miserable experience.  Sun On The Go ensures little girls have their own moisturizing soap and conditioning shampoo, as well as a yummy after sun lotion.

This set contains four fabulous products.  As the girl enjoying this set comes back from hiking in the mountains or riding the waves at the beach, she starts her bathing experience with cheery yellow conditioning shampoo.  Not only does this product clean all the dirt and sweat out of her hair, but it’ll also help reduce tangles.  Next, she’ll wash with our homemade body wash, a fabulous castille liquid soap.  After bathing, she’ll moisturize her sun-kissed arms and legs with Sun On The Go After Sun Soother, a premium lotion made with organic aloe vera juice to make her skin feel cool and softer.  As she’s running out to the afternoon’s and evening’s fun with her family, a swipe of Sun On The Go Lip Balm will please her pucker with its juicy tropical fruit flavor and very moisturizing balm.  Each product has a scrumptious, robust tropical fruit fragrance or flavor (as applicable) that will make your senses dance.

Sun On The Go is available for an introductory price of $12.00.  That’s 20% off the regular price.  I’m sure you know a girl who’d love one of these.  Surrounded by boys?  We’re currently developing a similar product just for boys.

P.S. – Please don’t forget that Flipping For The Flops and Running For the Son is still going on through the end of the month, with net proceeds going to support Christian Motorcyclist Association.

About two weeks ago, as I was preparing for that big show at Camp Lejeune, my daughter walks up to me where I was wrapping soaps and says, “Mommy, I want to add a lip balm to my line, and I want to name it this, flavor it that and package it like this.”  Once I picked my jaw up off the ground – I was very impressed by her well thought-out presentation – I said, “Sounds like a great product!  Let’s see what we can find.”

After several discussions, she decided to extend it to a set that would include products that would be scented to complement the lip balm.  Last Friday evening over dinner, we hammered out some of the details about the specific products.  Saturday over lunch, we browsed online for the packaging elements.  I placed the orders Saturday afternoon and most of them arrived today.  My goal is to present these beautiful creations at Bee Fest in Kinston this Saturday.

Since the timing was so tight, we decided to go ahead and make up our bases on Sunday.  That’d save us some steps and a lot of time once the fragrances and containers showed up.

These are the bases we created. The top one is lip balm base, a luxuriously silky, nourishing treat made with beeswax from North Carolina bees and premium oils. The second base is homemade castille soap base. This soap is fabulous! It has a nice fluffy lather and leaves skin so silky smooth.  Finally, the white base is our homemade aloe vera lotion base.  This lotion is the best treat for your skin after being out in the sun all day.

Sooo…  What are we doing with these bases?  Well, that, my dears, is a big ol’ wait and see.  We should be ready for the big reveal by week’s end.  Yeah, we’re really stoked about these incredible products and just know you’ll love them, too!

This past weekend saw me spending a considerable amount of time on base at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC, working the Hidden Talents Craft Show.  The show was pretty disappointing; lots of people, lots of browsers, but few buyers.  I discovered on Sunday as I was in a c-mart getting gas and munchies that I figured out what was going on.  The federal government has failed to pass a balanced budget so far, and if they miss the deadline, then none of the federal employees get paid, including the military.  Sure, they get paid retroactively, but retroactive pay doesn’t put food on the table now.

Finding redemption in every situation, I encountered a lovely lady named Lisa who is new to small business.  Lisa is owner of Bath Bombs Away and her business is, obviously, all bath bombs.  Oh my gosh!  They were huge!  And gorgeous!  If I didn’t know what they were, I’d want to try sticking a spoon in them and taking a bite; they looked like sorbet in mixed flavors, and her packaging was clever and eye-catching.

We often take for granted those things that make our businesses run and that make people want to enter our space – whether a show booth, an online store or a brick-and-mortar store.  I know I often focus more on my products than the intangibles that I bring to my business.  Given that slight jadedness, it was refreshing to see a relative newby working the show (Lisa’s booth was across from ours and over one).  This is what I noticed she had going for her:

• Great products – As I said, her bath bombs looked absolutely delicious and smelled awesome.  They were also all-natural, scented with essential oils.
• Product knowledge – Unlike some bath and body manufacturers who go from making a product to wanting to sell it in a week, Lisa demonstrated that she’d done her research.  She knows her ingredients and possesses information about shelf life and essential oil properties.
• Awesome personality – Lisa was working the crowd.  She cooed over babies, warmly welcomed customers into her space and engaged people.  Her magnetic personality was a great draw.

First it was Spa Soaps.  Then it was Mediterranean Spa Salts.  Then it was a Mediterranean Spa Scrub.  These all have come together in a delicious Mediterranean Spa Collection that’s waiting for you to create a relaxing spa retreat in your own bathroom.

First, pour yourself something to drink.  While wine is relaxing, water does a body good.  This is your spa experience, though, so savor whatever you wish.  Perhaps an array of candles bathing your bathroom in golden light, their flames dancing to some soothing nature-inspired music, would be next.  Sprinkle about one-fourth of a tube of Mediterranean Spa Salts in your warm bath water before sinking to your chin in the warm, scented bliss.  Feel your worries start to fade away as you settle back and lose yourself in a good book.

Set your book aside and pick up the Spa Bar.  Take a moment to feel its heft; each bar weighs a solid six ounces.  Take a moment to bring it up to your nose and savor its scent.  (I’ll confess, I do this to every bar of soap, every bath.  It’s all part of the experience.)  Now rub it on your washcloth or sponge and wash your skin with it, enjoying how it moisturizes you.

Once you’ve dunked yourself to rinse all the soap off, grab the jar of Mediterranean Spa Scrubs and rub the scrub on your skin, paying special attention to those extra dry areas.  In this step, you’re removing that outer layer of dull, dead skin and richly nourishing the layers underneath with a deep moisture treatment that keeps going and going, leaving your nice, soft skin lightly scented for several hours (I still have a remnant of scent on my skin from my scrub treatment this morning, and that was over 12 hours ago!)

Rinse the salt off your skin and finish your soak.  Will you start to nod off over your book?  It might be time to step out of the tub, gently wrap your towel around you to get rid of the extra water while leaving the great remnants of olive butter from the scrub on you.  Now it’s time to crawl into bed, to sleep, perchance to dream.

Flip flops.  Soaps.  Jesus.  Motorcycles.  These four things don’t seem like they’d go together in any way, shape, form or fashion, yet I’m going to show you how they do, in fact, go together perfectly.

A few years ago, I introduced these adorable flip flop soaps, and they sold like hotcakes!  One of my soap buds said, “You could say people are flipping for your flops!”  Each bar is a hefty 5 3/4 ounces of luscious fragrance.  Two of the ones from my line are scented with exclusive scent blends I created just for these soaps.  The other two in my product line are Sexy & Sassy, a duplicate of Victoria’s Secret Sexy Little Things fragrance, and Blueberry Festival, a very true blueberry scent.  My daughter’s product line also includes flip flop soaps that you can choose.

So, there’s the soap and flip flops angle, but what about Jesus and motorcycles?  For thirty years, my dad has been an active member of Christian Motorcyclist Association (www.cmausa.org).  This ministry shares the love of Jesus Christ with members of the biker community – everyone from the Sunday afternoon bikers who enjoy their leisurely rides for the pure pleasure of doing it (and it’s FUN!) to the hard-core bikers whose lifestyles are marked by less-than-legal recreational pursuits.  For the men and women around the world who are in CMA, all they see is that every one of these people is a person who God loves and with whom God wants to be in relationship.  They go to bike rallies, swap meets, poker runs, biker bars and Rolling Thunder in D.C. on Memorial Day weekend.  I’ll repeat:  God loves all these bikers and wants to be in relationship with them, just like he wants to be in relationship with all of us.  Isn’t that good news?!  The members of CMA share this good news.

Every May, the first Saturday in May, is the Run for the Son, a 100-mile sponsored motorcycle ride.  If you Flip for my Flops, then you can also help me as Dad Runs for the Son.  From now until 30 April, the net proceeds from the sales of these Flip Flop soaps will go to sponsor Dad’s Run, and those funds go directly to ministering to primarily bikers, but to others as well.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and I saw that 100 years ago, Susan B. Anthony marched for women’s right to vote.  She voted in the 1872 election when it was illegal for her to do so – and was arrested for it.  She was a very badly behaved woman, and her face graces a U.S. coin and her name lives on in history.

Susan’s friend Elizabeth Stanton Cody advocated for fair and equal employment opportunities for women, again, not particularly popular with her male contemporaries.  Yet, in a rather dated high-school U.S. History book I have and refer to during my homeschool lessons, these two women who did so much for women today get the merest breath of a mention.

Sojourner Truth gets a bit more of a mention, with about half a page dedicated to her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech.  If you’ve never read it, I encourage you to do so.  It’s powerful, laying to rest any notions that women are inferior because of our gender.  In fact, my favorite part of that speech is when she points out that men had nothing to do with the conception of Jesus Christ – it was God and a woman.  Obviously, this speech by a woman – a Black woman at that – unsettled her male contemporaries and made this bristle.

I proudly follow these women.  I don’t have to have my name in the history books; in fact, I’m quite sure I won’t.  I am a woman who has born two children, earned two graduate degrees and has started her own business.  The children I’m raising – both girls – are growing in faith and knowledge, and are learning that they can do and be anything in the world they want.  This is my legacy – behaving poorly and raising two future women who hopefully will behave poorly, too.

What women in history – either your own personal history or the larger scale of world history – have inspired you to greatness through their own “poor” behavior?

With all the unrest recently in the Middle East as citizens of various countries are protesting their governments and fighting for democracy – even going so far as to risk their lives in many cases – I’ve thought about how good we have it here in America.  Our time of fighting for our freedoms and democracy has passed.  As I hear reports of so many people who not only have not had the democracy we take for granted, but who have also been living in abject poverty, I start comparing our problems in the First World to their problems in the Third World.  Let’s look at First World problems first:

• Can’t find the TV remote
• Lock keys in car
• Computer crashes
• Have to clean out the refrigerator
• Air conditioning runs out of freon on the hottest day of the year

Now let’s look at some of those problems the Third World faces:

• Debilitating illness because of diseases
• No food to eat
• No clean water to drink
• Child dies of starvation
• Living in daily fear of nation’s military

Looking at these Third World problems can make our “huge problems” feel quite manageable and certainly not like it’s going to be the end of the world.  We could have eaten that food we just threw out when we cleaned the fridge.  We can go to the doctor when we’re sick.  Government programs ensure our children will have food, even if we can’t afford to pay for it ourselves.  Our military fights for us, not against us.

One company is making a huge difference to combat some of these Third World Problems.  Clean The World is an Orlando, FL – based company that’s working hard to reduce the number of deaths caused by cholera and diarrheal diseases.  It’s all in how you wash your hands.  Clean The World collects bars of soap to distribute in Third World countries; they also collect scraps of soaps and rebatch them into small bars of soap.  I’ve got a few bags of scraps that are slated for this mission, with big plans on the horizon that I’ll share as it gets closer to the time.

Do you want to help this fabulous organization?  The biggest help you can give them right now is to text “clean” to 20222 to donate $10.  Your money will provide soaps for 35 children for a month.

What are some First World problems you encounter, and how does thinking about very real Third World problems help you put them into perspective?