Sunday 29 January 2012

Whole Lemon

My first experiment using a whole lemon... blended up into the liquid portion of the soap... peel and all!


I wonder what it will do to the ph?


Fresh lemony EO blend of Lemon, Lemongrass and May Chang

Favourite quote of the day:
Do what you love - Love what you do!

Happy Soaping Everyone!!
xoxo
Jen

Saturday 21 January 2012

Failed customer service opportunity

(... and some random photos)
 I love feedback, especially when it is positive.  Negative feedback usually makes me feel uncomfortable at first but it can be a great opportunity to improve something that isn’t quite right.  I wish I got my reaction right every time… but I’m still learning.

I remember back to that majorly failed opportunity I had…
A lady came up to my stall at a market a few months ago and said, “Wonderful soap! I bought some from you at a Medieval market…”  she hesitated.  She was English and as they are often so polite I think it can be extra difficult for the English to offer negative feedback.  She got up the courage to mention to me that although she loved the soap, she didn’t like the size of the small soap she bought (my half-size bar).  She offered the suggestion of making them round.

Bingo!  Opportunity to:
-          thank her for providing her honest feedback
-          say Great Idea, I think I will try your suggestion!
-          offer her a larger bar for free to try out and see if she liked that size
-          possibly win over a return customer…
But NOOOOOO!  What did I do?  I am embarrassed to admit it… Okay, I did thank her for offering her opinion. At least I got one thing right.  But then… oh yes… I got into a defensive bit about why I prefer rectangular soap!  Why oh why!!!???   Basically she got away.  Probably won’t come back.
The funny thing is also that she was ABSOLUTELY right!  Although I worked very hard to get my regular size bar to a size that I love, I had never fully tried out my own half-size bar.  I have now and I don’t like it!  It is nice and small but too thick to get any rotation.  I would have to slice that in half to make it thinner or just scrap the half-size bar altogether.  For now I have scrapped it.
(my new shampoo bar shape)

So, for me, the moral of my story is that I should listen more carefully to customers’ feedback, especially when negative, and get my response right the first time because I can’t do it over.

Anyone have any customer service experiences they want to share?
Xo
Jen
PS.  I want to send out a huge CONGRATULATIONS!!! to my 15-year-old cousin Ronnie Remme who just won a silver medal this week for Canada in downhill skiing at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria!  Go Ronnie Go!!  Her father (my first cousin) was my ski coach for a season or two, many years ago, but I wasn’t very good at racing.  We are all pretty excited about Ronnie!










Wednesday 18 January 2012

More Potpourri...

I love playing around with my potpourri soap... and each batch looks so different. 
 The set things are that it is a goat milk soap and the scent combo is Lavender, Lemongrass, Fennel and Ylang Ylang, which I love...


Monday 16 January 2012

Goat Milk & Activated Charcoal


This is a repeat, at a customers request... she loved this bar for her adolescent skin... and I really enjoyed flinging soap with the spoon swirl tecnique!


with Spearmint & Patchouli Essential Oils

Happy Soaping!!
xo
Jen


Friday 13 January 2012

Orange Season


Orange season here starts in December and is still on! Oh yeah... freshly squeezed local orange juice every day until we get sick of it and then we wait until next December to get sick of it all over again!
We don't usually buy the oranges, they get given to us by locals by the crate.


As you can see, we have almost finished the oranges in this crate!   These wonderfully juicy local oranges are also the oranges I use for the grated peels that go into my Orange Poppyseed Soap and Scrub.


It takes about 3 to 4 oranges for a full glass of juice and before I juice them, I wash them, dry them, then grate the peels off.
Here are some of the peels drying at different stages.

It is also currently mandarin season, lemon season and olive oil season (the olives are usually gathered throughout December).  Pomegranate season just finished.  Almond season is coming up, then watermelon and lavender season. We recently got given local sweet onions and garlic as well. We seem to get fresh local tomatoes (my favourite food of all time…) all year long.  I think if I had to choose 2 foods that I couldn’t live without it would be tomatoes and cheese.
There are definite benefits to living in an agricultural area!!
Hope you all have a week filled with passion and inspiration!!
Happy Soaping!
xoxo
Jen

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Kinky Witch Soap


The lovely Robin from Kinky Witch Soap http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kinky-Witch-Soap/202950419725552 participated in my Olive Oil experiment and as a surprise sent me a gift of some awesome soap she makes and a dreamy lip balm (not included in the photo as I believe my daughter has hidden it on me... we both love it!).

Not only does this soap look good and smell wonderful... This ROCK HARD bar produces AWESOME, sudden & lasting, big, fluffy, abundant suds. I find this bar rather addicting as well as the tasty, moisturizing lip balm...



Thank you so much Robin for the amazing gift!!

I only have one piece of advice I could offer you...
GET A BLOG!!!

xoxo
Jen

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Be Careful...


when playing with water discounts and reductions... that you don't go too low!

Broke the soap cutter with this one...

Oh well, this one will be grated for laundry soap.

Happy Soaping everyone!!
xoxo
Jen