Year: 2019

Posted on by

New Labels and New Packing Material

First off, we have pretty much done away with our old paper labels that we once banded the soaps with. We have transitioned to a much smarter looking glassine (wax paper) bag that is individually labeled for each soap. These are good for multiple reasons and have been very well received.

Also, in December of this year we began packing all of our orders with shredded cardboard instead of packing peanuts. I may have missed one, but I don’t think so.

For those who don’t know, I have been huge into composting the last few years, turning just about every shred of paper or cardboard I can into dirt — even requesting material from others. The amount of trash and recycle I create in a month is incredibly low, especially since I try to buy whole foods in bulk, make most of what I eat from scratch, have access each year to two bountiful gardens, drink a lot of plain water (from a well), and try to reuse glass jars as much as I can. Okay, so I’m into all this.

What was exciting though was to hear one of our customers say that they LOVED the new packing material. She said that it was going straight to her flower garden. Yes!

The simple things that excite…. love it.
❤️

John

Posted on by

Balm No.3 Now Available!

I am not calling it a night until I finally get our Balm No.3 listed on the website. We purposely chose to not just call it Lip Balm because even though it is great on lips it is simply an all around great balm for anywhere.

It is made with shea butter, macadamia nut oil, beeswax, and jojoba with a few drops of vitamin E. As I have said here before, I usually put a few drops of essential oil in each batch too. Last time I used Lemon and Bergamot. I always say I am probably not going to add the essential oils again in the next batch, and then each time at least one or two people tell me they like that I scent or “flavor” them.

A young friend of mine called me a couple days ago to say that she had received one of our Balms in her Christmas stocking. She is a lip balm aficionada, she said, and this balm was fabulous. The best ever. Her favorite lip balm before this had been an expensive one made by some company in New York, and she was almost out. I love hearing stuff like this, that people really can tell the difference when choice ingredients are used.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I am done testing these. They are poured in a ‘large’ tube that is 3-4 times the size of a regular lip balm. It holds about one half ounce. You may look for them on the site anytime after tonight. At $4.99 each they are a bargain… even if the labels still look kind of homemade.

John

Posted on by

Alma-Clean in Square Bottles – Wow!

Square Bottles – Wow! – Yes, that’s meant to be humor.

We had such good sales of Alma-Clean this season that we ran through all one hundred of our 8 fluid ounce round bottles. Admittedly, that is a good problem to have. We had another hundred square bottles however, so we modified our labels to work on them until we get more round bottles in-stock. Same stuff, same size, just a different bottle. I can’t imagine anyone really cares one way or the other, but if you do have a preference I would be curious to know.

We did take the opportunity to note on the side of the “new” label that Alma-Clean is great for freshening scarves and knit caps – just a capful in a sink of cool water is all it takes. Soak, rinse, and hang to dry.

I love winter because I get to wear all the nice scarves I have, but they inevitably need a good freshening, even for a soapman.

Thank you all for your business this year!

John, still in Minnesota

Oh, and yes, I take all the photos here, including the bad staging. You are all kind to never make fun of it… although you can if you want! I make fun of everything!

Posted on by

Bath Salts Added to Store!

We now have Bath Salts listed on the website. I made a dozen versions or so in the beginning, testing regular sea salt, Dead Sea salt, and even Epsom salts. We finally settled on No.3, with Lavender oil, and that is what is listed. No.3 uses regular sea salt.

There is also a fresh batch made of our famous “Balm No.3” (the lip balm I make in the large tubes). Labeled for the first time, I still haven’t gotten it listed on the site yet. I never really knew what to sell it for so I usually just gave it as gifts. What makes it so good is that it’s made with shea butter, macadamia nut oil, beeswax, and jojoba, with a few drops of vitamin E. I usually put a few drops of essential oil in it too. This time I used some lemon and bergamot, although I may not add any at all next time.

I received some nice compliments recently regarding the lotions we continued to make through last year, and wondering if they were still available. They were excellent lotions, I thought, and a lot of research went into them. I never understood why they were not a bigger hit, except that I think lotion must be a pretty personal thing. Then again, you may be saying that this is the first you have heard of them. I’ll tell you more about them in a coming post, and need to get these too added to the website. Labels are now made.

All present orders should be filled and on their way by tomorrow and we will be caught up for the first time in a while. I have really appreciated the orders… Thank you. ❤️

More to come…
John

Posted on by

Alma-Clean Now Offered in Thieves Blend!

When doing our original formulating and testing of Alma-Clean in 2018, our own Thieves blend (formula #4) was one of the original scents that went out. It tested well, but in the interest of keeping things simple I chose to offer Alma-Clean initially in two choices: Original Tea Tree, and Basil & Thyme. Both are about equally popular, even if most customers have a definite preference for one or the other.

While taking orders this season however I had some unexpected queries of, “What happened to the Thieves?” In truth I had some on the shelf that I had held back for special requests, and we had all the oils necessary to make more. So we generated a “Thieves Blend” label, got some bottled, and were pleased to fill these orders.

Alma-Clean Thieves Blend – has now officially been listed for sale as well. Ho ho ho!

Thank you for your business, and Merry Christmas!

John

Posted on by

Holiday Update – 7 December 2019

Another Facebook post from last week…

I have a friend who stays constantly angry at me that I don’t keep my posts here up-to-date. And for good reason. It’s really bad manners!

I poured soaps again all day today. I continue to update the online store, post new inventory, and new images. Will start getting some backed up orders out next week too.

I have a new Peppermint soap with bentonite clay that is really cool. It’s gorgeous, and it smells great!

I got the scent worked out on the Hemp soap, so those bars are good to go. They really look cool, and they’re good soap.

Many of our bars are larger this year, and/or the prices have come down. I have kind of been going against the grain of what some believe is the trend and have actually been working on lowering our prices – not raising them.

I added a new bar to the line-up, Playful Plum. I hope you will like it. It’s a pretty bar. It’s colored with ground madder root, something that has been used for millennia to achieve a gorgeous burgundy color in fabrics. I try to mostly use natural colorants.

I worked on a special bar for an old friend to go along with his product line and the pour turned out to be a disaster – laugh! Will have to revisit that one.

We have continued to add regular customers for the Alma-Clean, our highly effective laundry booster and all natural disinfectant, and I am really thankful for that. We have plenty labeled and ready to go.

Oh, I made like 40-50 lbs of lavender bath salts too, although I haven’t gotten them posted to the site yet. I have been making them forever but thought there wasn’t any interest in them until recently. Almost no one bathes anymore!

Running late to be somewhere… as usual!
❤️

John

Posted on by

Random Thoughts on a Weekend

This was posted to Facebook on 11/24 – I have been terrible about keeping our own actual blog updated… and I have no shortage of things to say!

We took part in a great show yesterday and I was very pleased to be invited. I hope to see again many of the friends I made there. I give special thanks to our great hostess Shelly who is so much fun to be around, and to my close friend and sister Jennifer who was essential in making all this happen.

A few quick thoughts…
Those of you who know me well know that reflect on things a lot. One of the things I know is that I fail to toot our own horn very loud or even very often, generally leaving that to others. It’s certainly not bragging to say so (laugh) – and it is not particularly conducive to growing a thriving business. I do however recognize it as one of my own deficits. In past businesses in past years I compensated by hiring people who made up for this.

A decision to grow a business is based on many things. Does one who performs accounting work, for example, choose to rent an office and hire a secretary, or just work from home and stay small, but still be able to take vacations when they want?

Alma Soap, started on a Wisconsin farm for something to get through the long winters, has kind of been in this predicament. We (mostly me) love making soap, combining scents, making salves, lip balms, lotions, laundry boosters, bath salts, and even candles on occasion – and have actually spent quite a lot of money on all the stuff with which to do this. Still the question lingers: Do we get serious, or just kind of stay where we are?

Well, I am running late to be somewhere tonight, and am sorry to leave this hanging. I wanted however to post something here to let you all know that we are still alive and trying to finish getting soaps poured like crazy for the holidays (yes, I know, we do this every year). I will update you more soon, as well as trying to finish my previous thoughts!

❤️

Love to all…
John

Posted on by

Thoughts on Secure Passwords

This is taken from our original Account creation page which we updated today…

Please note that you are not required to create an account to purchase from this site. You will always be able to do so as a guest. Creating an account does allow you to save your billing and/or shipping address(es), review past purchases online, and leave comments or reviews.

19 February 2019 update…
We have changed the account creation process to automatically use your email address as your username and to automatically generate a password. This should not affect existing accounts, but should simplify things for new ones.

I want to interject a personal note here that when the site was first setup I grappled with whether I should allow passwords like “abc123” or not (which is essentially no password at all). In all reality who wants to hack into your soap account? I chose to enforce good practices here even if it seemed a little overkill.

I have now deleted the following from the My Account page, but post it here because I had fun writing it originally, and still believe it is good food for thought.

— John

Some ideas for creating a strong password (don’t worry, you will always be able to change it later)…

  • a favorite place, perhaps with the zip code
  • a special phone number, with a name added
  • a child’s name with a birthday
  • street address of a place you once lived, with city and state
  • your maternal grandmother’s full name
  • a phrase that you really like and will remember
  • words in a foreign language

Hints: The more letters or numbers the better, use spaces; special characters get extra points, misspelled words rank high. Think more in terms of passphrase than password… and, be sure to record it somewhere!

Here is a fun site for checking the strength of your password: How Secure Is My Password?

Creating a strong password/passphrase makes the site more secure for everyone (for real). Thank you for your help!