spending more money I can't really afford
Like most any hobby, dickering around with (as brynwulf so aptly called my Lotions & Potions) alchemy - which sounds so much more grand - can get expensive. I mean, the basics don't have to be expensive. You can make a very basic lotion with water, oil and an emulsifier but where's the fun in that? Technically you don't even have to have a preservative to create a lotion but you're daft if you leave it out. And I've said this before but you need a proper broad spectrum preservative. Things like vitamin E, grapefruit seed extract and rosemary extract can be lovely ingredients and they're great antioxidants that will extend the life of your oils and keep them from going rancid but they're not preservatives.
Anyway, once you learn the basics you have to start expanding like any interest. Yes, you can come up with slightly different lotions and creams by expanding your choice in oils but that's still just the tip of the iceberg. There's a variety of different hydrosols (by product of steam distillation of essential oils), aloe vera, witch hazel, etc. to replace part of the water. There are botanical extracts, both powdered and liquid, to tailor the product to specific needs like chamomile and calendula as anti-inflammatories and anti-aging and cucumber for oily skin. There are tons of other additives for mildness and protection and moisturizing. There's a plethora of what have been coined as 'cosmesceuticals' for extra touches. Then you get into a little more of the 'chemistry' of the more 'manufactured' side of the ingredients like esters. And that doesn't even touch on the cost of packaging and labeling and samples, etc.
Right now when I'm selling my products I don't think in terms of getting paid for my time, I think of the money as paying for my hobby, which it does to a certain extent. The money I've made in the past few months has more than paid for the ingredients I've used but not for what I've bought.
I've just put in another order for a company called Wholesale Supplies Plus. They don't have a minimum but if your order is at least $40 you don't pay shipping. They do tack on $5 for 'handling' but they'd do that whether you pay for shipping or not. And then they automatically round up your purchase to the nearest dollar as a donation for autism which you can delete if you want but you feel a total bastard to say you won't give 35 cents for autism. But they do other nice things. Depending on your status - bronze, silver, gold or platinum - you get a certain amount of 'coupons' every month and there's always at least one that includes a freebie and then others that take off anywhere from 10-50%. This month's bronze freebie was a 2 oz bottle of lavender vanilla fragrance oil. And you can earn extra coupons by reviewing products (which I need to do). I doubt I'll ever be above bronze level because silver means spending at least $500 a year, gold is $3000 and platinum is $10,000! I like this company for their inexpensive packaging. This little 50 ml red plastic jar is the perfect size for my Moisturizing Facial Gel and I just bought 50 of them for $4.95. It helps that they include the lid with the jar because they don't on any of the others. Like this 4 oz jar that I'll use for my creams and sugar scrubs instead of the small canning jars I have been using. (They're about the same price but this jar will look more professional and be lighter to mail.) It takes a very specific size lid that fits nothing else in their stock yet they remove the lid and sell it separately from the jar. But then I've found most places do the same thing.
Tomorrow is mad chemist day! I have another order for a jar each of the facial gel, the new peppermint foot balm and the original green goop Ballerina Butter. The lady buying another jar of the green goop likes to use it on her face and she's getting a jar for her mother-in-law. She calls me her 'pusher' and wants to know what happens if I leave Lowes. I assured her that I'll make sure she has my phone number and that I'll be glad to meet her with deliveries. Oh, I also want to work on my lip balm recipe. I don't have it quite right.
I ordered some business card stock I can use in my printer for basic cards. I've downloaded the template so I'll start working on something simple. Hmmm, I wonder if I should try and come up with a 'company name'. What do you think? I jokingly call what I do 'lotions & potions' but does that sound too hokey? I've never really given it much thought. Anyone have any ideas what I should have on the card other than my name, phone number and email? What can I add so that it becomes apparent what products I sell? Gah! I hate the business side of things which is another reason I'll probably never actually make it into a business. Besides the fact that the market is fairly flooded with cottage industry lotion makers.
Next week will be pretty busy because the lady who does the bulk of the pricing will have an extended Memorial Day mini-vacation and then that next weekend I'll only have Sat because I'm scheduled to work on Sunday. I do hate having only 1 day off at a time instead of 2 together but to get the hours I must. This is the first day of a 3-day weekend, the first I've had in a couple of months. Besides cleaning the kitchen I've just slothed around on the couch and re-watched S4 of Downton Abbey. Speaking of 'weekends' it reminds me that in S1 Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess of Grantham (I adore her!) responds bemusedly to another character's reference to 'the weekend' with 'what is a weekend?'. I knew that the concept of 2 days of rest out of the week is a relatively new idea but I did a little research and found out it's much more recent than I realized. Like the 1940s in the US before it really became even somewhat commonplace. What the hell did I ever do without the internet? Oh yeah, a huge ass honking set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a lot of trips to the library. Younger people have no idea how easy they have it in some ways. But of course things are a lot harder and much more complicated in many ways, too.
We had quite the storm blow in yesterday evening and I realized not too long ago that I lost a pot off the balcony railing - the big yellow plastic one with my old Italian parsley plant in it. I hated losing the plant and pot (it shattered) but the plant was getting rather long in the tooth. I believe this was this was it's third year and it spent most of it's time trying to bolt into flowering. So I'll have to get another one. The rest of the garden is doing quite well. I have tiny little tomatoes and I already have blossoms on one of the Dirani squash plants. I don't know if I need to hand pollinate the squash the way I do the cucumbers but I will just to be on the safe side. In another couple of weeks when everything is a little more established I'll post more pics.
And I saw my first hummingbird of the season yesterday before the storm. No Northern orioles so far this year but the Downy woodpeckers certainly do enjoy the nectar. I tried looking online to see if woodpeckers routinely visit nectar feeders to find several other people asking the same thing. It seems that 'yes, they do!'
Well, another storm is rolling in. It's 3 pm and looks like it's 8 pm and I've been hearing thunder for awhile. I better make sure there are no more pots in danger of taking a dive and close the bedroom window.
This entry was originally posted at http://ixchel55.dreamwidth.org/355995.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Anyway, once you learn the basics you have to start expanding like any interest. Yes, you can come up with slightly different lotions and creams by expanding your choice in oils but that's still just the tip of the iceberg. There's a variety of different hydrosols (by product of steam distillation of essential oils), aloe vera, witch hazel, etc. to replace part of the water. There are botanical extracts, both powdered and liquid, to tailor the product to specific needs like chamomile and calendula as anti-inflammatories and anti-aging and cucumber for oily skin. There are tons of other additives for mildness and protection and moisturizing. There's a plethora of what have been coined as 'cosmesceuticals' for extra touches. Then you get into a little more of the 'chemistry' of the more 'manufactured' side of the ingredients like esters. And that doesn't even touch on the cost of packaging and labeling and samples, etc.
Right now when I'm selling my products I don't think in terms of getting paid for my time, I think of the money as paying for my hobby, which it does to a certain extent. The money I've made in the past few months has more than paid for the ingredients I've used but not for what I've bought.
I've just put in another order for a company called Wholesale Supplies Plus. They don't have a minimum but if your order is at least $40 you don't pay shipping. They do tack on $5 for 'handling' but they'd do that whether you pay for shipping or not. And then they automatically round up your purchase to the nearest dollar as a donation for autism which you can delete if you want but you feel a total bastard to say you won't give 35 cents for autism. But they do other nice things. Depending on your status - bronze, silver, gold or platinum - you get a certain amount of 'coupons' every month and there's always at least one that includes a freebie and then others that take off anywhere from 10-50%. This month's bronze freebie was a 2 oz bottle of lavender vanilla fragrance oil. And you can earn extra coupons by reviewing products (which I need to do). I doubt I'll ever be above bronze level because silver means spending at least $500 a year, gold is $3000 and platinum is $10,000! I like this company for their inexpensive packaging. This little 50 ml red plastic jar is the perfect size for my Moisturizing Facial Gel and I just bought 50 of them for $4.95. It helps that they include the lid with the jar because they don't on any of the others. Like this 4 oz jar that I'll use for my creams and sugar scrubs instead of the small canning jars I have been using. (They're about the same price but this jar will look more professional and be lighter to mail.) It takes a very specific size lid that fits nothing else in their stock yet they remove the lid and sell it separately from the jar. But then I've found most places do the same thing.
Tomorrow is mad chemist day! I have another order for a jar each of the facial gel, the new peppermint foot balm and the original green goop Ballerina Butter. The lady buying another jar of the green goop likes to use it on her face and she's getting a jar for her mother-in-law. She calls me her 'pusher' and wants to know what happens if I leave Lowes. I assured her that I'll make sure she has my phone number and that I'll be glad to meet her with deliveries. Oh, I also want to work on my lip balm recipe. I don't have it quite right.
I ordered some business card stock I can use in my printer for basic cards. I've downloaded the template so I'll start working on something simple. Hmmm, I wonder if I should try and come up with a 'company name'. What do you think? I jokingly call what I do 'lotions & potions' but does that sound too hokey? I've never really given it much thought. Anyone have any ideas what I should have on the card other than my name, phone number and email? What can I add so that it becomes apparent what products I sell? Gah! I hate the business side of things which is another reason I'll probably never actually make it into a business. Besides the fact that the market is fairly flooded with cottage industry lotion makers.
Next week will be pretty busy because the lady who does the bulk of the pricing will have an extended Memorial Day mini-vacation and then that next weekend I'll only have Sat because I'm scheduled to work on Sunday. I do hate having only 1 day off at a time instead of 2 together but to get the hours I must. This is the first day of a 3-day weekend, the first I've had in a couple of months. Besides cleaning the kitchen I've just slothed around on the couch and re-watched S4 of Downton Abbey. Speaking of 'weekends' it reminds me that in S1 Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess of Grantham (I adore her!) responds bemusedly to another character's reference to 'the weekend' with 'what is a weekend?'. I knew that the concept of 2 days of rest out of the week is a relatively new idea but I did a little research and found out it's much more recent than I realized. Like the 1940s in the US before it really became even somewhat commonplace. What the hell did I ever do without the internet? Oh yeah, a huge ass honking set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a lot of trips to the library. Younger people have no idea how easy they have it in some ways. But of course things are a lot harder and much more complicated in many ways, too.
We had quite the storm blow in yesterday evening and I realized not too long ago that I lost a pot off the balcony railing - the big yellow plastic one with my old Italian parsley plant in it. I hated losing the plant and pot (it shattered) but the plant was getting rather long in the tooth. I believe this was this was it's third year and it spent most of it's time trying to bolt into flowering. So I'll have to get another one. The rest of the garden is doing quite well. I have tiny little tomatoes and I already have blossoms on one of the Dirani squash plants. I don't know if I need to hand pollinate the squash the way I do the cucumbers but I will just to be on the safe side. In another couple of weeks when everything is a little more established I'll post more pics.
And I saw my first hummingbird of the season yesterday before the storm. No Northern orioles so far this year but the Downy woodpeckers certainly do enjoy the nectar. I tried looking online to see if woodpeckers routinely visit nectar feeders to find several other people asking the same thing. It seems that 'yes, they do!'
Well, another storm is rolling in. It's 3 pm and looks like it's 8 pm and I've been hearing thunder for awhile. I better make sure there are no more pots in danger of taking a dive and close the bedroom window.
This entry was originally posted at http://ixchel55.dreamwidth.org/355995.html. Please comment there using OpenID.