Soap for BEADS
I recevied the best phone call today from Debby Rooney, who is the founder of Beads For Education. She is over in Kenya finishing up with the 2007 Break the Chains of Illiteracy 100 mile Walkathon. I planned to leave myself this year to go, but family and work took over…..I’m scheduled to go over to Kenya next year. BEADS is one of the non-profit organizations that I support – actually a percentage of all of Botanical Earth’s sales goes towards charity works. You might have seen the hand beaded baskets that are made by the women of the Dupoto Womens Group that Botanical Earth offers. The baskets are beautiful and new colors for spring should be arriving shortly! If you go to the BEADS site, they offer all sorts of hand beaded items for sale.
For this trip over, we sent over some 50 pounds of our soap for the girls and mothers to enjoy. Ms. Rooney sent me the picture of the ladies in their beautiful native dresses and then some of the girls. Later in the month, I will post my letter from Farja, who is the young girl (age 9) that Botanical Earth helps sponsors through school. It’s a long term commitment, but one that I don’t ever question.
I have to thank our customer, Alice Eberhard for getting us involved. She has done the walk for the last 2 years – go Alice! When she mentioned she worked with BEADS would take any donations of soap, I was more than willing to help. As a child I grew up in the Middle East and on holiday we would go to Kenya. It is the only place that I would cry when I had to leave – I love the Amboseli area in particular. So to know that I could do something as a business too regarding helping girls in Kenya was an honor. I had friends from Kenya in grade school and college, but all but one has died from the civil unrest throughout the years.
So for now, Botanical Earth sponsors Farja through school close to her home, and will assist her through college if she chooses. Hopefully, as the business grows, we can sponsor more girls, and the girls in turn will educate their own people on environmental issues, humanitarian rights and AIDS education. If you want to read more on all the happenings at BEADs and to see some great pictures, including Alice’s – go to http://www.beadsforeducation.org/
Coupons o’plenty
I just received the new round of Totally Indie Coupons. Now until we run out, every order will receive a packet of 40 different independent (indie) designer discounts. I’ve participated in the past and customers really enjoyed finding new shops – everything from clothes, stationary, jewerly and yes, even other body care businesses. The discounts run from free shipping, 10-20% off or a few free gifts with purchase.
It’s a great co-op marketing for small businesses like Botanical Earth. Lindsay Landis over at Lindsay Designs puts it all together for everyone. Besides running TotallyIndieCoupons.com, she also has a fantastic website where she creates unique acessories for people and pets. I love her fabric dog collars….but back to the coupons!
So who are the designers in the coupon pack you’ll receive when you purchase from Botanical Earth? You can find a list at the Totally Indie Coupon site by following this link http://www.totallyindiecoupons.com/ti5a.html. I can tell you there is a 20% off Botanical Earth coupon in the mix too!!
Shopping Frenzy
We will close for Winter Solstice Dec. 22 and then open again on the 26th of December. I thought I would add some extra drama to the already busy time of year – by offering same day shipping if orders are placed by 1pm Central time! The week after Christmas is always our busiest – I think people receive gifts from others they had not planned on and then buy a gift…..ok, I have fallen in that trap myself, so no moralizing.
The Lavender Herbal Gift baskets are our top sellers so far this holiday season. The unscented soap gift sets at just $15 have really done well too plus we have sold out of the Men’s Trio of soaps! So I figured why not try to give Jackie and I a goal of 1pm….we can handle stress being the queens of aromatherapy..there’s a full bottle of Ylang Ylang and Jasmine in the cabinet if I need to take a sniff.
If you have a question about delivery times, just email us or if you need something special call or email. Happy Holidays!
In the Kansas City area?
Love to shop, love indie designers and live in the Overland Park, Kansas area? Well, check out Haute Market’s September 28th Fashion Roundup on Thursday night. We sent in 80 of our Mint and Hemp Lip Balms for the event, so if you sign up early, you might just end up with one of our sample packs in your Swag bag of goodies.
You can still pick up tickets for the show by stopping by Jennylous….and if your’e not careful you might end up with a few more things from her great collection!
All Things about All Things Organic
So, going without the thought of selling was much better. There were many first time vendors there and I found so many new organic products that Botanical Earth may be carrying in the future! One of my favorite stops was the SimpleFood.com booth. My goal is to have Botanical Earth offer organic foods besides just bodycare and pet products. When I met the people behind this fun, vegan friendly business, I knew this was a company my customers would love! They create the MOST yummy soynut spread butters – peanut & tree nut free – gluten free – vegan – kosher butters. My favorite was the Cinnamon Sugar – you have to check out their site.
One of the most distrubing aspects of the show, but as a business I can see the logic (but just don’t agree with it) was the sales pitch of some of the organic producers. One booth had the most amazing organic garlic I have ever seen – huge monster garlic! The problem for me was, the first thing out of the guy’s mouth was “And you can compete with domestic farm garlic with this organic garlic” price wise. The reason? It came from China where the labor is dramatically different – so after growing it and shipping half way across the world, I could sell certified organic garlic for less or equal to what a local, non-certified organic (and probably even organic certified) US farmers would sell theirs for. That’s just not what organic is about to me, but I can understand the reason why some stores will buy it – it’s bottom line. Organics are hot because people are boombarded with toxic scares all the time, and are told organics are the only way to go. I personally think organics are great, but buying naturally grown (not necessarily organic) regionally, or even in the same hemishpere, grown produce is better. Maybe next time you go to the store, besides looking for the “Organic” label, look for where the product was grown and see if you have options – by spending a few pennies more, you may be able to support a US farmer with organics.
So where are all the pictures of this show you ask? Well, when you take your best friend who is an incredible multi-media artisan, and an amazing cook also to a trade show like this, with the likes of the Fancy Foods show upstairs and the All Things Organic show downstairs offering incredible snacks…..accidents tend to happen……did I mention the organic wine at the show was quite tasty? The camera ended up with some wonderful South American organic coffee and a bit of organic jasmine tea all over it by the time we left – so no pictures except for one I found to torment Michael with……that’s what friends are for right?
Welcome to the blog!
I never imagined that by simply making soap, I was going to have to learn the ways of the web – but Botanical Earth is taking the step forward into the wonderful world of blogging.
Hopefully this site will to answer questions, let everyone know in a easier format than a bombardment of newsletters (I dislike writing sale ads!) about events, sales and upcoming new products.
There’s not much to look at right now – but it is laid out in my head so stop back in a bit and see what’s new.
Thanks for looking,
Debra
