Thursday, December 13, 2012

A bar of soap is only as good as it smells


Today, My Husband Dan, sent me a very inspiring video that basically defines why businesses succeed and why others don’t. The questions presented are why do I do what I do? Or better yet why make soap at all? Or why teach it to other people? So I thought for a moment, thinking it’s going pretty good maybe I am doing the right things? Otherwise I would have been out of business already—right? Well we know where that came from… Let’s just say I have a healthy dose of EGO. Maybe my German Puerto Rican roots are showing now? Hmmmm..

Anyway, back to those hard to answer questions, I had to think back to when this all started.  It was the early 90’s in my 20’s when I flew for Delta Airlines and had numerous layovers in Brighton England. There I discovered a little shop called “The Body Shop” everybody knows them now because they raced across the pond to open up a shop in every mall in America.  The main reason I loved their shop was the aroma streaming through the English glass doors that grabbed by my nose and dragged me in.  Then once you are in—you are completely inundated with the why.  Let me explain, the Body Shop International is designed around their need to educate the public on why you should be purchasing FREE TRADE products that come directly from the source harvested in such a way to protect and encourage the communities they came from.  Inspiring right?  I bought from them because I enjoyed the natural smelling products with ingredients that were good for my skin. Needless to say, I probably built a few stores here in America.  Good times!

Which brings me back to what motivated me in the first place to start making soap?  Since early on in my childhood I knew I was different, I found out that scent would either:  give me a headache, make me dizzy or make me feel good.  So I set out for the “Feel Good” part.  Since then I have developed that part of my senses to be very keen on what exactly everything smells like. Heck, I still smell my glass every time before I pour something in it. Weird huh?  It’s a proven fact that our sense of smell is tied directly to the memory part of our brains, which is why scent is so inherently personal to each of us.  Check out The Sense of Smell Institute for some smell good facts:  http://www.senseofsmell.org/.

Ok so then why soap?  We’ll for me it’s the easiest way to facilitate the scent!  Not really, it has to be a good skin loving bar as well. But it was the main reason I picked a bar in the first place. I spent a lot of money in the beginning buying all my fragrances and essential oils because unfortunately there are a lot of stinky fragrances. So I had to wade through the fragrances that didn’t last or with stand the process of soapmaking, ones that didn’t morph into a scent that I didn’t recognize and ones that were just plain “stinky”.  Ultimately what came out of it was a new found knowledge of scent and where to find them. A bar of soap is only as good as it smells, if you don’t pick it up you will never know what you’re missing. I believe a scent memory is important to your wellbeing and genuinely want you to feel better. The scent for my soap is carefully chosen for their harmony with nature, clarity of mind, wellbeing of the body and quality to help keep you grounded.

Soap is pretty easy to make with a few ingredients that do not have to cost a lot of money, you don’t have purchase huge vats of anything to get started and you can use your own cooking equipment to mix it in. When you are ready to learn how—sign up for one of my classes.  The 2 day weekend workshop in January is filling up! Deadline to SAVE $$$ will end DEC 31.