product and more product

This time of year my guest bedroom starts filling up with all the saops, lotions and scrubs I've been making for the upcoming season. The bed, table and floor are starting to get pretty full.  Unfortunately I need to find a new storage space.  My kids are coming next weekend and we'll need the bed.  I'll probably pile all of it in baxes and hide it in our room for the next week.

product manfacturing

Kathy and I are often asked if we really make all of our VCB product in our homes.  These are just a couple of shots of what my kitchen looked like last week.

Solid lotion is one of our best sellers and I will make tons of it before show time.  Love this stuff, it really is a miracle in a tube

Bath bombs I'm working on.  Similar to Lush with the healing moisturizing properties bumped way up.
  

They have extra shea, jojoba an cocoa butter added to make your skin soft and moisturized.

VCB speech time

even after all my years in front of a class room I still don't' really like getting up to give a speech.   Unfortunately my partner Kathy had a family obligation and couldn't come along to a recent church luncheon where we were the entertainment.  The ladies were nice, the food was fabulous and they seemed really interested in our products.  We do these type of presentations for marketing and getting our name out into the public.  I should them samples of each of our products as well as a few new ones.  I also had a couple try out product like the new body polish I've been working on to give honest criticism. It was a nice way to spend a few hours showing off our line and getting to know some very lovely ladies, they seemed to love the free samples.

soap time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my good friend Jeane, I don't get to see you much these days and I miss that.  Expect a kidnapping soon.

I know it seems like the holiday season is a long way off but our shows will be here before you know it.  I always make soap early so it has time to dry and harden.  That makes the soap last much longer.  I'm trying this year to make the soap a little more upscale with better colors and design.  I don't want to offer just a plain old bar of soap.  I want it to be beautiful and unlike what you can buy any place else.  So far I've made a layered pink grapefruit, a honey, milk and oatmeal that smells amazing and leaves you skin ultra soft and a mixed peach and white jasmine cube soap with a sprinkle of sea salt.

Jasmine is a known aphrodisiac and is thought to  be one of the most romantic scents

pink grapefruit is a wonderful energizer

honey, milk and oatmeal are all known for their soothing skin softening properties  I made this in a Pringles can but could have poured it into a flat baking pan and cut the rounds with a cookie cutter 

bath fizzies

Happy birthday to tow of my fabulous daughter-in-laws, Sara and Brandi.  Our family is much better with you as part of it.

I've tried to make bath fizzies several times without success.  It comes down to a delicate balance of enough moisture to hold them together, but dry enough to not set off the chemical reaction that makes them fizz.  A mix of equal parts citric acid and baking soda are the main components.  You can then add in corn starch, sea salt and any of the healing oils that you like.  After that is mixed together you add in sprays of witch hazel just until the mix will clump together, color and fragrance can be added if you want.  I press mine into mini cupcake pans and let them sit undisturbed for at least 24 hours.  To remove I tap the pan firmly on the counter covered with wax paper. em let that dry several days before packaging.  Kids love these but they are even better for adults who can appreciate the relaxation and skin softening effects.

hospital show

Kathy and I had our first VCB show of the season this last weekend.  It was at the local hospital and very well attended.  We have several new products and have redone most of our set up.  Lots of work, long hours, friendly vendors and great crowd, you can't ask for better than that.

new set up

ollapsible shelf unit, these were the hit of the show.  Several vendors took pictures and asked lots of questions on how to make them.  AH made these and when apart they are easy for us to carry

Old doors, wreaths and chalk board banner

soap display too high and will rethink for the next show

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Vintage Cottage Beauty has its first show of the season this weekend.  Friday and Saturday 10 17-18 at Sara Bush Hospital in Mattoon, Il.  Come see what we've been mixing up for all your pampering and gift giving needs.

kitchen full of boxes and bags check

check lists, equipment and tools check

new products ready for sale check

YEP it's show time

soap time

VCB's first big show of the season is just a few weeks away.  I like our soap to cure for 3-6 weeks before I wrap it.  The drying time makes to soap last much longer.  As I make each batch I pile them on trays and have been stacking them on the guest room bed.  I'm trying a few new things this year and new variations of old favorites.

honey almond with chamomile 

peppermint

pink grapfruit with lime and lemon zest

green tea with luffa

shower time

As I wrote last week our family is expecting a new little one.  For the shower I made favors of goats milk soap.  I placed the mini bars in plastic bags and added a header thanking everyone for attending from the proud mama and daddy.  A plastic teddy bear pic from the dollar store added a cute touch.  The guest seemed pleased and I think they will love the gentle moisturizing soap.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Since I have been obsessed with the preparation and attending shows, I did't have a clue about what to write  this week.  So I decided I would let you know a few things that go on behind the scenes at Vintage Cottage Beauty.
Our family and friends, who were our first guinea pigs when we started making natural beauty products, are why we have a business today.  They loved our products so much they wanted to give us money for them and insisted we start a business.   They have sampled, critiqued and told us how they felt good or bad about what we make.  They have taken pictures, made suggestions, made product with us, bagged, tagged and packaged.  They have driven miles with us searching for ideas and going to shows.  They have fed us, schlepped food and drinks and worked our booth so we could have a break.
When it came down to crunch time for the last few shows I put out the word that I could use some help.  That's all I needed to do.  I had friends come and help with all the work that goes into preparing for a big craft show.  We had two big shows back to back with only a few days in between to make replacement products.  Our husbands pitched in with label and business card making, packaging, missing meals,and helping set up and tear down.  There would be no VCB without a little help from our friends and family.

Our booth at the Assembly Hall.  I don't like the blue back drop it looks cheap, but the space was wonderful

My partner Kathy, she is calm and organized, I don't know how she puts up with me.

Kathy calls herself our chief guinea pig, she almost never misses a show and is always bringing us food and booth sitting.  We named the pink grapefruit soap after her. because she is lively and sweet.

Nina is also a  guinea pigs booth sits and has given us many great product and show ideas.  She did craft shows for years and is a wealth of great information.  We named our lemon sage soap for her because she is wise and bright.

Adaptability

Every business expo and craft show we set up VCB for is a little different.  We have to be flexible to the size of the space as well as the amount of product we will bring.  Space is always crowded and sometimes the planners don't take things like walk space between the booths, or needs like demonstration of your product into consideration.
Here are a couple of our space layouts we have used recently.

One vendor butted up against the other.  This kind of arrangement is difficult for us to work since we stand and let customers smell or try our products.  We need to be able to get to each side of the booth and behind the tables frequently.  On the up side this was at  a hotel and they provided the  tables, chairs and table coverings.

We use a lot of lifts and levels to show off our products, they add much more display space

Outside show on a windy, rainy day.  We had a great amount of space but the weather was a big variable.

I love the small bakers rack on the table, that and the stacking shelves really show our products off.  We always use black table covers and add color with the purple and lavender bandannas.  We put our product names and prices in frames, I cover the signs with clear contact paper so we don't have to worry about glass breaking.

This show we were doing with another friend so the large bakers rack  and a clothes rack made a great display for her knit and crochet products.
The last show we did, somehow the spacing got messed up.  We had paid for an  8X8 space but they had put too many vendors in  the row .  We were in the middle and ended up with only 5 foot of customer accessible space and played bump butts with the vendors on each side all weekend.  We tried to be as polite and accommodating as possible with as much good grace as possible but they knew we were not pleased. If we had been bitchy, angry and gone around complaining all weekend we probably would not be asked back.   It was still a successful show and I guess in the end that's what matters most.

bath salts

Most people these days take showers instead of baths.  When I started making the slats I was marketing them as a scrub but more and more we are selling them as a soak for relaxation and sore muscles.
You can make a recipe that suits your special needs by varying the kinds of salts you use and the essential oils you choose.
There are recipes all over the web but the basic formula is Epsom salts for soreness, sea salts for their drawing properties, kosher salt for exfoliation and baking soda for it's skin softening.  When making the salts for sale I did aromatherapy research on the oils that best suited the properties I wanted each salt to have.  We mix ours with coconut oil for it's moisturizing and antibacterial abilities.
Mix up a batch of your own for yourself or gifts or call VCB and we can hook you up with our great Satin Skin Scrub and Soak.

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I have been working on several sugar and salt scrub variations lately and these singe use sugar scrubs are coming along nicely.  Made with a mix of sugar, coconut oil, vitamin E, and grated glycerin soap they work great to smooth and soften your skin.  I pressed them into a mini muffin tin.  They are still a little crumbly when you first take them out but once they have a chance to harden they keep their shape.  I'm loving them.
At VCB we are constantly trying new recipes and trying to improve our products.  If you have an idea for either please contact us and let us know.  Some of our best ideas come from our customers.

liquid soap

This may need to be under VCB because that's why I first started working on it.  We had several people ask for liquid soap, so I decided to make something natural and with out all the sulfates, chemicals and parabens.  By far this has been the most difficult product  have tried to develop.  It seems simple enough, a bar of solid castile coconut soap, water, glycerin, salt, scent and color.  I have made batch after batch, I have the cleanest bunch of neighbors and friends(guinea pigs), and still couldn't get it right.  Finally success.  Every different essential oil changes the thickness of the base soap.  What is great liquid soap without any scent, turns almost solid when you add pink grapefruit or green tea.
 I think God was just playing with my patience and perseverance.  Everything can't come easy and it's worth working harder to ahve what your looking for.
After I finally had a silky wonderful soap I decided to mix it with the lemon sugar scrub for bathing bliss.

kitchen work

People have a hard time believing the Kathy and I make all of our products in our kitchens.  It's true every thing from the butter to soap, tags to favors are made right on our counters.  When I make our logo flowers that go on our tags and packages I usually do them 100 at a time.  I cut the shapes on the Cricut then lay them out, glue them together and add the button centers.  It fills the counters all day waiting for the glue to dry but the actual work takes about an hour per 100.  Not too bad for the handcrafted touch we want for our company.



soap samples



100 flowers for tags and favors

 

be unique

The Target red bulls eye, the Pepsi swirl, the Nike swoosh, all are examples of logos that don't need a name to be recognized.  It's the same for any business.  You need to have something that identifies your company and what makes it unique.
There are  thousands of natural beauty companies out there.  How could we make Vintage Cottage Beauty a little different?  Our first goal was to produce the highest quality products we could make at the most reasonable prices.  We've worked hard on that.  For every new product we come up with there are dozens of failures and tweaks along the way.
Something else we have done from the very start is offer customizing of colors, scents and wrappings to our customers.  Wedding shower in hot pink, we'll do it.  Customize bags for your party, we can do that too.
In the picture below you see our logo flower.  This is a little piece, that when you see  it, we hope you automatically think of Vintage Cottage.  I cut the flowers on the Cricut and put them together with hot glue and a vintage button.  We put them on gift tags, favor bags and in this case on a small bag that contains a sample of each of our products.  The flower is printed on our brochure and will be put on any of our paper products.
Never let a product leave your hands without your contact information.  Make it one of a kind and special to just your company.  Offer unusual services that the big guys can't do.  Play an important part in your community.  Be ready to talk about your business when anyone asks what you're doing these days.  All of these things will make your business uniquely you.

vcb friday

I had my first professional facial this week and I loved it.  This one was a gift, and I'm sure I'll go back.  But between professional visits I'll try this at home weekly. You'll need a heavy pot of boiling water, towel, wash cloths, cleanser, exfoliate, mask and moisturizer.  Start you water boiling and gather all your supplies.  Put the towel over your head and shoulders, pull your hair back and stand over the steam for about 3 minutes. Be careful not to get too close to the steam and get burned.  Next clean your face with a gentle cleanser, like our fabulous face cleanser, and rinse with lukewarm water.  Follow with an exfoliate or scrub, such as our Satin Skin Sugar Scrub rinse and pat dry.  Apply a good moisturizer, yeah we have that too, and massage well in to your skin.  Your face will feel so great you'll want to do the same process all over your body.


Best beauty tip for all time:  use sun screen of SPF30 daily, religiously.  Skin cancer is on the rise in America and the sun is the fastest cause of aging  out there.

vcb

Welcome to beautiful Friday.  this the first of what I hope are many entries dedicated to living a more beautiful life, finding your passion and growing a business.
Vintage Cottage Beauty was started as reaction to the high prices and chemical filled products that are on the market today.  When KC and i started we made our first experiments for friends and family.  It wasn't until nearly a year later that we decided to try making these recipes into a business.  WHEW!! what a steep learning curve we've had.
The best starting a business tip I can give you is study, research, ask questions, and mostly pray.  Most new businesses fail in the first 5 years because they didn't do the homework you have got to do.
Decide how much risk you are willing to take.  Can you afford to loose all the money and time you invest if things don't work out?
Tell everyone you know you're starting a business.  Have cards, samples and paperwork with you all the time.  This does not mean make a pain in the tush of yourself.
Check out local resources.  On of the best decisions we made was checking in with the local university's small business solutions center.  I can't praise this group enough.  We've barely scratched the surface and they've already saved several hundred dollars just on our brochures alone.  they worked with us on the design and text and put everything together for the cost of set-up and printing.  We think they did a great job.
Another great source is the local Score group.  these are mostly retired professionals who have already been there and done that.  they can steer you in the right direction.
Do your research the Internet is full of business advice.  Take what works for you and file the rest away in your brain.  Do not pay anyone money for this advice, at least at the beginning point.
There is a lot more to come about business and beauty, so come back every Friday for VCB days.

Some pics of the brochure.  As soon as the resident conputer guy gets arund to doing the work, you'll be able to see the bruchure and our new(still under construction0 web site.