Christmas Products

Most of our soaps are 'Gift Soaps'. We haven't really ventured into the world of cosmetics just yet - still lots of time for that. As a 'gift' business we should by all accounts sell most of our products in the run up to Christmas - and whilst most of our products are suitable for such an occasion we also know that customers love Christmas Scents, Traditional themes and symbolic gestures at a time of good will. Christmas is important to us. Its actually 'make or break' for us. Christmas will be the deciding factor in our first year of business in dictating whether or not we can make this little project work. Such threats have honed our creative genius for that very reason and we thought it high time to introduce the results to this little blog of ours. You will notice in the collage our innovative take on the "Soap on a Rope" theme, our Gingerbread men, our Christmas soap bar among many many others. You can take a look at more at our shop.

I'll be keen to hear what you think...
















I'll be keen to know what you think...

From a spider web...the name!

The name of our business was chosen by my husband who is very good at being awake during the middle of the night working out big ideas inside his "spider web" brain. He sees things inside his head as just that, a spider web; were he can see and access all informations at once.

That might be the reason why he is quite good getting names for things.

Our company is called ARCHEGOS which is Greek work meaning "originator/founder".  As a leader in Scripture it denotes a leader who pioneers; it infers captain style leadership and prince of peace.

The concept allowed him to create different social enterprises, pioneering different things under an umbrella organisation which co-incided with our calling.

We trade currently as "ScENT Cosmetics".

ScENT is a little word with a double meaning that works well for what we are about.
Once you take the letter "c" you have the word "SENT" so we have the whole idea of been sent from heaven to this world to make a impact and transform.  To be 'apostolic' - one's who are sent.  We are SENT to our local community, country and "ends of the world".  This concept underpins this little social enterprise and our motive in using fairly traded and organic materials with the aspiration of helping people into work and establish skills.

Once the letter "c" is added again we have the word "SCENT".
Clearly it is conected with cosmetics and aromas but it was chosen specialy because of the Bible verse which says we carry the fragrance of Christ or in Garreth's web brain "the Scent of Christ".

So there it is: We are SENT to the the world to carry the ScENT of Christ.  Join us on the journey - let's do it through dance, music, creativity, love, justice, mercy, soaps and more!

....

Also, as we launch this little blog we are being blessed this week with the offical opening of the Kingfisher Craft Gallery in Killyleagh which stocks some of our soaps.  Come allong on Friday 2nd March  at 3.00pm.

You can even meet us if you dare!

You are all welcome to come and visit the Gallery which also displays beutiful silver jewery, pictures and more.

Kingfisher Craft Gallery
at 43 High St. Killyleagh

The day things got soapy!

Painting peach soap

The final touch

Peaches ripe and ready to pick!

Some people might wonder how in earth we started this little soap adventure of ours... so here's how we started getting all soapy. We were on holiday in Brasil (yes, Brasil is written with a "S"!) and came across a great project called JEAME which works with young people who live in Sao Paulo's streets and are addicted to heroin.  Verna, the worker, met us with a project idea. The project was to move our little "fostering family" to live in a small farm and help re-abilitate "foster" young people while they were attempting get off drugs.

We would offer a "family life" and teach them as much things as we could (home schooling, a trade etc. We thought that teaching them to make they own candles or soaps would help when they were in need of money once when leaving the farm.  Understanding how to sell bread, soap, candles etc is an easy way to make an income on the streets so a person won't be tempted to prostitute themselves.

Garreth also noticed that people over there had such low income and could still end up making everything for themselves in order to save money (they make cleaning products, bread, soaps, candles etc), the entrepreneurs even sell from the home to try and generate an income. He couldn't believe that such skills were forgotten at home and he resented paying a fortune for things he should be able to make.

...so we decided that soap making could be one trade we could teach. My sister found the classes with an incredible soap artist called Peter Paiva and within days the adventure begin with soap parties, stalls, creativity, fragrances and so on. Unfortunately the project in Brasil didn't work for us but we brought the idea home aiming to grow as a business to be self sustainable and in time towards a social enterprise which will engage and help our community localy (working with young people, elderly, ex convicts, etc) and abroad (We try to use as much fairly traded and organic materials we can so the world is also blessed by what we do...that also means that some of our stuff is a bit more pricy so be aware that our pricy means most of time FAIR and JUST!).

We are starting as we are able: slowly, dedicated and hopeful. You all are more than welcome to go through this with us. I'm sure we are going to create and have great fun! Right now we are working in some "gift soap range" with hand painted fruits and other nice stuff.

We just opened our ETSY shop and you can go and have a look if you wish.


www.etsy.com/shop/scentcosmetics

Before you go have a look at these websites:

 Jeame - Work with street kids in Sao Paulo - Brasil: The site can be read in English.

www.jeame.org


Peter Paiva soap website: He is just an amazing artist and business man. A very passionate young man who was my teacher in Brasil. The site is written in Portuguese, but you can see the photos.

www.peterpaiva.com.br

Post soon,
Tchal