The men are taking over.

Well it has finally happened....

The girls at Creative Connections have finally allowed a man into the innermost enchalons of that wonderful event known as 'Craftfest' and they have given me my own team!

Slightly weary of all that pink I was quickly bribed with the promise that I could name my own team and choose a colour of my choosing.  Well there is only one way to stand out amongst all that 'CRAFTfest" pink.  Black seemed much more masculine, sexy and discerning.  It is time to introduce you to the "G Team"!

And my first introduction goes to the great Lori - otherwise known as the 'Scarlet Wolf' from the Crystal Cavern.  She is a fantastic promoter, great team player and fabulous crafter.  This Fest she is offering two Stalls - one in jewellery and one in supplies  Here are some of her items.  You will also find Lori on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Wanelo, Blogging and on Stumble.


Find more photos like this on Creative Connections

Next to bring out the bling is "The Very Small Company" which may need to change its name if it continues to grow from strength to strength!  Julie offers: "a small selection of my handmade gifts and jewellery. I try to cater for all budgets." Lots more lovelies on their website at The Very Small Company!"  You can also follow them on Facebook or Twitter.



Find more photos like this on Creative Connections

Next up with some fabulous photography and gorgeous items is Makeaholic. Here you will find handmade jewellery, gifts and a whole host of goodies to feast your eyes on. Sarah Plummer can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Stumble  .  You can also get her on her own site: Here.

Find more photos like this on Creative Connections

Lori again with her Beads & Findings Shop.  A wholesale shop with a wonderful array of of things to choose from.  Links above.

Find more photos like this on Creative Connections

One-to-One Workshops

This has been quite a month for workshops and last week was our penultimate one for the month of February.  A one-to-one session with Stephanie.

So just what does a one-to-one workshop entail for someone here in Cloughey?

Well, it just depends on what you are after - a half day course or a full day course.  It also depends on what your specific requirements are.  Perhaps you just want to make soap, or you have a skin condition and want to make something natural with organic oils.  Perhaps you want to make moulds or learn a specific soap-making technique.  What ever the requests we try and tailor to your needs.

And did we mention the food?


                                     












We had a great day with Stephanie and there was quite a bit of raving about a certain Carrot cake that you simply must try!

Soap Partys for Children

ScENT have been organising Soap Parties for a while now but we were more than a little apprehensive when asked to facilitate a workshop for a group of 15 children aged 5.

Realising at an early stage that having a group of 15 girls around hot soap was not the best possible Health & Safety scenario we opted for something a little easier.

First up: Birthday Girl gets to help make a mini-loaf.  Every girl present gets to pick a penguin soap by way of putting a birthday hug into the bar and some lips with their very own birthday wishes for Anna.  Next up we colour the base, added the glitter and pour in the soap.  Hey presto!  One birthday soap.

Second task:  Bath Butter was an easy choice as no heat source is required.  That said, the climate meant mixing the bath butter was a little bit of a challenge for tiny hands on this occasion.  The children get to choose their own fragrances, glitter, colours etc and we have their butters put into an already labelled container for each child to take home with them.

Task No. 3:  Soap on a Rope.  Carla had made lots of novelty soaps before the event and provided a ribbon, and some beads to each child.  The girls then chose 5 soaps from the selection available and were invited to make their own soap on a rope/ribbon.  

All the items made were then placed in a gorgeous little Chinese takeaway box for some well earned cosmetic beautifying after a hard day's work.

Thank you so much to Anna for the invitation to go to her party to make soap and to Louise, her mum, for organising it and making it such a fabulous event.

Here is some of the feedback we received from Louise:

"My daughter has just had the most marvellous Princess Pamper Birthday Party with Carla. She had thirteen friends at her party. A mixture of four and five year old girls. The girls were each seated at their own Cosmetic Creation Station. From the outset Carla made every girl, especially the birthday girl feel special. Carla ensured that the Party Princess was centre stage and involved all of her friends in making her feel like a proper Princess!! The Birthday Girl had chosen to make Body Butter and Soap on a Rope from the Cosmetic Creation Menu.

Initially Carla demonstrated soap making. Carla's beautiful, soft, Brazilian accent captivated the girls and she involved each and every girl at every stage. She chatted with the girls about penguins and how they cuddle to keep warm and give each other  love. She then themed that with the friendship between all of the girls at the birthday party. Each girl then got to place a small penguin soap within the demonstration soap mixture being created. Then each girl added a set of soap lips to the mixture, signifying kisses for their friends. The Birthday Princess completed the soap mixture by adding glitter and her wishes. The soap was then set aside to set. It was later parcelled up and each girl was able to take a soap home for a memory of their special day!! Carla also provided such treasures not only for the Birthday Princess but her extended family too!!!

It was then on to the next stage of the feminine fun!! Body Butter!! Each girl mixed her own body butter base with her choice of brightly coloured lotion as well as beautifully scented oil. There was a huge range of eye-catching coloured lotions and beautiful fragrances to choose from. Glitter was the next addition to the mix. The entire process appealed so much to the girls. Making their own choices was taken so seriously and added to the fun.  However, it does have to be said the mixing and transferring of the body butter to its presentation jar was messy, so it definitely held the most appeal!!!

The girls then got involved with their Soap on a Rope projects! I had decided that these would form their party bags which would be a treat for them to complete at home. The girls firstly chose ribbon and beads for their Soap on a Rope. Then they agonised over choosing their soaps from Carla's huge selection of brightly coloured, creatively shaped and beautifully scented soaps to complete their home projects.

Carla's professionalism, talent, organisation, kindness, care, thoughtfulness, generosity and maternal streak made the event the success it was. The experience was perfect for all the girls, as well as for the adults. It was a total delight. Based on my first hand experience, as well as girls and parents feedback, I can not recommend highly enough Carla's parties for adults and/or children!"

Valentines Workshop

Well as it rapidly approaches valentines day we were working on some themes for last nights workshop.

BIG THANK YOU to those who attended.  You were a fantastic group and the soaps looked beautiful!

Here are a few shots of what we got up to....

And if you are looking for a few more ideas of what you could give someone this valentines... Look no further!.....  Our "Femme Fatal" and "License to Thrill" Gifts could be just what you need.

And while we are at it... Were you aware that there is a national Gum Drop Day in the US on the 15th February!?  How fantastic! and we have just what you need....

Broadening our horizons.

Our business launched on Etsy just less than a year ago with 10 fruit soaps and a £2000 pound investment (all our earthly money as it turns out along with some kind donations) and a dream to somehow use soap-making to grow into a social business, gain a reputation as soap-makers capable of making unique and exquisite soaps whilst generating a much needed income for ourselves...

This has the potential to be a long post if I don't break it up into a few different manageable chunks.

• Achievements to date
• Where we are at
• Where the future lies.

Achievements to dates:  Few people like blowing their own trumpet.  I'm lucky as I get to blow my wife's trumpet on our behalf.  Not only has she made some fine pieces of cosmetic Art - but her creativity has meant ScENT has been discovered by tens of thousands of people all over the globe in just one year.

Internet communities those smitten with a love of Carla's Art have been fantastic at helping to promote our work on newsletters, forums, magazines, blogs and hosting soap parties.  People we didn't know a year ago have become some of our most crucial bedrocks of support.  Thanks to this blog alone we have had over 5000 visitors, requests for wholesale accounts, soap-making workshops and for editorial photos.  People like Linda Cooper, Lu Smith, and domestic sluttery have been brilliant at promoting us in their blogs.

Creative connections (an on-line networking site for Crafters) took us under on our first on-line virtual Craft Fayre known as CraftFEST.  Their support launched a huge magazine article promoting Carla's work and resulted in me stepping up to the mark as one of the Leader's of the event and provided a fabulous support base of promoters and supporters of ScENT Cosmetics.

Open publication - Free publishing - More baking

ScENT been featured in magazines, asked to produce an exclusive range for Folksy in the run up to Christmas as well has being featured on WowThankYou, Luulla and Etsy homepages.  Oh, and how can I forget the wonderful joy of having the top three most voted for soaps on Craftjuice!  Carla even made it into a magazine in South Africa!

So, where are we at?

It was all pretty amazing stuff and not bad for a £2000 investment.  So what of the practicalities?  Did we break even?  Have we got a wholesale client base?  Have we made our millions yet?

Crucially, we broke even.  The accounts indicate a profit if we take into account our stock - but the reality is that there are expenses we didn't put through the account to ensure the business avoided debt.  Things, which if the business is to be a success, require ScENT to pay for in it its own right.

Still, not bad for early days of a business with little or no capital.

Did it account for hours worked?  NOT A HOPE.  We have slaved our little hearts out day and night to ensure we were on the right path.  It is not unheard of me starting on the computer at 6.30 and both of us finally resigning ourselves to beds at 11.30 pm in the evening.  That said, it is work mixed with parenthood, life and all manner of other joys.  We have been able to fit the business around us to a greater or lesser extent.  That both of us are able to be at home for breakfasts, lunches and dinners is a sacrifice worth paying for if we can make ScENT work.  There is no doubt the kids suffered a little this year as we both tried to get to grips with our roles within the company but thankfully they are at a great age whereby they are able to play with each other, not really know or see our busyness and young enough to forget.

On the up-side though we have also learnt to make cleaning products, breads, sweets, cut glass, make coat-hangers and endless other distractions.

So much time was spent working on packaging, labelling, legislation, pricing, and setting up Internet shops that only a person doing something similar could possibly understand.  Carla toiled countless weeks doing more than she had to because we didn't have the cash-flow for larger equipment or more molds etc - making the first year extremely labour-intensive.

We knew wholesale would be difficult to offer to shops due to the hand-painted nature of the soaps.  It seemed ridiculous that Carla and I would only manage to scrape a measly £0.70 per hand-painted apple whilst a wholesaler would manage to make more on it that we did.  However, we needed other avenues to sell.  Sale or Return was definitely the way forward for us last year.  Anything that was returned became vital stock in the run up to the busy Christmas period.  We did eventually offer wholesale but the profit margins are definitely not as competitive as a retailer would expect.  The reason?  Postage.  Northern Ireland is penalised heavily for purchasing anything from the UK.  Without doubt - the years ahead require that we are innovative in making as much as possible from scratch to avoid these ridiculous extra costs.  It is the only means by which we can become competitive.

One other massive out-lay for us was the experimenting required with our packaging.  Due to the very nature of our soaps - we had to find a way to package them sensitively and beautifully.  No existing soap packaging seemed to work and despite making-do with a few solutions for a while, it was obvious our packaging had much to be desired.  It took a product designer telling us that the wooden boxes looked "crude" to get me back onto the packaging band-waggon, desperately trying  to find a solution.  Packaging immediately added £1.00 per soap if it was to retail in a shop - making the soaps (particularly the small ones) seem ridiculously expensive - despite being worth every penny!  Whilst a soap at £9.00 may be fine in somewhere like Liberty's of London.  The Kingfisher Craft Gallery in Killyleagh may find it totally impossible to shift any soap on our behalf if we were to charge full price.

One big surprise was the discovery that Craft-Fairs do not work for us!  We always got our money back, with just one exception, but it never proved worth the 6 hours of standing at a stall.  Craft Stalls are something we are very reluctant to do in the future - with very few exceptions.  Perhaps it is down to the economic climate or because stalls are increasingly expensive; perhaps our displays are inadequate.


One other BIG surprise was meeting the need for soap-making workshops.  We always knew that if we were really going to make the business work there would need to be an element of teaching and soap-making parties.  There is no competition within Northern Ireland for tuition and as we have a name for selling soaps unique to us - easily prove ourselves competent.  Our background in community work, youth work and social business only enhance our portfolio.  Initially we saw this part of the business as the social aspect (whereby we could teach youth groups etc) but in May an opportunity arose to work with Ards Council in - and we seized our moment.  Not only was the course over-subscribed but so did the next 3 workshops.  The marketing material that went with these events also led to a number of one-on-one workshops.  Creative Peninsula, we salute you!

The feedback from these workshops, one-to-ones and soap-parties have blown us away and ensured that we plan to grow this aspect of the business in the coming year.  (More info to follow)

Where the future lies:

We are quite excited with all that is to come in the forthcoming year.  There seems to be no end of possibilities.  So here is the summary - with more to follow in another post specifically stating how we think ScENT can grow as a social business.

1.  Exploration of a new line of Novelty soaps and Gift Soaps.  Soaps that are easier to make and a little more profitable - thus ensuring that the Soap Art we are known by can still be produced but without needing to depend on Carla to making every hand-painted soap herself.  This will allow others to come on board as the business grows.

2. Cold Process.  Up until now we have focused on Melt and Pour soap as it allows us to be creative with the shapes and colours.  As time progressed we began to sell some cosmetics too but knew that a time would come when we would have to look into selling Cold - Process Soaps.  The reality is that Cold Process Soap can be just as artistic - and we have discovered that you can use an oven to make some gorgeous soaps - something - we haven't seen done over here yet either!  Cold Process allows us more control over ingredients.  It allows us to make items for those who only want to use natural or organic ingredients.  It can be entirely fairly traded.  We can make it all from scratch - which will help with the postage costs and we have a young couple hoping to come on board to specialise in this product on our behalf.

3. Aromatherapy.  As teaching becomes a core aspect of our little business - Carla is undergoing a course in Aromatherapy.  This will allow her to specifically teach on the use of essential oils and their properties in cosmetics - thereby specifically able to offer workshops and products for a wide range of skin conditions.

4. Distillation of Essential Oils:  Along with making Melt and Pour soap base from Scratch we are looking at distilling our own essential oils.  I'm excited about this.  We want to know how to do both of these so we can take this knowledge into a social business idea we have in mind.   There is a bit of capital involved - but we are definitely gearing up for this one with gusto!

Here is the course we want to do subject to cash:
http://www.millretreatcentre.com/frame.php?page=info_32

5.  Workshops:  We offer one-to-one workshops already but we have also teamed up with Hunter's Lodge  to offer fabulous group workshops (up to 8) all situated at this gorgeous B&B.  They offer an afternoon tea and having had some of Jenny's Lemon Cake I can only say that I'm checking in for some on my next visit!

6.  Social Enterprise: And really, here we have found our little niche.  Always wanting to be a social enterprise we have been actively looking for ways to grow sustainably whilst also blessing others.  We have looked at ways of working with youth groups and are still looking at ways to raise funds for schools and charities but nothing has really clicked by way of offering employment, experience etc. to others in the community around us.  Recently we were approached by a couple of mission organisations about facilitating soap-making workshops in developing countries.  Initially we got frustrated that Cold Process soap-making was the only real avenue of soap-making that developing nations could pursue as this wasn't an area we were experts in we had to say 'No'.  As time has progressed however, we began to realise that we do have experience in social business, soap making and mission.  If we could learn how to make Melt and Pour Soap from scratch, distill our own oils and pass that knowledge on - as well as teach how to make Cold - Process Soap then we could really help establish a sustainable social business' abroad.

This thought grabbed both of us.  Carla and I got excited!  We began realising the potential of what we, as ScENT could achieve globally as opposed to locally.  We began to feel invigorated about the incoming year...

To find out more about our social project - watch this space.

You see,  I may not have been blogging lately - but we have certainly been active!

Licensed to Thrill

Love is in the air!

We are quietly toiling away in the lab at the minute with new products and ideas for the upcoming year but its at this time of year we really need to be rolling ahead with plans and start putting them into place.

Watch this space!!!!

There is loads to come with regards to our plans and how we are taking this little business of ours into its next phase.  Its all quite exciting now that we are beginning to piece everything together and we just cannot wait.

In the interim though we needed to update a few of our shops with some new items and what better way to start listing items than our new "Licensed to Thrill" range.  I'll take full responsibility for the name!  Cheese is my middle name - but with Valentines and James Bond DVD release fast approaching I figured it was a perfect title to our His & Hers Gift Set.

See what you think.

Each set contains a candle and pistol massage bar.  The Men's Set has some AK-47 bullet soaps and the female set carries the seductive soap heels and a lip-balm.  A great way to celebrate Valentines by offering a romantic candle-lit massage come the end of the evening.

Okay, Okay,

I know.  BAD BLOGGER G!

I've been missing in action!

Truth is with the last CRAFTfest and Christmas Sales I suffered Blogger Overload.

Still, Back with a bang for the new year and what better way to continue than to bring to your wonderful attention some soaps to compliment our little old sheep.  This little best seller has been out on its own for far too long and we have been just waiting for the opportunity to find a way of adding a few friends.  We have finally suceeded!  The Cow, Pig, Goat and Horse were fairly obvious companions along with a few more exotic animals (such as the croc, the turtle and the little frog).

We have also wanted to expand our kiddies range for quite a while.  I, personally needed something to appease my all to eager desire to eat chocolates and sweets.  Rather than eat them.  I now get to bathe in them!  Now you can bath in your own soap mix of smarties, hard gums and fruit pastilles.

Next up on the kids range are some sports themed soaps - but more of that at a later date!

Happy New Year Everyone!