Friday at the Soap Guild Conference kicked off with a bang. Ambassador Carol Mosely Braun gave the key note address. Her message was simple. She preached a core message of sustainability and told us that “Change starts with one, you. ” She was passionate about sustainability and absolutely a riot to listen to. Her sense of humor was incredible. I can see how she made it in government for so long – she could laugh at anything!
Then, Josh Onysko from Pangea Organics spoke to us. He started selling soap out of the back of his truck and has grown the company to be a multi-million dollar company, selling soaps, lotions and lip balms. He said that their best selling item is their lip balm. His story was incredibly unique and his passion for sustainability came through in everything he talked about. I loved two things about his story: 1. He started out of a van. Out of a VAN! 2. He loves his staff. He is such a fan of his employees that Pangea has an official organic garden to give their employees free produce 7 months out of the year.
I taught a Liquid Soap class where we actually made a batch of soap paste in class and diluted a batch of paste in class. Many soapers who attended the class came up to me afterwards telling me that they were shocked at how simple the process is. Either they had been too intimidated to try it or they had tried it a few times and it had never been successful. We made soap in 2 hours. You can do it too. I’ve got a downloadable e-book complete with photos and a tried-and-true recipe HERE. It costs as little as $.32 per 16 ounces of liquid soap to make it from scratch AND it’s easy. Try it as your next soap foray.
That’s me with David Fisher from About.com (right) and his namesake twin, David Fisher on the left (who had some helpful liquid soap tips to share with the class as well). Thanks to the helpful guild clean-up crew, clean up from the class only took an hour and boy, do I have a lot of paste to ship home!
I finished the evening with a quick chick wrap up dinner with Kayla from Essential Wholesale and Donna Maria from Indie Beauty Network. And then, it was off to a romantic anniversary dinner with my husband. He even had roses and tulips (my two favorite flowers) in the hotel room. He’s a great guy to come to a soap conference for our anniversary trip, isn’t he?
I’ll blog more later this weekend. I’ll have a round-up on Kayla’s talk on ‘Formulating your Dream Business’ and more show reporting. Until then, happy soaping!
Awesome! I can’t wait to meet you. Right now, I’m definitely hoping to go. This year was an incredible experience (the best conference ever, no joke) and next year just sounds like it will be even better.
Kudos for following your dreams and starting your soap business. I’m so glad that you’ve made me a part of it.
How sweet that your hubby came out to a soap conference!! 🙂
Great post, and fun chick chat with you and Kayla too! You did a fantastic job presenting at the conference. Fun, knowledgeable, interactive, and inspiring!
I agree about starting where you are. I didn’t turn my soap into a business because I just kept thinking, I don’t have enough money, how can I do this while being a single mom and working a full time job ..yada yada yada..However in 2009 something clicked in me and I just decided I CAN DO THIS! Following you, dM, Kayla, Lela and so many other soapers big and small has given me the inspiration that I need to make it. I followed everyone’s tweets and probably forgot to eat because I was so excited. To hear it was going to be in Miami in 2011, was enough for me to almost crack my head open jumping up and down on my sofa. As of this week (payweek) I am putting $50.00 a way every 2 weeks so I can be there. I already put my mom on babysitting notice and I feel like this is going to be the beginning of a new life!
Thanks for all you do Anne-Marie!!
Oh my gawd … I wish I could have been there! This looks amazing, and so many lovely talented people. David Fisher looks familiar … I’ve read a few of his b&b articles on About.com. Selling out of a van – impressed!
The message was simple: look at your company and look how you can make a small difference, a baby step, to making your products, your company, and your processes more sustainable for our environment. Packaging is one way that you can make a difference easily – use less packaging, use a more renewable resources. This applies to everything we do – can we drive less every day? Bring our own bags to the grocery store? Buy in bulk so that we have less trucks criss crossing the country to get our supplies to ourselves? Buy wind power energy to become a more energy neutral company? There are many things that we can do individually to take baby steps to becoming more sustainable, as individuals, families, businesses and communities.
Seriously this is true innovation at it’s best, take something thrown away and make something useful out of it and do away with petrol chemical packaging. I am in awe of this young man!
She started out restoring her family farm and then became a huge fan of biodynamic farming as a way to have a more sustainable future for our world. She talked about organic and biodynamic – organic is slightly less stringent than biodynamic (I did not know this so that was great new information for me).
She talked about sustainable packaging and gave some horrifying stats about how much waste goes into packaging. This is a direct quote that she gave at another venue that sums up that portion of her talk:
“A commitment to sustainability should not be half hearted, and packaging is a huge challenge not only because of the disposal issues, but production as well. In many cases, the packaging costs more than the product it holds. I imagine most people would be appalled that they spend so much money to use so much energy to create so much trash. “
That is him – he claims it’s the first plantable packaging (not sure if this is true but he said it was). He also just started selling his products in glue free boxes that are folded via oragami method.
I’m a big fan of his blog – I love what he does for our industry =)
He had a very inspiring story – great speaker too. One thing he did differently is that he took on angel investors so he could really focus on his sustainability ethos and less on profitability. We don’t all have that luxury so melding his message with Ambassador Braun (start where you are, do what you can) is my big take away from the conference on the subject of sustainability. Start where you can, start where you are and start with the end in mind – the big, bold goal – but start where you can.
Mary, I’m so glad that you’re following along! I love to share my experiences with this blog and Twitter and Facebook so it’s a huge compliment that you’re investing your time to follow along. =)
I agree – I told my friends he was like a unicorn when I met him because ‘they just didn’t exist this good in real life.’ He is a gem …
Too bad you had to make it how YOU see it. This retired congress person is a professional conference speaker, speaking on subject not evangelizing like you.
We are talking soap here if it isn’t your thing then why try to mess it up for us, and just move on.
Is Josh the man who developed his very own biodegradable packaging? What a fun story thank you Anne Marie for being our eye, ears, and feet on the scene for those who couldn’t make it!
I’m a fan of David Fisher from About.com‘s soaping forum! 🙂
That is so inspriring about Josh starting out selling soap from his van! Thanks for shring!
Happy Anniversary, Anne-Marie! I too would love to hear about Ms. Braun’s ideas around sustainability in the soaping world. I’m working towards sustainability in energy and gardening, and would be interested in applying it to my soapmaking.
Looks like you had fun! Hopefully I will be there next year too. I have been making soap for a while now for friends and as gifts. Going to become a member of the guild soon so that I can start selling them!
I see this Soaping Convention turned into a political venue! What a shame!
And eveyone just did not have a clue…. google her and you will see this Ambassador has been under investigation several times…. not to mention an advocate for partial birth abortions…
She wants change all right and she wants it her way!! I think I will nix on next year going to this Handmade Soapers Guild….
What is sustainability Anne Marie? What are we sustaining in the soaping world? then you said , Change starts with us?” Sustain means not to change and to hold steady? So one means the total opposite from the other and I am lost here .. What was the message about? Either sustain and not change or change? and how does this relate to our soaping careers? Thank you for your patience with this question….
Hi Anne-Marie.
I’ll repeat that, he started selling soap from a van?! That says a lot for sheer determination.
I have been enjoying your reports from the conference via Twitter. Wish I could have been there myself, but grateful to be able to read up and follow from here.
Thanks for sharing and giving a quick recap of the event so far. I am sorry I missed it but I hope to be there next year!
PS You do have an amazing hubby to support you the way he does.