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!
