Home Based Business Fair

Last weekend my husband helped me immensely with a small booth at our local Home Based Business Fair.  It was a good way to get my bath salts noticed in our home town and we did pretty well considering that it was a very small show and not well advertised.

I think that may be the route to take my bath salts in the coming year... to bigger and better shows and we are on the waiting list for the big Christmas Fair in Roseburg... pray for all to go well with that.  We would have a bigger booth and I can also bring in my home made Christmas stockings too... since my 2-oz packages make the perfect stocking stuffer gift.

I bathed in a few of my other favorite name-brand bath salts a few evenings this past week and last night went back to my own Essential Bliss brand and I truely have to say that my bath salts are the best out there!  They really are!!

Come see me at http://www.essentialbliss.etsy.com/ and use the coupon I have posted here for a 25% discount.  Also, while you are there drop in on my other little shop on etsy http://www.jannykathleen.etsy.com/ where I will be listing some Christmas stockings.... this year I'm making up what I call a bunch of shabby chic "plain-janes" - pretty shabby fabrics, some new and some vintage and not a lot of frills.  Also, you can check out my Buckaroo Bibs, if you know a baby or two... they're real cute and made from repurposed Levi's.

I Just Took A Bath...

     Today it occurred to me that I haven’t bathed in any other brand since I started blending my Essential Bliss bath salts last year. I have some favorites out there in bath salt land. I love The Thymes brand and my fav’s in their line are Eucalyptus, Lavender and Goldleaf & Hydrangea. They are wonderful products and I need to use them again… however, after looking in the large cabinet where I keep all my bath paraphernalia I couldn’t help but notice that I have several shelves that are packed with “other brands” of so many other bath salts. Did I hear someone once say, “so many bath salts, so little time”?

     Tonight I decided that I would start clearing the clutter I found in my cabinet from all the unused “other brand” bath salts while they are still good. The average bath salt has a shelf life of about a year, some a little more and some a little less… but a year is about how long it takes to weaken the scent. So I better start dusting off these other bottles and jars and use them up, maybe then I can get my Essential Bliss jars off the floor. My personal stash of Essential Bliss bath salts are stored in large jars, about 32 oz or more and I also have several fragrances that are my “private reserve” and I haven’t decided how I want to market them just yet.

     So back to the business of using up “other brands”… I started with one jar that was at least ½ full, and 100% forgotten, and the fragrance was pretty much shot but it still promised the silky water so I just dumped it all in - under the tap, just before turning the water off. It felt real nice… real silky but the fragrance was pretty much gone - a lavender etc blend. It didn’t include the slight foaming on the surface of the water… that’s an ambiance thing that I like, and not having it doesn’t make a good bath salt less… but it certainly doesn’t make it more either.

     I am happy to know that Essential Bliss outdid this product, which I purchased in a shop in the spa-famous Calistoga region of CA, so I know it’s a good product. I have to admit though I have grown partial to my own brand… I have included all the elements of everything I favor in a lovely bath ritual… silky water with a light wisp of foam floating on the surface with light and sweet floral fragrances that are mostly hard to find in bath salts or body lotions. I love the old fashioned flowers I have chosen to be represented in my bath salts, of which my latest is Violet. Its light, sweet and pretty… like floating on a cloud of violets… really. I would like to add also that violets bore a special meaning for my mom that began the day she and my father became engaged. They were in San Francisco, giddy with happiness to be together, and my father stopped at a sidewalk flower vendor and bought my mom a little nosegay of violets. Throughout their almost 61 years together my father continued to give her nosegays of violets to remind her that his love for her was always as fresh as it was the day that she said “Yes”.

     So I should probably help you to become acquainted with my bath salts by also describing the pretty fragrances, acquired by using only the best premium essential and or fragrance oil that I can find. So going down the list are:

Sweet Pea… light and sweet with a little green of the garden tossed in for the full experience.
Pear… one of my all time favorites anywhere I go…. Light and oh so very fresh. It has a real clean sweetness to it’s bouquet.
Lilac… dedicated to my old friend “The Princess Claudia“. That’s what I call her and my whole family knows her by that title. We have been friends for close to 56 years. My has the time flown by us! So I usually just call her Princess. She calls me Brat. In fact her entire family had always know me as “Jan the Brat”… I really don’t know what to say to that one. It’s a title I own and I love it because the people who call me that have always been those I love so dearly.
  
     Oh yea… about the Lilac bath salts…
… Imagine yourself soaking in a huge romantic antique claw foot tub which is sitting in the middle of a Lilac orchard in full bloom! You are floating in heavenly silk surrounded by beautiful mature lilacs! That’s how I feel when I use my Essential Bliss Lilac bath salts. It was my husband’s original favorite of my blends. Mine was Sweet Pea for the longest time (we keep bouncing around with favorites and that’s always fun). But right now we both favor the Violet… it’s so pretty and it’s new.
    
     Last but never least is my Lavender. I love lavender…. The scent, every variety of it as well as the color. I love everything that lavender stands for. My first batch that I’ve put up pretty much represents how I couldn’t make up my mind about which variety of lavender essential oil to use. Personally I tend to favor the lighter more floral notes of the French Lavender but I also realize now that many people want the deep aromatherapy of the heavier and stronger domestic lavender essential oil. It was in a chat with Princess that I came to the conclusion that once my Lavender scent is all sold out I am going to split the two lavenders and offer them separately.
     
     So for now, my lavender is a blend of a domestic lavender essential oil sweetened up a bit with essential oil of French lavender and once it‘s all gone it may be gone indefinitely and after this I will offer two different lavenders, a pungent aromatherapy and a lighter floral French lavender. They each offer their own unique ambiance and I now feel that they should be offered separately for just that reason.
Goodnight!

http://www.essentialbliss.etsy.com/