Fight Flu, Wash Hands! Helpful Discount

Cold and Flu Season is in full swing and I am just terrified of my kids getting sick. I know sleepless nights will come, non-stop crying and stuffy noses can happen any day now. I am preparing myself for possibility of juggling holiday shows, ton of holiday orders and being sick myself or having sick kids at the same time. It seems impossible to prevent cold or flu when you share everything with everybody in your household. But there are two things that everybody can do: take vitamins and WASH HANDS! I remember, before I was making my own soap, every winter we all had to use a ton of regular soap as frequent as 20 times per day! And I remember that my hands felt like if I wash them one more time, my skin would peel off of them. Harsh detergents in soap burned, dried and scaled my skin and no lotions, no matter how much or how often I would use, could help. My husband had the worst case of dry hands in winter, it was painfully uncomfortable. After constant washes the skin on his hands would turn white and it felt dry, like paper. He would use a ton of lotions but at the end of the day would always end up with the same problem. For the past few years that I have been making my soaps and using only soaps I make, I can proudly declare that our household is “dry skin-free”! It is truly a miracle. Even in winter months I do not need to saturate my hands in lotion every 10 minutes. My husband’s hands feel great and even sometimes he can forget to use lotion completely.
I wish everybody could experience the power of natural soap and wash hands as frequent as possible to stay healthy and happy this winter season. So I have decided to run a promotional SALE on some of our most soothing and gentle soaps until the end of this year. Just add WASHHANDS09 at check out and get 20% off on the following soaps:
Lemongrass Moisturizing Soap with Shea Butter
Classic Lavender Moisturizing and Nourishing Soap with Shea Butter and Goat Milk

And don't forget to check out our Seasonal Sales, Oatmeal Honey and Forest Sprite would be an excellent choice for Gentle and Moisturizing Hand Soap and they are already discounted!



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Full Steam Ahead

I have been making soaps like madwoman in a last few weeks. What seems like madwoman to me, however may look more like slow moving snail to somebody else :) Juggling kids, every day chores, house keeping and business is NOT an easy task. Unfortunately, most of the times business gets lowest priority. But I know that I just have to keep moving and make continuous small or even micro steps forward, whether making a new product, blogging, researching or making labels - whatever I have time for. And I have made some progress, one small task at a time. I have added a new soap book to my soap-making book collection and it is by Soapylove It is so inspirational, fun and quite unique. Melt and Pour soaps are not exactly up my alley but I love all the techniques, designs, clever ideas that Debbie has to offer. I had a little time to experiment with some of her ideas and the first one was Soap Balls! Before I have been rebatching my old soap by Hot Processing it and then together with my 5 year old rolled soap balls for embedding…it could have taken up to two month to make those soap balls. Now I have successfully made batch of 28 red and yellow Cold Process soap balls using ice cube mold recommended by Debbie, and all it took is 24 hrs. I’ll let them sit on my drying rack for few more days and they’ll be ready to go into my Zesty-Cranberry soap. Yippee!
I just have to brag about my new Gingersnap Milk and Honey soap! I made it yesterday night! It smells delicious and looks even better! Pardon my lighting, it was late night outside. It is made of fresh, creamy goat milk, local honey, oats and the most amazing smelling Gingersnap fragrance! The scent will make you want to sink your teeth into it. I bet it will be a crowd pleaser at the Holiday Gift Show this year!



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Back to work!

I had a few minutes today for myself before my older one returns from school and while my youngest enjoyed his jumper. So I finally was able to return to blogging. It was a long and busy summer but it was planned to be this way. I am glad to be back to work! An opportunity to get back to business kept me on my toes all summer long! I just couldn’t wait to get back to my studio, make new products and search for new scents and ingredients! However, I am very happy with our summer and the progress we made. We have finished remodeling 1/3 of our house, what at one time used to be Marmalade Hills studio is now a home office and a family room. My husband had supervised his first project at work, and even though it took him out of the country for three weeks, it was an important step in his career. And finally we had a fun family trip to Chicago. The most memorable part of the trip for me was Cloud Gate sculpture in downtown Chicago or The Bean. It is so simple, yet unique, modern, engaging, fun and absolutely breathtaking! Check out for yourself…

Unfortunately it was too crowded to capture true beauty of it, but found many gorgeous pictures of Cloud Gate here.

Here are some night pictures of Chicago

Now the summer is officially over (today we had first frost overnight!); schedule for Fall/Winter season is set; new products and scents are finalized; and I am back to work at my studio! Because all of Marmalade Hills’ soaps have to cure for 6 weeks I am whipping new batches of soap every other day to make sure that I have enough fresh and yummy smelling soaps this holiday season! As far as new products go, you will be able to try new Bath Truffles and completely new Lotion formula, which is divine in texture and extremely beneficial for skin. I am so excited about new products that I will have to blog about each one of them individually!



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Product Party Report

My Friday was very intense. I totally missed the whole day, it seems like I went from Thursday straight to Saturday. I was preparing all day and had time only for breakfast. I was running on my adrenalin and excitement. We got up early Friday morning, took my daughter to preschool, my little one to my mom’s and went straight to my studio. I don’t know what I would’ve done without my mom and my in-laws! They took over the kids for the day and I was able to work, work, work, as fast as I can. I thought I was very well prepared as far as the product stock, but I had to label everything, shrink wrap, make signs, set up the picture show, print out the price lists and get it all boxed up and loaded into my car….of course I was running late and my exit from the freeway was closed! Where was my GPS when I needed it! When I finally got to the house my friend, was already rallying for me, so people were ready and excited to see my amazing lotions and potions. The hostess, Nicole, is a friend of my friend (and now my friend too) and her house is beautiful and very eclectic! She put a lot of love and her own personality into her home. I was just blown away by her kitchen backsplash. It’s a huge copper backsplash that she designed and welded by herself! And it’s at least 4’ x 6’ humongous piece of metal! It looks totally cool and artsy. I wish I had a picture of it to show you! Actually I don’t have many pictures from the party. I was hopping to get lots of pictures, but I was so busy setting everything up and then talking to people that I just forgot about my camera. I set my table up as fast as I could and it turned out great and I didn’t forget anything… oh no, I did: I forgot my business cards! D'oh! I was so mad at myself. Thank god I had a bunch of price lists that I gave away with every purchase…. Anyways, where was I? I was lucky to have a huge dining room table right next to the front door, so nobody could miss me! I had my bath bombs set up on a cute pastry tower; had my digital picture frame with product slideshow; sign with specials, bowls with cashews and dark chocolates for guests, and the rest of the products basically setup on the table displaying themselves.
The bottom line is: the party turned out great, I was very excited to introduce people to my natural skin care and I really enjoyed talking about it. I made quite a few sales and most important a lot of new friends!!! I loved doing parties and my friend who is my biggest fan will have a huge party in August where Marmalade Hills is already invited! Yippee! Can’t wait!


P.S. if you are interested in having Marmalade Hills at your party send me an email!



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“Tile Me Beautiful” Shout Out

Tile Me Beautiful is my new favorite blog! Michelle is an open and funny girl. And I LOVE, LOVE her tiled pieces! I wish I could have this tray someday! It’s simply gorgeous and very unique! Michelle had picked our bath bombs as her favorite bombs! And it made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. I’m very proud of my silky cream bombs and it is awesome when somebody appreciates things you love! Thanks Michelle!



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Recycling Rewards for your community

I have been business news junkie lately and I love “Venture” on Bloomberg TV channel. They invite many interesting, intelligent and driven people who own big and small businesses to talk about their companies and how they became successful. A few weeks ago “Venture” had an episode devoted to green businesses. They were all great companies with fresh ideas, but the one I liked the most was Recycle Bank Reward Program (RBRP). Recycle Bank is a reward program that rewards households for their recycling efforts. The RBRP is offered to households through city government and haulers who provide your community recycling services. Even though standard recycling services exist in our area I know for a fact that way too many people don’t bother to recycle for reasons such as lack of time, lack of interest or simple laziness. What RBRP does is making a boring routine more exciting and beneficial. And who doesn’t like benefits? Especially material once! Those that you can touch, smell and use to buy every day necessities. How it works: you get a recycling cart that you fill up during the week with recycling waste and on your garbage collection day you pull it out for curbside pick up. The recycling cart is embedded with an electronic chip that gets scanned by the recycling truck to determine weight of your recycled material. RecycleBank rewards you for recycling with RecycleBank Reward Points. These points are based on your personal household recycling weight and they are used to order rewards. There are hundreds of participating national brands for you to chose your rewards from!
What a great idea you say, but how does government benefit from this program, why would they care about enhancing recycling efforts? They save a ton of money from landfill diversion. Millions of dollars can be saved and used with greater benefit to the whole community and our Planet!
After watching the episode with an open mouth I ran to my laptop and found the information on how to participate in RBRP. They didn’t have to ask me twice, I typed my letters in one breath and now waiting for the response.
If you want your community to participate you can find helpful forms and information right here.



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Happy Earth Day!

Marmalade Hills is committed to keep our Planet healthy and clean for many generations to come. That is why we have decided to celebrate this day by offering a generous discount as an appreciation to our customers for their ongoing effort to live green. Take 25% off on anything in our store (not including shipping). Choose from many natural skin care luxuries and help us to stay the course all year round!

*see store for details



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