What's Happening Wednesday-New Projects

This past year I introduced several new Essential oil (EO) blends into the Unique Garden Essences line. Coming up with names and informative descriptions for these new blends is really a daunting task, but one came pretty easily because it seemed to yell it. I am talking about the Embrace blend.  I feel like grabbing the wearer and just.....well, embracing them! Lol. In fact, the Embrace label is a photograph of my Daughter-in-Law and Son, standing on the beach, sun setting behind them, right after they got married, and guess what they are doing. Yep, you have it, they are embracing! It's a gorgeous label for a gorgeous fragrance. Anyway, it was the Embrace that really got me back into a creation groove, and truly motivated me. I dug out some old recipes, create some new ones, and expanded the product line!

I developed a (new) Solid Lotion Bar recipe, and packaged it both naturally, and in a twist up (deodorant) type container. But I still wanted more products to highlight this new Embrace, so, as the twist up and bars of Solid Lotion  hit the shelves, I began thinking about how else I could highlight this fragrance. Since I already make several personal, oil based fragrances, a solid one seemed like a natural progression. Although they really don't fit the definition of "perfume", that is still what most people would call them. So I now have all of my personal fragrances available in oil based and solid bases. The solid ones come in a blue, twist up tube so that you won't accidentally grab it when reaching for your lip balm. And those are delivered in colorful boxes.

I also changed up my soap presentation. Although the show soaps are still sold naked, ordered soaps are boxed and come with a plantable (both herbs and wild flowers) strip of hand made paper. The label in the picture is NOT the label I am using, this picture was of a mock up, when I was deciding on the presentation. The new label has a blue and brown theme, with a pop of flowers (check out the boxes, the flowers are like those). And I was so excited when I found some cool boxes that have an almost identical pattern. Since these changes all happened during the holidays, they are still new and haven't been formally rolled out, just kind of casually added!

So now I am working on liquid soap (from scratch), shower gel and shampoo. I am close to finalizing  the liquid soap and gel recipe, but am still formulating the shampoos. Naturally they will be packaged in the cobalt blue, just as everything else is. I believe they will all be consumer ready in February! I am really excited by these new products, and it has been so much fun trying something brand new. All the other products have properties that I have worked with for so many years, it seems less of a challenge to create with them. But liquid soap is an entirely different beast I assure you! There isn't a lot written about formulating your own, and what there is can be confusing and contradictory. So making my own recipes has been very challenging, and very rewarding as well! These recipes represent the first time in my career that I ever walked away from a project to collect myself after I pulled some hair out! Lol You may be thinking this was terrible, but actually, this was great! I love a challenge and I really needed it. I believe that these products will show all my effort in the end, and be worth every strand of hair pulled! Lol