Compact for Safe Cosmetics

HOLLYWOOD here we come;)

Shipping our soaps to Culver City CA today! It will be a prop in the movie Bridesmaids-release date of 2011! http://bit.ly/bridesmaidsmovie

We were contacted last week and were playing phone tag trying to get more info. They requested 3-4 bars of soap that will be given as a gift in the movie! They wanted a real Milwaukee product that would be recognizable verses a made up one. Peninsula Soap is going to be famous:) We also got a text last night that they wanted 2 of each of the soaps for doing scenes... after one scene of opening the gift they'll need to re-wrap and open it over and over again so 2 sets of soap will make it easier.

So this morning 2 Olive Bar, 2 Bay View Sunset, 2 Door County Cherry, 2 Baby Buddha & 2 Herbal Bliss will be making the long trip out to Culver City California to Sony Pictures!!
We wish them luck!!

Buy Green, Sell Green, Be Green

We're on GreenPeople.org! An online directory of eco-friendly businesses, organizations and events (since 1998).
http://greenpeople.org/listing/Peninsula-Soap-Company-59321.cfm

Coloring with ROOTS...

specifically Madder Root (red coloring) and Alkanet Root (purple coloring) for the Door County Cherry & Wino soaps. We also used Ylang Ylang essential oils for the Cherry & Clove Bud for the Wine soap. So far the Cherry looks really nice! The Wino I'm not sure what to think of yet but it sure does smell good... like a spicy mulled wine:)

The people online said the Alkanet Root can give more of a gray color in the CP of soap making so that made me nervous but we use the HP so we'll have to wait and see. I was surprised it didn't dye my clothes when I dropped the stick blender on myself:)

The Cherry soap of course still has ground Door County Cherries in it but the Wino we decided didn't need crushed grapes we just swapped out one oil and added grapeseed oil instead... those dried grapes were a pain and not really giving us the dark color we wanted.

BABY BUDDHA Rocks Sturgeon bay Farmer's Market!

Round two of weekends spent in Door County selling soap was a success! With 15 bars sold we also featured our first essential oil soap for the first time. Baby Buddha, named that because Jesse was awesome enough to give us a bottle of blended essential oils (orange, pine, patchouli & frankincense) sold out by the end of the weekend. Although it was only a half batch were still thrilled and are spending the week adding fragrance and new colors to our soaps hopefully in time for two different sales events next weekend in Door County. Fourth of July weekend should bring in huge crowds and were not only doing the Sturgeon Bay farmer's market on Saturday from 9am till noon but then we're heading to Egg Harbor for a new one that includes more crafts. It's called Blossom Hill and we chatted with the woman who owns the land and is organizing the event. She also has it running Sunday so we'll be there that day too.

Sturgeon bay Farmers Market...

this past Saturday was a success! Even with the cooler gloomy weather we still sold the same amount of soap in 3 hours as we did in Milwaukee on a nice sunny day in 6 hours. The farmers market isn't in full swing yet and neither are the tourists due to it being early in the season (so there isn't a lot to sell) and the cooler rainy weather recently. We're positive things will pick way up though in 2 weeks when we go back. We were the only soap company there so that's good & we even met another vendor that was into healthy living & all natural products so we chatted with them for a while. We sold an Olive Bar to a woman who mad a straight line to our booth who's daughter is highly sensitive to soaps so we may have made a long term customer out of her because she said they usually have to throw soaps away that they try. With just Olive & Coconut Oil I can't imagine it giving her a problem.

We also sold 7 bars a piece to two awesome women one from Shaun's dad's office and one that his mom gave a sample to earlier in the month. Both loved Olive Bar but bought some other varieties. One of them is sending a few bars of Door County Cherry Soap to her daughter in Hawaii. Very cool our soap will be going to Hawaii but I wish we were going with it:)

The National Cafe is Selling Our Soap!!

We're officially being sold in The National Cafe in Milwaukee!! They started with 2 bars of each of the 7 varieties I brought in yesterday. Cheers to them for being the first to carry our soap:)

Today I started sending soap samples to places in Door County... Brick Alley in Sturgeon Bay, Fish Creek market in Fish Creek & The Flying Pig in Algoma. No word yet from the sample I sent to Greens & Grains in Egg Harbor but we're hopeful. We really need a retailer up there because we're only going to be able to do the farmer's market in Sturgeon bay 2x a month.

I also contacted Vegan Essentials and they requested a sample so i sent that out today and I emailed the Riverwest Co-Op to see if we could get our soap sold there as well. Waiting to here back if they want a sample but I think I'd rather deliver it in person and talk with them so we'll see when they respond.

Door County Sales this weekend!!

We're selling at the Sturgeon bay Farmers market this Saturday 9-noon. We will also be dropping off an order for Olive Bar to one of the other people in Shaun's dads office building who said after the samples he brought in for everyone she "fell in love with the Olive Bar". YAY! 2nd time we've received an email with good feedback! Now that the farmers markets are open for the season I'll be trying out new locations weekly.

I'm also meeting with one of the owners of The National Cafe because they my be the first retailers to sell our soap! I'll know more Monday afternoon.

Created a listing on www.GreenPeople.org & peninsulasoap@gmail.com will be notified when your free listing (# 59321) is made
visible. The review process takes 1 - 2 weeks.

I also added us to Google Places & placed free ads on Shepherd Express & Craigslist online plus I got all our products listed & reviewed on Sustain Lane and Olive Bar and Door County Cherry are now on Etsy.

I also contacted Vegan Essentials today based in Waukesha with a strong online presence to see if they would be interested in carrying our soap so I'm also waiting to hear back from them.

We're on Etsy!!

I got Olive Bar and Door County Cherry soap on my Etsy shop now. I decided it was a good way to get our product selling online and hopefully get people directed to our website. We don't know how many times anyone has been to our website but we haven't had any online orders yet. We have a #1 presence on all the top search engines though when it comes to searching our company name so that's good... the more we're on the web the better.

7 Mile fair did not go over well yesterday so we're a little bummed about that but we didn't know it wouldn't be our target audience. They say they are a flea market but I would have to disagree. It's more like a festival with a lot of vendors that seem to sell a lot of stuff that's probably stolen. Not a good environment for people who care about their health or being green. It was a wake up call to me because I assumed everyone has been touched and had some kind of awareness about the dangers of chemicals in food & skin care products and that most people used reusable bags and cared about organic, sustainable, fair trade living-but these people were all "dollar menu" people with zero awareness it disturbed and saddened me and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the cluelessness.

Now we know and can move on though. I'm going to start scheduling weekday farmers markets in Lake Geneva, Cedarburg & elsewere come June when they start up.

We're on FACEBOOK!!

We're finally on Facebook (link above) and we have a bunch of "likes" that I don't even know:) How cool is that? I set up our new Milwaukee event for sales this Saturday and the first Door County sales event at the Sturgeon Bay farmers market. I'm making tons of Door County Cherry soap for that one as it's expected to be our biggest seller. I also experimented with a purple carrot extract dye (all-natural/pure of course) with the Wino to try and get it more purple and it helped... made it marble. Not sure if I like it but I'm dehydrating blackberries right now to try too.