kidsngarden

Hooray! Over for now!

I was with HCM for my first site...I paid the $150 for a lifetime subscription. And you know what? I wish I would have stayed!!! I had no problems with frank or HCM even after he sold, I chose to end my relationship with the company because I THOUGHT that this gal I knew would reshape my site into a more marketable structure...It was a huge mistake. While maybe I could get more hits, I lost money because this gal totally messed up my site and failed to fix it in a timely manner. I was missing HCM like nobodies business! I ended up firing her on Thanksgiving day and I'm sure I have lost thousands of dollars and potential customers because of the mess ups and down times. Not to mention what I paid the designer! I posted about it here and Adam set me up on graceful hosting and he was awesome! On thanksgiving we made the switch. he was off to see family that evening and was helping me right up until his foot was practically out the door! Then he got in touch while visiting with family which I think was totally above and beyond the call of duty. To me I don't pay enough for what he has done (ummm, but I'll take it Adam, LOL!) For the time he spends even if I pay for 3 years, I still don't think I will have paid him enough. From the time I got my site up I have made oh, hmmm. 20 times the sales of my wordpress site because it works! My customers love it and are glad my template based site similar to my HCM site is up. I'm still adding to it and Adam is still helping along the way. I actually thought Adam was much older by how professional he is. !8 is totally news to me. Kudos to him for being great at what he does at such a young age! I hope he does great in college!

Do you just mineral oil your PVC or line it with freezer paper?

I'm still not pleased with my GM LS, but my customers are....We are always hardest on ourselves aren't we? I even took my LS off my site until I would have time to mess with it some more. But people were freaking out so I put it back on, but I still don't feel great about it. Cream soap is intriguing to me, but I tried some and I just don't get the purpose, maybe for shaving, but I can't see much else besides a novelty so it's pretty low on my list to do....however, there's that whole challenge of being able to do it! I'll just be sticking to making my GM LS just the way I want it for now. Good luck Grumpy!

As a gal who generally likes to just jump into things I want to caution you that less is more. Start out with making soap. then add lotions - starting with a base. I used to make all my own lotions, scrubs, whipped shea, bath bombs, lip balms, soap, bath salts, bath melts, liquid soap, lotion bars... Look at my site now and you will see I have scaled way down. (no really, I have, LOL!) I actually really hate making lotion so much that I stopped (much to many customers chagrin) and just sell lotion bars and scented shea. It was a major hassle to make. Why invest so much in something you might totally hate? I made researching soapmaking a full time job before I even made my first batch, same with lotion, and I'm not over exaggerating here. My lotion was tested before I sold it. It was a lot of work. I confess, I went into business a lot sooner than most recommend here, but I was pretty lucky AND like I said I had done so much research long before I began to make things. What I'm trying to say here is to be careful. You have a little one and all this can soon run your life if you let it AND moreover someone could get hurt if things aren't made properly. It's also a tough market right now and many soapers and even suppliers are biting the dust. They are selling all the stuff they thought would make them the big bucks for a song right now. I've read on one of your other posts that you think people have been pretty mean to you here...but you have to realize how many people come on here thinking they have some grand idea to make a buck in bath and body and have not done nearly enough footwork. They make us all look bad when they sell a bad product to a customer who's never had quality handcrafted B&B before. The warnings and advice to you has been totally fair and if you can stick it out and make a business at this you will see the wisdom in what people are telling you.

I love lard as well! My thing with using a lot of crisco is I worry about DOS. So much soybean, which hasn't worked out well for me in the past. And you need to be careful that if you don't actually buy crisco that your store brand is all vegetable as some of them aren't and would have a different SAP value. ETA I prefer my GM straight from the goat, but I'm lucky to have my own...you can find meyenburg (sp?) in the dairy fridge with the other milk, sold in quarts. Freeze it into cubes, weigh and just dump the lye on top and stir away until it's dissolved.

Gorgeous as usual!

It all depends on what look you are going for with GM - HP is brown and rustic, CP you have a lot more control. I prefer to RTCP all my GM soap.

It's all I make....LOVE IT! I did a tutorial in the class section awhile back, unfortunately my pictures never made it on, but the instructions are pretty well written out for making 100% goat milk soap.

There was a bizarre thing that happened last night so my site was a little messed up, but today I am adding my products.....alas, there is always cyber Monday. I'm still better off than I was!

Thank you everyone! I will be switching to graceful hosting ASAP. She just sent me an email telling me my site was ready to go. Uh, no. My test orders were screwed still. Thanks for the info about wordpress Allicia. That totally makes sense to me, but she was telling me that I was being "one of the first" on Wordpress. But it seems to me that I'm one big experiment and every e-commerce plug in is one a big ????? Unfortunately, she told me her hubby lost his job on Friday so now I get to add to her problems, but no, actually, SHE is the one who added to her problems. I didn't make this mess, SHE did. I feel sorry she has to go through her stuff and wish her the best, but this is business and I can't be her little pet project while my rep is being ruined! Thanksgiving or no, she has got to go!

Hmmmm, well I told her no site today, no payment. Products are up! AMAZING! Sheesh! But this whole firefox thing is a problem, she told me that on the backend I had to use FF, but I wasn't aware you needed it to shop my site... GRRRR! And the coupon feature is still a mess. no coupons, no black friday/cyber monday promotion, no money for her!

So for the past month I have actually LOST money on my site. Right now I am having some very heavy regrets about cancelling my lifetime enrollment with HCMpro. I had just about NO problems ever with my site using it. I hired a gal (who goes to church with me) who had taken an 18 month intensive course on wordpress to design my site (blog) in wordpress. I had researched marketing strategies and knew this was a wise choice from a marketing standpoint. I was her first client besides her own site and she gave me a deal so that I could be a good reference for her and she let me make payments. I still owe her half the money. Next payment due Dec. 1. Initially I was totally amazed at the work she did and all the bells and whistles. I began working in earnest on generating traffic to my site writing on my blog and also articles and hubs elsewhere. I couldn't get USPS flat rate shipping on so we just made a constant flat rate "Deal" for awhile till it got fixed, but she ended up having to code it in. Then my coupons were discounting the shipping and tax as well as the products. (my coupon options really sucked from the get go compared to HCMpro). My cart was also not showing the discounted total until you got to paypal checkout - which is unnerving as a customer! It was a mess! Then I got an email from a very nice new customer about three weeks ago telling me that my site was severely messed up. My cart was deleting items, then showing too many. It was showing her a gamut of totals every time she went to check them. she finally paid with paypal and felt ok with the total. Well, when I checked the numbers paypal had charged her 30% less than was reported on my site (which in the end the total on my site was correct, except again the coupon she used discounted the shipping as well, GRRRR!) OK, so I made NO money on that sale!!! I was totally mortified. Internet shoppers are not patient folks. From that one person who told me the troubles there are SO many who didn't and will probably NEVER come back!!! I did some tests myself and found all the customers claims to be spot on... So I emailed my designer and called her and left a message telling her the problems. she replied saying she just got home from surgery (which she never told me she was having - and it wasn't emergency surgery) SHE HAD SEEN THAT MY CART WASN'T WORKING PROPERLY BEFORE SURGERY BUT COULDN'T GET TO IT!!!! "Apparently the new plug-in messed things up...." WHAT???? So for how many days was this going on??? Now she could be at the PC for limited time during the day and would do as much as she could. she said I should email everyone and post a blog about the problems with my site telling people I would refund any overages... OK, well there weren't overages! I was losing money! I replied that I was losing money and I need the site working YESTERDAY and could her son who was also trained in wordpress fix it? I said I needed it up because well IT'S NOVEMBER and I had several LBB promotions and also a black friday/cyber monday thing coming up. I emailed my customers and posted on my site for anyone wishing to order to email it to me directly. HOW LAME! Meanwhile I have emailed her a couple more times and called her with my concerns and get no reply. finally I nail her on the phone and she says she is installing a new update to wordpress, a beta model, that I will be a lot more happy with. But we would have to imput all my products again from my back up files, etc. FINE! Couldn't she have told me that awhile ago? Well, hmmm a week has gone by, here we are day before thanksgiving and my only product on my site is bath truffles! I have done everything she asked me to do...now I wait for her end. My products are in my admin waiting to be up, pictures everything. I have tried to figure out why it's not working like I have done before adding new categories, products and such, but I can't get it to publish. I know, I should fire her butt....I want to, but I have no idea really how to keep my site up and running without her. I know how to put products up, install plugins, etc, but if there are big errors like this I am CLUELESS. I can't afford to pay someone else 3-4 times as much as she has charged me to do my site. So I'm thinking I will tell her I am not making my payment to her December 1st because I don't have the money because I have gotten NO BUSINESS in Nov. but really, is there anyone out there who works wordpress themselves? Can I do this myself without taking a course? I'm not a total idiot here...(well, maybe I am for hiring her!!!!) Thanks for reading my rant!!! TIA!

I would save it for a leave on product as well...Boy! A 50% butter bar! I thought my 30% shea recipe was luxurious! WOW!!!

My new shea recipe ashes something fierce, but I just can't get past how much I love the recipe so I have learned to just deal with ash...It even ashes on the cut parts! Embrace the ash, become one with the ash, get to know your ash... :laugh2: :laugh2:

Ditto! i've had both scents side by side to try and Cuke mint outsell the cuke melon every time!

My thing with cutting my bars down the middle is I have textured tops. I suppose I could pour at a thinner trace so my tops would be flat (but I really like my textured tops!) maybe I'll just slice my bars at 1/2 inch thickness, but that's about a 2.5 oz bar. you think that is too big? i'm trying to figure out what to sell these to a B&B for if they are 2.5 oz. I should look for a tray too..... thanks for the input!

I want to make some soaps for a bed and breakfast that are hotel or guest size. Anyone know of a good mold? I don't want a milky way, but something more solid for CP. TIA!

I found soapmakers companion to be pretty worthless. I would just stick to learning here and on other forums, looking for advice from people who know what they are doing like grumpy suggested. Everything I learned I learned first from the net then by experience actually making soap. I started with the basics, then if I had a question I would ask. I think reading about soaping just doesn't compare to the experience of doing it, but I'm a hands on kinda' gal.

Amen sistah! Sometimes I swear it's just as bad as dial up! Great work as usual Grumpy!

Are they for dogs or humans? Did you use soap paint? Very cool!

I've read on another forum that having additives like GM you don't get DOS. All my soaps have 20-30% HO sunflower, and they are made with fresh GM. I've never had a case of DOS, many bars are over 2 years old in my stash right now. I did have a case of DOS in one batch - it was made with 20% canola and had no GM....interesting.

1/3 tsp to 1/2 cup is a lot I think! I usually use 1/4 - 1 tsp to 2-3 cups depending on what color it is. Actually the only good purple I've gotten from a mica that doesn't disappear is using the aqua mica from BB. It morphs to purple!

The certified kitchen alone would get me. While my kitchen is scoured especially before making lotions, they want a whole seperate facility. I really don't want to have the red tape and fees associated with it every time I change a scent or add a different color. I don't want to pay a lab tech to test all my stuff every time there is a change. Testing lotion costs enough. Like Scented said, $2000 is just the tip of the iceburg. I'm filling out the form!

This I know Candybee. This was such and insanely unique situation. I totally would not have done custom soap without an upfront payment. The rip off with this guy is not so much in production but the amount of time you spend dealing with him and I should have nipped it in the bud long before two months but I was trying to be nice, then I got flat out mean and rude and he still did not go away. I put my foot down and said, "you give me the cash for a 36 bar pack with a custom label and that's my terms" (at this point I just wanted to eek out some money from the crazy guy for my time - though this didn't even begin to cover it) so he sent the money, but it was short $7 so I took out a couple of bars of soap, but then the MO wasn't signed!!! so I sent it back for him to sign, then he doesn't conact me for a week so I email him asking if he's returned it to me yet, but now he wants to just buy 5 bars to try - which is what I told him to do in the first place! I went off on him and told him I had his soap wrapped and ready to go (which I did not do until the MO was in hand - I didn't realize it wasn't signed until I went to the bank - thank goodness I went there BEFORE the PO) He said, "Oh yeah, ok, I'll get it too you." I was so ticked I told him he had to get payment to me by wednesday (this was a Saturday) or it was all over. He refused to use paypal so he sent it Express and had the NERVE to ask me to include 4-5 extra bars because he had paid $15 to get the MO to me so fast! Grrr. No way buddy. Should have just signed the stupid thing and sent it back to me right away for 43 cents! I get the MO and send him his soap Promptly and then he still comes back with all these other stupid requests. So I told him to forget it and I blacklisted the guy off my email and he got a new one and started begging for me to make soap for him. I told him I couldn't do business with him anymore and that that email would be blacklisted too. I told him not to contact me. so he gets another email which I again blacklist and he leaves two incredibly long voice messages (never with his restricted phone number to call him back either!) begging for soap again! The only thing I did wrong was to try to help him out too much. I tell you he will push and push until you can't take it anymore... This has been a long rant, but this doesn't even begin to tell you the stuff I went through with this guy!