Hi all,
First off, I hope everyone had a good holiday season, regardless of their faith.
My mom ended up coming to NYC this year, but left early because of the impending snow storm. Wow, I just walked out in it to come to my favorite place to get away and write, and it's pretty spectacular. Depending on who you read or listen to, we could get 10 feet of snow, or 10 inches. Or less.
I read somewhere that it costs the city upwards of $1,000,000 per inch, to clear it from the streets. Since I've lived here, which is pretty much since forever, I can say that the sanitation department does an excellent job of snow removal.
Soapier did quite well this holiday season, thanks to all of you.
We are working on a re-structuring for next year, so we can stay open. We'll have more news on that next week.
On Christmas Eve, my girlfriend and I splurged on dinner out at Harry's Steak House, on Stone Street in NYC. Very good food. The service was good, too. If you find yourself down there, try their sweet potato mash. Oh my god.
Normally, my gf and I cook dinner. We go grocery shopping in New Jersey to save money, and have a rotating set of dinners we cook. We'd been saving up for this dinner for a long time, and it was sooooo worth it.
We'd also been saving all of our change, you know, that we accumulated, and made a special dinner on Christmas day. That was scallops.
Now, I have never ever ever never been a fish eater. But over the past year I have branched out to both salmon and scallops. Maybe next year I'll try some others.
It was a good holiday, though I was sorry I didn't get a chance to see my mom. We were supposed to go to a Swedish restaurant tonight, but alas, that didn't work out.
I'll see her some time in January.
My sister goes to the doctor on Tuesday, to determine when she'll need surgery. They found an aneurysm in her arm, so it might have to be two surgeries. We'll see on Tuesday.
Other than that, we're very happy the way the holiday season went. My mom got a flight back, after changing her flight via jetblue, and they didn't charge her extra because of the snow storm, so that was good. She said she got in at 2:30 in the morning, got home and has been spending her day relaxing with Petey, her dog.
I've been semi-stuck in the house, watching football, relaxing, eating leftovers, and generally just being an online nuisance.
I hope all of you had a great holiday. I hope you got to spend it with your loved ones. I wish you all the best.
John
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
This does not happen with our soaps...
I don't know what is in Ivory soap that it would do that... but our soaps don't look like The Blob coming at you when it's in the microwave.
Ours is kind of boring. It just melts... and then reforms into something resembling a puddle... which is kind of cool... I guess.
Soapier's 2-day sale
All gift baskets are now $15. We only have a limited supply of them, so get them while you can!
Also, all of the Christmas soaps (except for Santa's Nog) are discounted:
Under the Tree and New Ornaments are now $3 a slice. Once they're gone, that's it.
The Christmas Works of Art soaps are now only $5 each. Once they're gone, that's it.
This sale goes on until Friday at Midnight. We'll get all of these orders out by Monday.
We're offering this sale as last minute gift ideas. This sale is not meant to be taken retroactively.
Thanks!
J @ S
Soapier.com
Also, I've updated the site so that it reflects soaps that we have in stock, and I'll be doing my best to keep up with orders, to make sure things that are out of stock from here on out will be reflected on the site!
Also, all of the Christmas soaps (except for Santa's Nog) are discounted:
Under the Tree and New Ornaments are now $3 a slice. Once they're gone, that's it.
The Christmas Works of Art soaps are now only $5 each. Once they're gone, that's it.
This sale goes on until Friday at Midnight. We'll get all of these orders out by Monday.
We're offering this sale as last minute gift ideas. This sale is not meant to be taken retroactively.
Thanks!
J @ S
Soapier.com
Also, I've updated the site so that it reflects soaps that we have in stock, and I'll be doing my best to keep up with orders, to make sure things that are out of stock from here on out will be reflected on the site!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Sales, stock, Canada, internet cafes, and more
Well, it's Friday, December 10th. 15 days until my favorite holiday, besides my birthday, which should be a national holiday only because nothing too exciting happened on August 3rd.
Wow, what are the odds that Germany would declare war with France in WWI, AND Hitler would take command over all of Germany, both on the same day in history?
I need to change my birthday. Sheesh.
Ok, so, let's get back to a more cheerful subject.
Christmas is coming soon! Yay. I've always enjoyed Christmas. I don't remember it so much when I was a little kid, but when I hit 10, let me tell you, brother, my sister and I hit the jackpot!
So, my parents divorced when I was 9 or so. It was sad, sure, but these things happen.
Check this out.
Christmas Eve, we would go to my grandparents house, on my mom's side. Always a crazy Christmas. Huge amount of food, huge amounts of presents. It was awesome.
We'd go home, sleep, and the next day, Christmas, was a marathon of gift giving and receiving. First, we had home gifts from mom. Awesome. Then my dad would pick my sister and I up and drive us to our other grandparents, where we got gifts from all of our aunts and uncles. Insane. THEN we'd get my dad's gifts.
We made out like bandits, truly.
I think I get two gifts these days... feels like I'm in the k-hole of gift karma, but so be it. I enjoy giving more than anything else.
Yeah, right.
No, really! Go away.
My dad passed away a long time ago, almost fifteen years ago. I haven't had much communication with his side of the family since, and it's a shame, but we kind of drifted apart. I always got along well with his brother and sisters. I'll have to give them a call this year.
Christmas now-a-days is all depending on how much money has come in, and how creative I'm feeling. I love giving gifts. I have an idea of what to get my gf, we'll see if I can make that happen.
Even though it's a bit early to say, sales have been pretty good this year. We were hoping more people would have purchased the Soap of the Month club, but it's something we'll keep all year round.
We sold out of Alien soaps and Envelope soaps, bacon, trollface, and some Christmas soaps, which is great.
In other news, we'll be, hopefully, opening up a Canada annex of Soapier, starting in January. We'll see what happens.
Other than that, folks... things are things. We're so very thankful for the customers we have, the holiday orders we received, and that my sister is out of the hospital, taking it easy, and doing much better.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting us. I wish you all a fantastic holiday season.
John @ Soapier
Oh, I was writing this at an internet cafe, with no coffee. So there.
Wow, what are the odds that Germany would declare war with France in WWI, AND Hitler would take command over all of Germany, both on the same day in history?
I need to change my birthday. Sheesh.
Ok, so, let's get back to a more cheerful subject.
Christmas is coming soon! Yay. I've always enjoyed Christmas. I don't remember it so much when I was a little kid, but when I hit 10, let me tell you, brother, my sister and I hit the jackpot!
So, my parents divorced when I was 9 or so. It was sad, sure, but these things happen.
Check this out.
Christmas Eve, we would go to my grandparents house, on my mom's side. Always a crazy Christmas. Huge amount of food, huge amounts of presents. It was awesome.
We'd go home, sleep, and the next day, Christmas, was a marathon of gift giving and receiving. First, we had home gifts from mom. Awesome. Then my dad would pick my sister and I up and drive us to our other grandparents, where we got gifts from all of our aunts and uncles. Insane. THEN we'd get my dad's gifts.
We made out like bandits, truly.
I think I get two gifts these days... feels like I'm in the k-hole of gift karma, but so be it. I enjoy giving more than anything else.
Yeah, right.
No, really! Go away.
My dad passed away a long time ago, almost fifteen years ago. I haven't had much communication with his side of the family since, and it's a shame, but we kind of drifted apart. I always got along well with his brother and sisters. I'll have to give them a call this year.
Christmas now-a-days is all depending on how much money has come in, and how creative I'm feeling. I love giving gifts. I have an idea of what to get my gf, we'll see if I can make that happen.
Even though it's a bit early to say, sales have been pretty good this year. We were hoping more people would have purchased the Soap of the Month club, but it's something we'll keep all year round.
We sold out of Alien soaps and Envelope soaps, bacon, trollface, and some Christmas soaps, which is great.
In other news, we'll be, hopefully, opening up a Canada annex of Soapier, starting in January. We'll see what happens.
Other than that, folks... things are things. We're so very thankful for the customers we have, the holiday orders we received, and that my sister is out of the hospital, taking it easy, and doing much better.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting us. I wish you all a fantastic holiday season.
John @ Soapier
Oh, I was writing this at an internet cafe, with no coffee. So there.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Soapier and Wikileaks
Hi all,
In light of the recent development between Amazon and Wikileaks, we've decided to take down our products from Amazon.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "You had products on Amazon?"
Yes. Yes we did.
Amazon was, by far, the biggest headache of our company. Or, I should say, for me, personally. Setting up the products was a big problem. We don't have UPC codes, so we had to hack our way in, with the help of the Amazon team. It only took six emails to them, and then finally said 'oh, yeah, you're quoting our policy, we'll take care of it. No need for UPC codes on beauty products'. Sigh.
Then, I went through the arduous task of putting up our products. It took no less than five minutes per product, to list them on their site. The first round, I did it over the course of four hours, only to find out I'd made a mistake. Had to go into each of our 50 products, fix the mistake.
Then, we waited. And waited. And waited.
And when we got our first order, well, it was exciting. For all of two minutes.
The first order was for four bars of soap. Pretty cool.
The thing is, Amazon charges a flat shipping rate, per product, for products they do not fulfill. That means, our customers were being charged $4.99 for each product they purchased, of ours. So that 4 bar order turned into a $44 order, instead of a $29.95 order.
We refunded the shipping difference, but we found that we weren't getting any orders, and now we could understand why. The shipping charges were turning people off.
We tried to get Amazon to fix it, but that's another policy.
So, over the course of 1 year, we received 21 sales, and with each one, had to refund shipping charges.
We don't want to take advantage of some policy, just to make a couple of extra dollars. Shipping already costs an arm and a leg.
Don't get us started on the commission amount that Amazon was making per order. It was high. Almost 45%. This made us raise our prices to $6.95 on Amazon.
We kept it going because it was just another outlet for us, and we didn't have to do much self promotions on their site.
So, after the recent news about Amazon and Wikileaks, we've decided to sever our ties with Amazon. No great loss to us, surely no great loss to Amazon, but we felt it was important, especially since we donated money to Wikileaks earlier this year.
You know what was awesome? Julian Assange actually replied to some emails I sent him. His replies were campy and fun. Here's my first email to them:
Hi Daniel,
Well, February came and went and I wanted to let you know that we sold 102 bars of soap for Wikileaks, for a grand total of $250, to be donated to this great website.
Truth be told, I was kind of hoping for more... Blah! But, I hope the money helps, and I think this will become an annual thing for Soapier and Wikileaks. February will be Wikileaks month at Soapier!
Julian's reply:
It's great. I suspect soapy types are not too aggressive but WL is inherently combative... "All your files belong to us is" fantastic, but perhaps "Scrubbing corruption away one file at a time" and similar might work better for women, who I assume buy these products...
I followed it up about four months later, after the Collateral Murder video was posted:
I just wanted to let you know that the video you posted was simply unreal, and I'm so glad that Wikileaks is around to continue the fight for more transparency within the world's governments.
It's quite unreal, the lengths the Pentagon went through, saying that Wikileaks was a threat to national security, and all of the harassment that followed. I'm so sorry you all had to go through that. I hope you're coming out the other side, and in good condition.
I wish you all the best of luck, and continued support throughout the world.
His reply:
thanks. we'll scrub our troubles away for sure.
We'll see what we can do with some of these other companies that are going out of their way to put on a good face, but the fact is that using our wallets to express our distaste seems to be the only way to get things done, any more.
I downloaded the Insurance file that Wikileaks uploaded. We'll see what happens when Assange gets out of jail.
In light of the recent development between Amazon and Wikileaks, we've decided to take down our products from Amazon.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "You had products on Amazon?"
Yes. Yes we did.
Amazon was, by far, the biggest headache of our company. Or, I should say, for me, personally. Setting up the products was a big problem. We don't have UPC codes, so we had to hack our way in, with the help of the Amazon team. It only took six emails to them, and then finally said 'oh, yeah, you're quoting our policy, we'll take care of it. No need for UPC codes on beauty products'. Sigh.
Then, I went through the arduous task of putting up our products. It took no less than five minutes per product, to list them on their site. The first round, I did it over the course of four hours, only to find out I'd made a mistake. Had to go into each of our 50 products, fix the mistake.
Then, we waited. And waited. And waited.
And when we got our first order, well, it was exciting. For all of two minutes.
The first order was for four bars of soap. Pretty cool.
The thing is, Amazon charges a flat shipping rate, per product, for products they do not fulfill. That means, our customers were being charged $4.99 for each product they purchased, of ours. So that 4 bar order turned into a $44 order, instead of a $29.95 order.
We refunded the shipping difference, but we found that we weren't getting any orders, and now we could understand why. The shipping charges were turning people off.
We tried to get Amazon to fix it, but that's another policy.
So, over the course of 1 year, we received 21 sales, and with each one, had to refund shipping charges.
We don't want to take advantage of some policy, just to make a couple of extra dollars. Shipping already costs an arm and a leg.
Don't get us started on the commission amount that Amazon was making per order. It was high. Almost 45%. This made us raise our prices to $6.95 on Amazon.
We kept it going because it was just another outlet for us, and we didn't have to do much self promotions on their site.
So, after the recent news about Amazon and Wikileaks, we've decided to sever our ties with Amazon. No great loss to us, surely no great loss to Amazon, but we felt it was important, especially since we donated money to Wikileaks earlier this year.
You know what was awesome? Julian Assange actually replied to some emails I sent him. His replies were campy and fun. Here's my first email to them:
Hi Daniel,
Well, February came and went and I wanted to let you know that we sold 102 bars of soap for Wikileaks, for a grand total of $250, to be donated to this great website.
Truth be told, I was kind of hoping for more... Blah! But, I hope the money helps, and I think this will become an annual thing for Soapier and Wikileaks. February will be Wikileaks month at Soapier!
Julian's reply:
It's great. I suspect soapy types are not too aggressive but WL is inherently combative... "All your files belong to us is" fantastic, but perhaps "Scrubbing corruption away one file at a time" and similar might work better for women, who I assume buy these products...
I followed it up about four months later, after the Collateral Murder video was posted:
I just wanted to let you know that the video you posted was simply unreal, and I'm so glad that Wikileaks is around to continue the fight for more transparency within the world's governments.
It's quite unreal, the lengths the Pentagon went through, saying that Wikileaks was a threat to national security, and all of the harassment that followed. I'm so sorry you all had to go through that. I hope you're coming out the other side, and in good condition.
I wish you all the best of luck, and continued support throughout the world.
His reply:
thanks. we'll scrub our troubles away for sure.
We'll see what we can do with some of these other companies that are going out of their way to put on a good face, but the fact is that using our wallets to express our distaste seems to be the only way to get things done, any more.
I downloaded the Insurance file that Wikileaks uploaded. We'll see what happens when Assange gets out of jail.
Monday, December 6, 2010
We're running out of stock!
Just like the headline says, we're running out of stock on stuff, people.
We're officially out of the Reddit Alien in:
Chocolate (Big Heart)
Bacon
Winter Awesome
We're also out of the Pillow Talk gift basket.
Get your orders in quickly!
We're officially out of the Reddit Alien in:
Chocolate (Big Heart)
Bacon
Winter Awesome
We're also out of the Pillow Talk gift basket.
Get your orders in quickly!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Holiday orders at Soapier
So, we got slammmmmmed by Secret Santa, and we're getting the orders out, but to make sure that we get all of our orders out for the holiday rush, we're capping holiday orders after December 12th. This way, we can guarantee US orders get to their people on time.
International orders, you're going to want to place your order by the 6th. After that, we can't guarantee that they're going to get to you on time, since international shipping takes so long.
So, get those orders in ASAP!
Thanks,
John
International orders, you're going to want to place your order by the 6th. After that, we can't guarantee that they're going to get to you on time, since international shipping takes so long.
So, get those orders in ASAP!
Thanks,
John
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Donating
Hi folks,
So, over the course of the last five days or so we've received quite a few orders, both for the holidays and for Reddit's Secret Santa.
Reddit Gifts is the brain child of one of Soapier's staunchest supporters, Dan McComas. He's promoted our site, our product, our message for over a year. Not only is there a Reddit Secret Santa, but the community decided to make another gift giving holiday for Redditors called Arbitrary Gift Day. Dan promoted the hell out of us then, too.
So, this year, I would really like to give back.
Dan is trying to get some money for schools in Alameda, which have been closing left and right, not to mention budget cuts are cutting out school activities that you and I were lucky enough to enjoy when we were young.
Donating even $5 would be an enormous help to this cause. Soapier is already planning on donating a portion of sales we get this year to help out, but we thought we would shed some light on this particular opportunity.
We've done some good over the past year with various organizations. Dan's been so good to us, we can't stand by and not help him and his community in their time of need.
You can visit the donation page here. Dan and his wife don't make any money on the Reddit Gifts site. They do it out of the kindness of their hearts. It would really make a great Christmas for them if they made a significant amount of money this year for the Alameda school system. Reddit donated over $500,000 for DonorsChoose.org. I think Reddit can get $5,000 together to help out Alameda.
Thanks for reading.
John @ Soapier
So, over the course of the last five days or so we've received quite a few orders, both for the holidays and for Reddit's Secret Santa.
Reddit Gifts is the brain child of one of Soapier's staunchest supporters, Dan McComas. He's promoted our site, our product, our message for over a year. Not only is there a Reddit Secret Santa, but the community decided to make another gift giving holiday for Redditors called Arbitrary Gift Day. Dan promoted the hell out of us then, too.
So, this year, I would really like to give back.
Dan is trying to get some money for schools in Alameda, which have been closing left and right, not to mention budget cuts are cutting out school activities that you and I were lucky enough to enjoy when we were young.
Donating even $5 would be an enormous help to this cause. Soapier is already planning on donating a portion of sales we get this year to help out, but we thought we would shed some light on this particular opportunity.
We've done some good over the past year with various organizations. Dan's been so good to us, we can't stand by and not help him and his community in their time of need.
You can visit the donation page here. Dan and his wife don't make any money on the Reddit Gifts site. They do it out of the kindness of their hearts. It would really make a great Christmas for them if they made a significant amount of money this year for the Alameda school system. Reddit donated over $500,000 for DonorsChoose.org. I think Reddit can get $5,000 together to help out Alameda.
Thanks for reading.
John @ Soapier
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Soapier update
Hey all.
Not sure where to begin. We did the shaving soap... and then things kind of went a little haywire here.
I had gone off to Jamaica for a vacation that was a long time coming, with my girlfriend Karen. Went to an all inclusive. I had had a semi-bad experience at an all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic a couple of years earlier. Not the company I was with, but the place we stayed. The food was bad, the room was only so-so, the drinks were watered down and sugary, and the fishing trip I went on was something called trolling, instead of actually fishing.
We get on the boat, start heading out, the seas were choppy, and 5 out of the 6 people on the boat got sick. I found out about twenty minutes in that what they were going to do was drop hooks and just go around and see if something caught on. Not stopping the boat, lowering hooks, and every man for him/herself.
What a waste. So, we got back, I kissed the ground, and vowed never to go to an all-inclusive again.
Then my present girlfriend says to me "If I don't go on vacation soon, I'm going to kill you in your sleep."
So, of course I said "Do it, I just don't care any more."
She spared my life, booked a vacation, and we headed down just before the huge Christmas rush. The idea was, I'd get back to NY after the trip, relax a bit, then head back down to Tampa to help make soap. We had the Secret Santa coming, and with almost 13,000 people signed up, we were expecting a bit of a rush during those 10 or so days.
Get down to Jamaica, first day it rains. I end up watching episodes of House (1st season, I'd never watched it before), she watches episodes of Firefly (she'd never seen it), Arrested Development (she'd never seen it) and Dexter (she'd never seen it).
Second day, sunshine. I play beach volleyball and scratch the hell out of my knees and limp off like a 70 year old. She catches too much sun and burns her back. I end up putting some aloe stuff on her back four times a day, and then hear her groan and cry all night. It was an awesome vacation.
That night we went to rent a movie from the hotel. They had Indiana Jones. I was psyched, because I love the series. Most of them.
Got the movie and found out it was the last installment, and I started crying. Because it's a piece of shit movie. Karen said she wanted to die. I wanted to order everything on the room service menu and time them, because I was so bored.
Third day, things are going well, we're looking forward to going ATVing on some sandy beach on the fourth day, when I get an email from my mom.
Subject: Hey Very Important
Body: Hey
Erica has to have open heart surgery tomorrow they found that she has a bacteria in her heart and she needs a valve replaced.
If you can call me.
I tell my girlfriend.
"So... no ATVing?"
(eyeroll)
Using my girlfriend's business phone, I call my mom. She tells me that the doctors are switching her to a heart hospital in Clearwater, one of the best. The doctors who found the bacteria and did a little video into the heart thingy said "Yeah, you're lucky to be alive, we have to do this tomorrow morning or YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"
Well, that pretty much raised the hackles of everyone. I don't have any replacement sisters. I had to weigh the option of going ATVing or going back to Tampa, and we were having a really good time.
In the end, I flipped a coin.
So, the next morning, I called my mom and she said "she might have surgery on Sunday. Come back to Tampa."
So, it was best to three, on the coin flip.
Canceled the ATV outing, switched it to river tubing, just in case I didn't have to leave early. Doctor came back that same day and said "Surgery maybe Monday."
Yay!
So we went tubing.
And it was awesome. I went under a waterfall and jumped into the river on a rope swing, we had a very nice dinner and relaxed and watched The Sum of All Fears, which is a very good movie.
I change my flight on Sunday, so instead of going back to NY, I head to Miami, then Tampa. Get to Tampa, I'm exhausted, head to the hospital after buying my sis a netbook, so she can watch movies and go online and all that. At this point, she was supposed to be in the hospital for weeks. Open heart surgery to fix a damaged valve isn't open and shut, unless you're working on a cadaver.
Get to the hospital, give her the netbook, find out that she's feeling better. The antibiotics are working. Awesome.
Next day, they do a culture to see if the bacteria is still there. Her white cell count is down. No bacteria. She's going home, surgery in six weeks.
"So... we can return the netbook?" I ask.
She goes home today. Has a stint being put in for intravenous injections of antibiotics and blood thinners. On disability, bed rest, nurses will be checking up on her.
While I was in Jamaica, with my mom freaking out, she says "Cancel the UK order."
Now... I almost drop the phone.
For those of you paying attention or not, we have a brand new UK distributor. She's very nice, she's very excited about selling Soapier products to the European Union, and we have been making soap, spreading the UK word, putting up ads... and then my sister gets pretty gravely ill. My mom's freaking out (understandably), and I'm trying to figure out how to keep the business afloat.
We lose the UK, we lose a significant amount of Secret Santa. There are more than 1,000 people in the EU signed up. Not to mention, all of the orders that the UK already received.
"We'll honor those and ship them out. J, I can't do this now, with your sister in the hospital."
Sigh. Of course not.
So, I get in touch with the UK and tell her what's going on, and say "I'll have more news on Monday."
She says "Take care of your family, first!"
Monday comes around, and Erica (sister) is doing well. We have a ton of soap made for the UK, and after careful consideration, we start making the rest of the soap order. Not to mention the order that Reddit (the company) placed, and the two wholesale orders we had to get out, and all of the stock we have to make for Secret Santa. We're a week behind.
So, I'm here, in Tampa, waiting to help chauffeur my sister home. Making soap. Sleeping on an air mattress, with dog hair all over it. Eating ok food, burning tv shows on my laptop, and generally not getting enough sleep.
Things went from batshit insane to manageable. My sister is feeling better, the soap is flowing out the door, and I head home Friday to have post Thanksgiving dinner with Karen.
Odds are I'll be back on the 6th of December, to help with the mad rush.
That's the update. We're back on track, ready for the holiday rush, and we'll have all of your orders out in a timely fashion!
UK Customers: Fear not! We're getting out a ton of soap for the UK, and she'll be able to get your orders out straight away.
Cheers!
Not sure where to begin. We did the shaving soap... and then things kind of went a little haywire here.
I had gone off to Jamaica for a vacation that was a long time coming, with my girlfriend Karen. Went to an all inclusive. I had had a semi-bad experience at an all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic a couple of years earlier. Not the company I was with, but the place we stayed. The food was bad, the room was only so-so, the drinks were watered down and sugary, and the fishing trip I went on was something called trolling, instead of actually fishing.
We get on the boat, start heading out, the seas were choppy, and 5 out of the 6 people on the boat got sick. I found out about twenty minutes in that what they were going to do was drop hooks and just go around and see if something caught on. Not stopping the boat, lowering hooks, and every man for him/herself.
What a waste. So, we got back, I kissed the ground, and vowed never to go to an all-inclusive again.
Then my present girlfriend says to me "If I don't go on vacation soon, I'm going to kill you in your sleep."
So, of course I said "Do it, I just don't care any more."
She spared my life, booked a vacation, and we headed down just before the huge Christmas rush. The idea was, I'd get back to NY after the trip, relax a bit, then head back down to Tampa to help make soap. We had the Secret Santa coming, and with almost 13,000 people signed up, we were expecting a bit of a rush during those 10 or so days.
Get down to Jamaica, first day it rains. I end up watching episodes of House (1st season, I'd never watched it before), she watches episodes of Firefly (she'd never seen it), Arrested Development (she'd never seen it) and Dexter (she'd never seen it).
Second day, sunshine. I play beach volleyball and scratch the hell out of my knees and limp off like a 70 year old. She catches too much sun and burns her back. I end up putting some aloe stuff on her back four times a day, and then hear her groan and cry all night. It was an awesome vacation.
That night we went to rent a movie from the hotel. They had Indiana Jones. I was psyched, because I love the series. Most of them.
Got the movie and found out it was the last installment, and I started crying. Because it's a piece of shit movie. Karen said she wanted to die. I wanted to order everything on the room service menu and time them, because I was so bored.
Third day, things are going well, we're looking forward to going ATVing on some sandy beach on the fourth day, when I get an email from my mom.
Subject: Hey Very Important
Body: Hey
Erica has to have open heart surgery tomorrow they found that she has a bacteria in her heart and she needs a valve replaced.
If you can call me.
I tell my girlfriend.
"So... no ATVing?"
(eyeroll)
Using my girlfriend's business phone, I call my mom. She tells me that the doctors are switching her to a heart hospital in Clearwater, one of the best. The doctors who found the bacteria and did a little video into the heart thingy said "Yeah, you're lucky to be alive, we have to do this tomorrow morning or YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"
Well, that pretty much raised the hackles of everyone. I don't have any replacement sisters. I had to weigh the option of going ATVing or going back to Tampa, and we were having a really good time.
In the end, I flipped a coin.
So, the next morning, I called my mom and she said "she might have surgery on Sunday. Come back to Tampa."
So, it was best to three, on the coin flip.
Canceled the ATV outing, switched it to river tubing, just in case I didn't have to leave early. Doctor came back that same day and said "Surgery maybe Monday."
Yay!
So we went tubing.
And it was awesome. I went under a waterfall and jumped into the river on a rope swing, we had a very nice dinner and relaxed and watched The Sum of All Fears, which is a very good movie.
I change my flight on Sunday, so instead of going back to NY, I head to Miami, then Tampa. Get to Tampa, I'm exhausted, head to the hospital after buying my sis a netbook, so she can watch movies and go online and all that. At this point, she was supposed to be in the hospital for weeks. Open heart surgery to fix a damaged valve isn't open and shut, unless you're working on a cadaver.
Get to the hospital, give her the netbook, find out that she's feeling better. The antibiotics are working. Awesome.
Next day, they do a culture to see if the bacteria is still there. Her white cell count is down. No bacteria. She's going home, surgery in six weeks.
"So... we can return the netbook?" I ask.
She goes home today. Has a stint being put in for intravenous injections of antibiotics and blood thinners. On disability, bed rest, nurses will be checking up on her.
While I was in Jamaica, with my mom freaking out, she says "Cancel the UK order."
Now... I almost drop the phone.
For those of you paying attention or not, we have a brand new UK distributor. She's very nice, she's very excited about selling Soapier products to the European Union, and we have been making soap, spreading the UK word, putting up ads... and then my sister gets pretty gravely ill. My mom's freaking out (understandably), and I'm trying to figure out how to keep the business afloat.
We lose the UK, we lose a significant amount of Secret Santa. There are more than 1,000 people in the EU signed up. Not to mention, all of the orders that the UK already received.
"We'll honor those and ship them out. J, I can't do this now, with your sister in the hospital."
Sigh. Of course not.
So, I get in touch with the UK and tell her what's going on, and say "I'll have more news on Monday."
She says "Take care of your family, first!"
Monday comes around, and Erica (sister) is doing well. We have a ton of soap made for the UK, and after careful consideration, we start making the rest of the soap order. Not to mention the order that Reddit (the company) placed, and the two wholesale orders we had to get out, and all of the stock we have to make for Secret Santa. We're a week behind.
So, I'm here, in Tampa, waiting to help chauffeur my sister home. Making soap. Sleeping on an air mattress, with dog hair all over it. Eating ok food, burning tv shows on my laptop, and generally not getting enough sleep.
Things went from batshit insane to manageable. My sister is feeling better, the soap is flowing out the door, and I head home Friday to have post Thanksgiving dinner with Karen.
Odds are I'll be back on the 6th of December, to help with the mad rush.
That's the update. We're back on track, ready for the holiday rush, and we'll have all of your orders out in a timely fashion!
UK Customers: Fear not! We're getting out a ton of soap for the UK, and she'll be able to get your orders out straight away.
Cheers!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Shaving soap and a new Reddit Alien!
Since the holidays of 2009, we've received quite a few requests for shaving soap.
It took us a little while, but we finally got around to it!
Introducing our awesome shaving soap:
We're selling it three different ways.
First, the bars are 2" round, at 1.5oz a bar. They are made with Shea butter and kaolin clay.
We're selling them 3 in a pack, in one of the following fragrances. Doublemint, Pink Sugar, or unscented.
So, you can get them 3 in a pack for $6, or you can get them with a fancy brush for $9.95 or... well, that's what we have right now. But by December 1 we will have a soap, mug, and brush set for the holidays!
Next!
We have a brand new Alien soap. It's called Reddit's Winter Wonderland, and it's pretty awesome. We have been experimenting with water soluble paper, and we found that we could make the Reddit Alien have some really cool backgrounds.
So, the first thing we're offering is a Reddit Winter Wonderland:
It's fragranced with Candy Cane, and will be a huge hit for the Redditor in your life this holiday season! These are $9.95.
We hope you like the new products!
It took us a little while, but we finally got around to it!
Introducing our awesome shaving soap:
We're selling it three different ways.
First, the bars are 2" round, at 1.5oz a bar. They are made with Shea butter and kaolin clay.
We're selling them 3 in a pack, in one of the following fragrances. Doublemint, Pink Sugar, or unscented.
So, you can get them 3 in a pack for $6, or you can get them with a fancy brush for $9.95 or... well, that's what we have right now. But by December 1 we will have a soap, mug, and brush set for the holidays!
Next!
We have a brand new Alien soap. It's called Reddit's Winter Wonderland, and it's pretty awesome. We have been experimenting with water soluble paper, and we found that we could make the Reddit Alien have some really cool backgrounds.
So, the first thing we're offering is a Reddit Winter Wonderland:
It's fragranced with Candy Cane, and will be a huge hit for the Redditor in your life this holiday season! These are $9.95.
We hope you like the new products!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Our gift baskets
So, the holidays are coming up and I figured I'd show you all what one of our gift baskets look like, when they're all completed.
Here is our Pillow Talk gift basket:
Nice, huh? One of our customers made a really good observation and, admittedly, it's not why we did it, but we're adopting it as a good reason...
He said (and I'm paraphrasing): Good for you for not using paper products to wrap your gift baskets!
It was a very nice comment, and we're taking it to heart with future baskets and product wrapping.
This looks pretty cool, right? The pink, the bow, the gift tag... we thought so, too.
I'll have more photos up as we take them! Keep in mind, we're only making 16 of each basket. Get them while you can!
Also, we have some more big news we'll be announcing in the next few days. Stay tuned!
Here is our Pillow Talk gift basket:
Nice, huh? One of our customers made a really good observation and, admittedly, it's not why we did it, but we're adopting it as a good reason...
He said (and I'm paraphrasing): Good for you for not using paper products to wrap your gift baskets!
It was a very nice comment, and we're taking it to heart with future baskets and product wrapping.
This looks pretty cool, right? The pink, the bow, the gift tag... we thought so, too.
I'll have more photos up as we take them! Keep in mind, we're only making 16 of each basket. Get them while you can!
Also, we have some more big news we'll be announcing in the next few days. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Soapier, discount coupons, and Reddit's Secret Santa
Hi everyone,
A couple of things.
First off, we have a 20% off coupon for your holiday shopping!
Use HOLIDAY20 at checkout to receive your discount*.
Second, if you're a member of Reddit, then surely you've heard of the Secret Santa program they have. If you don't know about it, check it out. It's awesome.
For Secret Santa participants, we're offering a 25% off coupon*: SECRETSANTA. This coupon will work on both the US and UK sites.
Both coupons expire December 6th.
I'd like to show you a quick video, if I can, that summarizes the first leg of my trip to DC, holding the 95lb bag of soap.
A couple of things.
First off, we have a 20% off coupon for your holiday shopping!
Use HOLIDAY20 at checkout to receive your discount*.
Second, if you're a member of Reddit, then surely you've heard of the Secret Santa program they have. If you don't know about it, check it out. It's awesome.
For Secret Santa participants, we're offering a 25% off coupon*: SECRETSANTA. This coupon will work on both the US and UK sites.
Both coupons expire December 6th.
I'd like to show you a quick video, if I can, that summarizes the first leg of my trip to DC, holding the 95lb bag of soap.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Road to the Rally, part 3
So, check it out. I just took a video recording of my trip, and it ended up being 25 minutes long.
I'm not going to let anyone suffer through that. That's crazy. So, here's part 3.
Awesomeness.
I headed over to One Lounge and found myself among a ton of fantastic people. Redditors.
They were dressed, in some form or another, with Reddit garb, or a costume, they had signs... in a crowd of a 1,000, they would have been easy to find. In a crowd of 215,000, not so much.
But here they were.
I'd like to stop for a moment and give you an idea of what the majority of my encounters were, when I handed out soap.
"Hey, mind if I sit down?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"Thanks. Ah... that's better." Rummage through bag. "Here."
They take the sample bar and look at it. "What the hell is this?"
Yeah. That's basically what I got from more than half the people I gave samples to. Once they knew what it was, and who I was, the mood changed, and they were quite happy to find out I was the Soapier guy.
Other encounters went like this.
"Oh my god. OH MY GOD! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS. Do you know who this IS?! This is the Soapier guy. OH MY GOD!"
I had about ten people do that. And that was awesome.
I found out that the VIP area for the party was upstairs, so I made my way and found HueyPriest up there. Erik and I had met once before at a NY Meet-up for Redditors. I met his sister and some other guys up there, but most of the rest of the admins and Reddit heavies were cleaning up the National Mall. So I took that time to relax.
I handed out more samples.
"OMG! You're the Soapier guy?"
"I'm the Soapier guy."
"Awesome! Didn't you close?"
"No, I am taking over the business."
"That's great! Hey, Chuck, check it out, it's the soap guy!"
"The what guy?"
I told our story about twenty times. I lost my voice at around 8pm, and battled through it until it was coarse, raspy and, ultimately, an indistinguishable voice from my own nasal and pinched voice.
Ok, my voice isn't nasal and pinched. Passport?
Moving on.
Admins started filling up the place. Redditors were told the place was full. I made rounds and handed out more soap.
Now, I'd like to talk about my first official introduction to Alexis (kn0thing). It went something like this.
"Hey, how are you?" I said.
"Oh, hey, you made it! Great." And back to his conversation.
I looked at him for a second, turned away and thought "He has no idea who I am, does he..." I thought that was so funny.
So I sat down for a bit. My bag was getting noticeably lighter, thank god, but my legs and feet were staging a mutiny.
I met... spez, Jedberg, KeyserSosa, Paradox, raldi, karmanaut, ketralnis, MrGrim (Alan, creator of Imgur), aaaxe (sauce guy), and the Stikkitnow.com guy. They were all very cool, very nice to talk to, and simply awesome in their knowledge of Soapier.
I ran into Raldi (who I think I took a joke too far with, sorry Raldi!) and sitting next to him was Lia, who I've been corresponding with about Reddit/Soapier ads.
Lia has been nothing but instrumental in helping us get some ad time on Reddit for the holiday season, and I cannot thank her enough. She's awesome. Her boyfriend is awesome, and we had a great time talking.
I see Alexis again, and I make my move. I grab a Reddit Alien and I hand it to him. He looks at me a second and says "We've never actually met, have we?"
"No."
"It's a real pleasure!"
We went on to have a great conversation.
Man, let me tell you. The first Soapier post is something I'll never forget. It was in August of 2007, and...
No, wait. It was in June of... was it July?
Anyway, that first post was really something I'll never forget. The movement to save Soapier was compounded by the help of Alexis and the people of Reddit. We corresponded a few times, we worked out a licensing agreement, he promoted the shit out of us for the holiday season... it was unreal. Our success was half due to Redditors, and the other half was because of Alexis and his belief in our company.
So, it was great talking to Alexis. I was able to hand off a full bar of the Soapert soap, and I told him about my wish to get them into the hands of Colbert and his people. My goal is to have them given out to Colbert's audience members. I also wanted to get some of the Reddit soaps into the hands of Colbert's writers. Alexis is going to see if we can make that possible. It's very exciting!
I was close to the end of my samples at this point. I finally had a drink, sat down, relaxed for a while, and started getting very sleepy.
It was roughly 8 at this point. I went back to the bookstore cafe, had dinner, said goodbye to Anne/Jen and Annie, went back to the party, only to find it had dissipated, and people had moved on to another venue or two.
It was time for me to leave.
I ran into Lia again, said my goodbyes, gave the last Reddit Alien soap to an unsuspecting new Redditor who said "It's bacon fragranced? In the shape of the Reddit Alien? Who ARE you?"
Said my goodbyes to a few others, and handed out my last sample to this guy. He knew who I was, too, and it was a high note ending for the party.
I grabbed a subway sandwich for the road, and went all the way back to Union Station.
The walk from Union Station wasn't that bad. My back was killing me. My head was spinning. My load was lighter, thankfully, but the wear on my body was evident. My throat was very upset with me. It felt like my body had let down whatever defenses it had, and anything foreign was going to have an easy time with me.
At the station, it was 11:00pm, and I found out I missed the early bus home by an hour.
I had two hours to kill.
Thankfully, I had downloaded Season 3 of Dexter, and watched the first two episodes on the way down to DC. Starting episode 3, I settled in.
I got hungry around midnight and found myself among a couple of college age redditors who were cool, and who knew who I was. We got to talking a bit. They had mentioned something about going to the after party, but not feeling welcome. They said that a bunch of the older people weren't taking them seriously, which, if true, is a shame. I don't know how they conducted themselves at the party. I mean to say, I was not there. I was sorry to hear that.
I also didn't have any more samples to give out. Which was also a shame.
We talked for a bit. I excused myself after a while to relax before we got on the bus, which was not for another hour.
Once on the bus, I was sitting next to one of two seats that were empty. I was able to stretch out a bit and sleep the first half. Got to the service area and the lights came on. What a bitch.
After we left the service area, the driver turned the heat on too high, and made the place uncomfortably warm. I slept what I thought was another hour but turned out to be 8 minutes.
Nodded on and off... got back to the city. It was 6am.
Got to the train, got right on a train, made it downtown, made the 10 block walk back to the apartment, and checked Reddit.
Hi, my name's John and I'm a Reddit addict.
I finally got to bed around 7:30, and was woken up at 1pm, much to my dismay. My girlfriend and my cats decided I'd had enough sleep. I wanted them all dead.
And... for Halloween, I saw Saw 3D. And it was as campy and as fun as all the others.
I'd like to share the following thank-you video to everyone I met.
That was supposed to be Colbert, not Colbiert... sorry!
Thanks everyone for reading, for supporting Soapier, and for being you. We really appreciate it.
John @ Soapier
I'm not going to let anyone suffer through that. That's crazy. So, here's part 3.
Awesomeness.
I headed over to One Lounge and found myself among a ton of fantastic people. Redditors.
They were dressed, in some form or another, with Reddit garb, or a costume, they had signs... in a crowd of a 1,000, they would have been easy to find. In a crowd of 215,000, not so much.
But here they were.
I'd like to stop for a moment and give you an idea of what the majority of my encounters were, when I handed out soap.
"Hey, mind if I sit down?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"Thanks. Ah... that's better." Rummage through bag. "Here."
They take the sample bar and look at it. "What the hell is this?"
Yeah. That's basically what I got from more than half the people I gave samples to. Once they knew what it was, and who I was, the mood changed, and they were quite happy to find out I was the Soapier guy.
Other encounters went like this.
"Oh my god. OH MY GOD! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS. Do you know who this IS?! This is the Soapier guy. OH MY GOD!"
I had about ten people do that. And that was awesome.
I found out that the VIP area for the party was upstairs, so I made my way and found HueyPriest up there. Erik and I had met once before at a NY Meet-up for Redditors. I met his sister and some other guys up there, but most of the rest of the admins and Reddit heavies were cleaning up the National Mall. So I took that time to relax.
I handed out more samples.
"OMG! You're the Soapier guy?"
"I'm the Soapier guy."
"Awesome! Didn't you close?"
"No, I am taking over the business."
"That's great! Hey, Chuck, check it out, it's the soap guy!"
"The what guy?"
I told our story about twenty times. I lost my voice at around 8pm, and battled through it until it was coarse, raspy and, ultimately, an indistinguishable voice from my own nasal and pinched voice.
Ok, my voice isn't nasal and pinched. Passport?
Moving on.
Admins started filling up the place. Redditors were told the place was full. I made rounds and handed out more soap.
Now, I'd like to talk about my first official introduction to Alexis (kn0thing). It went something like this.
"Hey, how are you?" I said.
"Oh, hey, you made it! Great." And back to his conversation.
I looked at him for a second, turned away and thought "He has no idea who I am, does he..." I thought that was so funny.
So I sat down for a bit. My bag was getting noticeably lighter, thank god, but my legs and feet were staging a mutiny.
I met... spez, Jedberg, KeyserSosa, Paradox, raldi, karmanaut, ketralnis, MrGrim (Alan, creator of Imgur), aaaxe (sauce guy), and the Stikkitnow.com guy. They were all very cool, very nice to talk to, and simply awesome in their knowledge of Soapier.
I ran into Raldi (who I think I took a joke too far with, sorry Raldi!) and sitting next to him was Lia, who I've been corresponding with about Reddit/Soapier ads.
Lia has been nothing but instrumental in helping us get some ad time on Reddit for the holiday season, and I cannot thank her enough. She's awesome. Her boyfriend is awesome, and we had a great time talking.
I see Alexis again, and I make my move. I grab a Reddit Alien and I hand it to him. He looks at me a second and says "We've never actually met, have we?"
"No."
"It's a real pleasure!"
We went on to have a great conversation.
Man, let me tell you. The first Soapier post is something I'll never forget. It was in August of 2007, and...
No, wait. It was in June of... was it July?
Anyway, that first post was really something I'll never forget. The movement to save Soapier was compounded by the help of Alexis and the people of Reddit. We corresponded a few times, we worked out a licensing agreement, he promoted the shit out of us for the holiday season... it was unreal. Our success was half due to Redditors, and the other half was because of Alexis and his belief in our company.
So, it was great talking to Alexis. I was able to hand off a full bar of the Soapert soap, and I told him about my wish to get them into the hands of Colbert and his people. My goal is to have them given out to Colbert's audience members. I also wanted to get some of the Reddit soaps into the hands of Colbert's writers. Alexis is going to see if we can make that possible. It's very exciting!
I was close to the end of my samples at this point. I finally had a drink, sat down, relaxed for a while, and started getting very sleepy.
It was roughly 8 at this point. I went back to the bookstore cafe, had dinner, said goodbye to Anne/Jen and Annie, went back to the party, only to find it had dissipated, and people had moved on to another venue or two.
It was time for me to leave.
I ran into Lia again, said my goodbyes, gave the last Reddit Alien soap to an unsuspecting new Redditor who said "It's bacon fragranced? In the shape of the Reddit Alien? Who ARE you?"
Said my goodbyes to a few others, and handed out my last sample to this guy. He knew who I was, too, and it was a high note ending for the party.
I grabbed a subway sandwich for the road, and went all the way back to Union Station.
The walk from Union Station wasn't that bad. My back was killing me. My head was spinning. My load was lighter, thankfully, but the wear on my body was evident. My throat was very upset with me. It felt like my body had let down whatever defenses it had, and anything foreign was going to have an easy time with me.
At the station, it was 11:00pm, and I found out I missed the early bus home by an hour.
I had two hours to kill.
Thankfully, I had downloaded Season 3 of Dexter, and watched the first two episodes on the way down to DC. Starting episode 3, I settled in.
I got hungry around midnight and found myself among a couple of college age redditors who were cool, and who knew who I was. We got to talking a bit. They had mentioned something about going to the after party, but not feeling welcome. They said that a bunch of the older people weren't taking them seriously, which, if true, is a shame. I don't know how they conducted themselves at the party. I mean to say, I was not there. I was sorry to hear that.
I also didn't have any more samples to give out. Which was also a shame.
We talked for a bit. I excused myself after a while to relax before we got on the bus, which was not for another hour.
Once on the bus, I was sitting next to one of two seats that were empty. I was able to stretch out a bit and sleep the first half. Got to the service area and the lights came on. What a bitch.
After we left the service area, the driver turned the heat on too high, and made the place uncomfortably warm. I slept what I thought was another hour but turned out to be 8 minutes.
Nodded on and off... got back to the city. It was 6am.
Got to the train, got right on a train, made it downtown, made the 10 block walk back to the apartment, and checked Reddit.
Hi, my name's John and I'm a Reddit addict.
I finally got to bed around 7:30, and was woken up at 1pm, much to my dismay. My girlfriend and my cats decided I'd had enough sleep. I wanted them all dead.
And... for Halloween, I saw Saw 3D. And it was as campy and as fun as all the others.
I'd like to share the following thank-you video to everyone I met.
That was supposed to be Colbert, not Colbiert... sorry!
Thanks everyone for reading, for supporting Soapier, and for being you. We really appreciate it.
John @ Soapier
Sunday, October 31, 2010
My road to the rally, part 2
Hey, so, I left something out.
I saw my first Redditor on the line at Port Authority. I handed him a sample soap, he looked at it and said "Uh, thanks..." smelled it, and I walked away.
So, we get to the station.
At this point, we'll be discussing the pain.
My legs were hurting already, because of the way I was sitting.
I got off the bus and felt like a pilgrim in an unholy land.
Ok, not really.
I walked for a bit until I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to be heading. Luckily, I fell in with that Redditor and his buddy, and he gets out his iPhone and a GPS app. "This way, gentlemen!" he said in an authoritative voice, pointing. If he had a barrel, or a fallen enemy, or perhaps a wild animal, he would have put a triumphant foot upon it.
Maybe spear a flag into the ground.
So, we started walking. Fast. I'm carrying 30lbs of soap, you know? But I'm keeping up a good pace. I mention the bag after these University boys ask me if it's full of beer. Sigh. No, it's not. This is the Rally to Restore Sanity, not get drunk and act like morons.
For some reason this reminds me of a scene from Spinal Tap.
Ian Faith: The Boston gig has been cancelled...
David St. Hubbins: What?
Ian Faith: Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town.
Sigh. No, not beer. It's 35lbs of soap!
So, we get to walking, and we can hear echos. Echos of yelling. Music. Crowds. Pretty unreal.
We keep walking. Now, let's see if I can detail how far of a walk it was. Let me get a map.
Ok, so, we walked from the bus station (red circle) to down the National Mall.
I lost them about half way there. A woman started talking to me and asking me if I was glad to be there. I said I was, but was upset I was missing the rally. She said that didn't matter. I agreed and disagreed.
She said she had been to three different inaugurations, for Clinton, Bush, and Obama. She said she hadn't seen that many people at any of those, than she did at the Rally. I thought that was pretty unreal.
So. I'm all alone. I have a 40lb bag of soap and people keep bumping into me. I even said "Hey, I'm just the guy with the 45lb bag of soap. COME ON!"
I walked back to 3rd and Madison.
Feeling forever alone, I sat on a rock and watched two daschunds play for a bit. I watched people walk around, and I desperately looked for Redditors, whom I did not find. There was no enjoying the show. I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't see anything, and the crowd, while well mannered, was too thick to walk at a respectable gait.
At this point, I spoke with my girlfriend, then my mom, updating them on my day. I sat on the rock for a bit, people watched, took some video, and was then struck with an irony so deep, so sad, that I had to call my girlfriend again.
"You do realize that while you're in the comfort of our apartment, lounging, watching television, you're able to enjoy the Rally, while I'm actually AT the rally, and I can't enjoy it?"
She laughed.
I started crying.
So, she said "Well, I saw this report earlier about people in Washington, DC, people who actually live there, who said they were going to go to the Rally, saw the trains were packed to the gills, and decided not to go, so why don't you head over to that restaurant I told you about, and get some food, then head to the after party."
She's so smart.
So, that's what I did.
She asks me where I am. I tell her. She goes on google and finds me the closest metro station. I say great. Which way is North?
"You can see the sun, right?"
I said yeah.
"So, figure out where North is."
"I... what, do I look like an Arawak?" (I just started reading Zinn's History of the United States)
Sigh, ok, I'll say something funnier.
"I... what do I look like, a..."
Shit, I've got nothing. I said "I could tell you what time it is..."
"Just figure it out. Go here, go left, go left again, it's right there."
So I say ok. I hang up and go to the first official looking person I can find, which is an ambulance driver. She says "That way. Bend to the left. It's Union Station. That's the closest."
Fantastic.
See, now, I didn't know where the hell I was. Union Station sounds like, you know, a good place to go.
The problem was, Union station was all the way back near the goddamn bus station. Here I am, carrying 40lbs of soap... but I didn't realize I was heading in the direction I came from. So I walk back.
I know that white line might be hard to see, but that's the way back.
I stop someone on the way, ask her if I'm heading in the right direction. She says yes. I ask how far. She says about a third of a mile.
Here's where the rest of the pain starts. I've given away, at this point, 1 sample bar.
I'm holding 45lbs of soap and my messenger bag. I feel like I'm slowly dying. I feel like I'm on the second day of The Long Walk and Vegas odds have me buying the farm next.
Once at Union Station, I took the red line to Dupont Circle. The train was empty. So empty that I was able to get a seat, which was awesome. Sitting down was like shutting off the switch on the electric chair, and still being alive.
But not for long.
I had five stops until Dupont. The first stop... not so bad.
The second stop must have been just shy of the mall. In retrospect, I'm happy the ambulance driver told me to walk to Union Station, because this is what it felt like two stops in:
It was insane.
Three stops later, I was able to push myself out, using my 50lb bag of soap as a battering ram. No one smelled as good, or felt as run over, as those did in my path.
Out of the train, I felt I could not only breathe again, but that my blood lust had suddenly dissipated.
Out at Dupont Circle I was able to find my way thanks to a local Washington resident, made my way around the Circle and found myself on Connecticut Avenue. There, I found the coolest place in town.
Now, I hadn't been in town that long, you know, but it's safe to say that there is no place cooler than Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe, who have an awesome place, but wow, what a crappy website...
I got in looking to get a cup of coffee and maybe a dessert or something, I don't know. I had a fresh copy of Howard Zinn's book with me, and I wanted to make a dent in it before the after party. So, I head to the reservation desk and I meet Annie, a very nice young lady who is taking seat requests. One for 3, one for 4, one for 2. I walk up and put one finger up in the air and look sheepishly tired. She smiles. "Just one?"
"Please. I've been wearing the same underwear for twelve hours."
"Oh, in that case, half an hour."
"For chrissake, is there any place other than starbucks I can get a cup of coffee and sit down?"
She thinks for a minute, beckons me closer. "Try Dupont Cafe, across the street."
"Thanks," I say, and head over.
Well, no. That place felt like if I didn't have an MBA, I was not welcome. Also, it was empty. Sure sign.
I walk back. "Yeah, listen, don't ever send anyone over there again, ok? I felt like I needed an MBA to walk in there," I said. I know I already said it to you, but in the interest of full disclosure.
She laughed, looked at her sheet. "Ok, I'm gonna put you in front of all these people."
"Wow, ok," I said, and dug deep into my bag of samples and grabbed her a full bar of Soapert soap. "Here," I said.
"What is this?"
"Soap. It's for the Colbert Rally, for some friends of mine. I only brought 5 of them, so, you know, don't use it. Don't even look at it. Just, you know, smell it."
"Wow, so, I can sell it on eBay for thousands of dollars?"
"No, jeez, it's just soap."
I got a table about three minutes later. You didn't know, did you, that I was so charismatic and charming? Did you!?
So, yeah, I sit down, and Anne comes to my table. No, not Anne, I mean Jen! Jen, yeah.
We talk for a moment, I order decaf coffee and apple pie ala mode. And it was awesome.
I read for a bit, and Anne/Jen comes over and says "Hey, my friend is a big fan of Reddit."
So, I tell her the story of Soapier, and I give her some samples for her and her Reddit friend, who thanked me on Reddit. That was awesome.
The bag does not feel lighter. In fact, after sitting, it felt like I went into default mode, back to a weaker state of being.
I leave and head over to the One Lounge, across the street. I get there and I find more of those amazing inventions...
I saw my first Redditor on the line at Port Authority. I handed him a sample soap, he looked at it and said "Uh, thanks..." smelled it, and I walked away.
So, we get to the station.
At this point, we'll be discussing the pain.
My legs were hurting already, because of the way I was sitting.
I got off the bus and felt like a pilgrim in an unholy land.
Ok, not really.
I walked for a bit until I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to be heading. Luckily, I fell in with that Redditor and his buddy, and he gets out his iPhone and a GPS app. "This way, gentlemen!" he said in an authoritative voice, pointing. If he had a barrel, or a fallen enemy, or perhaps a wild animal, he would have put a triumphant foot upon it.
Maybe spear a flag into the ground.
So, we started walking. Fast. I'm carrying 30lbs of soap, you know? But I'm keeping up a good pace. I mention the bag after these University boys ask me if it's full of beer. Sigh. No, it's not. This is the Rally to Restore Sanity, not get drunk and act like morons.
For some reason this reminds me of a scene from Spinal Tap.
Ian Faith: The Boston gig has been cancelled...
David St. Hubbins: What?
Ian Faith: Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town.
Sigh. No, not beer. It's 35lbs of soap!
So, we get to walking, and we can hear echos. Echos of yelling. Music. Crowds. Pretty unreal.
We keep walking. Now, let's see if I can detail how far of a walk it was. Let me get a map.
Ok, so, we walked from the bus station (red circle) to down the National Mall.
I lost them about half way there. A woman started talking to me and asking me if I was glad to be there. I said I was, but was upset I was missing the rally. She said that didn't matter. I agreed and disagreed.
She said she had been to three different inaugurations, for Clinton, Bush, and Obama. She said she hadn't seen that many people at any of those, than she did at the Rally. I thought that was pretty unreal.
So. I'm all alone. I have a 40lb bag of soap and people keep bumping into me. I even said "Hey, I'm just the guy with the 45lb bag of soap. COME ON!"
I walked back to 3rd and Madison.
Feeling forever alone, I sat on a rock and watched two daschunds play for a bit. I watched people walk around, and I desperately looked for Redditors, whom I did not find. There was no enjoying the show. I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't see anything, and the crowd, while well mannered, was too thick to walk at a respectable gait.
At this point, I spoke with my girlfriend, then my mom, updating them on my day. I sat on the rock for a bit, people watched, took some video, and was then struck with an irony so deep, so sad, that I had to call my girlfriend again.
"You do realize that while you're in the comfort of our apartment, lounging, watching television, you're able to enjoy the Rally, while I'm actually AT the rally, and I can't enjoy it?"
She laughed.
I started crying.
So, she said "Well, I saw this report earlier about people in Washington, DC, people who actually live there, who said they were going to go to the Rally, saw the trains were packed to the gills, and decided not to go, so why don't you head over to that restaurant I told you about, and get some food, then head to the after party."
She's so smart.
So, that's what I did.
She asks me where I am. I tell her. She goes on google and finds me the closest metro station. I say great. Which way is North?
"You can see the sun, right?"
I said yeah.
"So, figure out where North is."
"I... what, do I look like an Arawak?" (I just started reading Zinn's History of the United States)
Sigh, ok, I'll say something funnier.
"I... what do I look like, a..."
Shit, I've got nothing. I said "I could tell you what time it is..."
"Just figure it out. Go here, go left, go left again, it's right there."
So I say ok. I hang up and go to the first official looking person I can find, which is an ambulance driver. She says "That way. Bend to the left. It's Union Station. That's the closest."
Fantastic.
See, now, I didn't know where the hell I was. Union Station sounds like, you know, a good place to go.
The problem was, Union station was all the way back near the goddamn bus station. Here I am, carrying 40lbs of soap... but I didn't realize I was heading in the direction I came from. So I walk back.
I know that white line might be hard to see, but that's the way back.
I stop someone on the way, ask her if I'm heading in the right direction. She says yes. I ask how far. She says about a third of a mile.
Here's where the rest of the pain starts. I've given away, at this point, 1 sample bar.
I'm holding 45lbs of soap and my messenger bag. I feel like I'm slowly dying. I feel like I'm on the second day of The Long Walk and Vegas odds have me buying the farm next.
Once at Union Station, I took the red line to Dupont Circle. The train was empty. So empty that I was able to get a seat, which was awesome. Sitting down was like shutting off the switch on the electric chair, and still being alive.
But not for long.
I had five stops until Dupont. The first stop... not so bad.
The second stop must have been just shy of the mall. In retrospect, I'm happy the ambulance driver told me to walk to Union Station, because this is what it felt like two stops in:
It was insane.
Three stops later, I was able to push myself out, using my 50lb bag of soap as a battering ram. No one smelled as good, or felt as run over, as those did in my path.
Out of the train, I felt I could not only breathe again, but that my blood lust had suddenly dissipated.
Out at Dupont Circle I was able to find my way thanks to a local Washington resident, made my way around the Circle and found myself on Connecticut Avenue. There, I found the coolest place in town.
Now, I hadn't been in town that long, you know, but it's safe to say that there is no place cooler than Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe, who have an awesome place, but wow, what a crappy website...
I got in looking to get a cup of coffee and maybe a dessert or something, I don't know. I had a fresh copy of Howard Zinn's book with me, and I wanted to make a dent in it before the after party. So, I head to the reservation desk and I meet Annie, a very nice young lady who is taking seat requests. One for 3, one for 4, one for 2. I walk up and put one finger up in the air and look sheepishly tired. She smiles. "Just one?"
"Please. I've been wearing the same underwear for twelve hours."
"Oh, in that case, half an hour."
"For chrissake, is there any place other than starbucks I can get a cup of coffee and sit down?"
She thinks for a minute, beckons me closer. "Try Dupont Cafe, across the street."
"Thanks," I say, and head over.
Well, no. That place felt like if I didn't have an MBA, I was not welcome. Also, it was empty. Sure sign.
I walk back. "Yeah, listen, don't ever send anyone over there again, ok? I felt like I needed an MBA to walk in there," I said. I know I already said it to you, but in the interest of full disclosure.
She laughed, looked at her sheet. "Ok, I'm gonna put you in front of all these people."
"Wow, ok," I said, and dug deep into my bag of samples and grabbed her a full bar of Soapert soap. "Here," I said.
"What is this?"
"Soap. It's for the Colbert Rally, for some friends of mine. I only brought 5 of them, so, you know, don't use it. Don't even look at it. Just, you know, smell it."
"Wow, so, I can sell it on eBay for thousands of dollars?"
"No, jeez, it's just soap."
I got a table about three minutes later. You didn't know, did you, that I was so charismatic and charming? Did you!?
So, yeah, I sit down, and Anne comes to my table. No, not Anne, I mean Jen! Jen, yeah.
We talk for a moment, I order decaf coffee and apple pie ala mode. And it was awesome.
I read for a bit, and Anne/Jen comes over and says "Hey, my friend is a big fan of Reddit."
So, I tell her the story of Soapier, and I give her some samples for her and her Reddit friend, who thanked me on Reddit. That was awesome.
The bag does not feel lighter. In fact, after sitting, it felt like I went into default mode, back to a weaker state of being.
I leave and head over to the One Lounge, across the street. I get there and I find more of those amazing inventions...
My road to the Rally (part 1)
My road to the Rally to Restore Sanity, Truthiness, Keeping Fear Alive, and all of the other sub-names, was one of doubt, excitement, frustration, sore feet, sore hands, disappointment, hunger, awesomeness, exhaustion, and exhaustion.
Let's start at Doubt.
After hearing about the Rally, and what I truly believe to be Reddit's enormous contribution to making it happen, I knew that I had to be a part of it. I didn't know in what capacity, but I wanted to be there. To share in the message, meet like-minded people, and get together with a fantastic group of people who, directly or indirectly, helped my family and I.
So, I started getting in touch with some of the Reddit admins. Or, I should say, I tried to get in touch with them. Running Reddit clearly takes devotion, passion, expertise... and time. Suffice it to say, while the Reddit Admins work hard every day, their work became exponentially more time consuming as the Rally got closer.
So, I didn't hear back from them. With good reason.
As the date got closer, I became more doubtful of my attendance. There was going to be a Reddit booth, maybe. I was hoping to be there. Maybe. I was planning on bringing samples. Maybe. Then there was no booth. Scratch the samples. Ok, maybe stickers. That would be cool.
Would it be cool? Eh, I don't know. Maybe I'll just show my face, I don't know.
A week before the Rally, I didn't think I was going to go. I hadn't heard back from anyone about a spot for me (not that I deserved one, but I wanted to see if I could get one, at a Reddit booth, or what-have-you...)
Now, two weeks before the rally, I had sent an e-mail to Reddit about advertising. I wanted to do some holiday advertising, and wanted to run some 250X300 banners.
Got in touch with a woman I hadn't heard of before at Reddit, who basically said that the advertising on Reddit had picked up steam, and the amount of money that we were willing to spend would not get us any real facetime on Reddit. Well, that was too bad, but she offered a solution.
Oh, 'she' is Lia. I'm not actually sure what her Reddit name is, but yeah.
So, she says 'we'll get you some ads of the Reddit Aliens and envelopes. We'll do that!'
Well, that was great news. Just in time for Secret Santa, and the holidays, for opening the UK store... awesome. Reddit has, time and again, does what it can to help us out. It's greatly appreciated.
So, a week goes by, it's a week before the Rally, I can't get in touch with anyone, and I'm sitting down on my mom's couch in Tampa, and we're talking about the rally and...
Heyyyyyyyyyyyy. Why not call this woman at Reddit? She foolishly left her work number on the bottom of her first email.
So I call her.
And she was like "They didn't get in touch with you? Oh, I'll take care of that, don't you worry!"
Ok, she didn't say any of that, but that's how it sounded. She got in touch with HueyPriest and he got back to me straight away, put me on the party VIP list and I turn to my mom and say "Uhhhh, so, yeah."
She shakes her head. "No. Nope. Uh-uh."
"Yeah."
"No, J."
"Yeah."
"Then you do it. I'm watching HGTV."
I can't, for the life of me, get away from HGTV. My girl watches it, my mom...
Here starts the Excitement phase.
So, I started making these:
6 trays, 16 soaps a tray. 3 trays at a time. Each layer has to be done separately, obviously, and cooled/hardened the next. So, it took some time.
Then I made these:
Full bars.
While I'm making them, I start looking for a way to get down to DC from NYC. Train is too expensive. Flying is out. Am I staying over a night or what? Hotel prices are crazy. Hostel's are sold out. Staying with a stranger isn't going to happen. I'm just too good looking.
What? I AM!
So, I decide on leaving at 6:30am Saturday morning, and coming back at 10pm. But that won't work, because the after party starts at 5... that's not enough time to meet everyone.
So, a Saturday 6:30am bus down, 1:15am bus Sunday morning back home. Yeah. That'll do it.
I'm 37. I should have known my body was going to revolt. I should have known.
I bought the tickets.
Got the soaps all finished, then I wrapped each one, labeled them, packaged them up, and got them all off in time before I came back to NY.
I also added some Reddit Alien soaps and and Envelope set. Alexis wanted one for his father, and I figured I'd give some out to people, and show them off.
I got them three days later, and lost five to a dented side, on the box. Sigh. So, all told, I had 91 samples, 5 large bars, 3 Alien soaps, and 1 Envelope set. Which leads us to...
FRUSTRATION.
How in the hell was I going to carry all of this?
That's about... well, let's see. Each sample bar is 2oz. Each Alien is 10oz. Each large bar is 6oz. Each envelope set is 8oz.
That's... 2... carry the 1... about 16lbs.
No. No way. Absolutely no way was that only 16lbs. It weighed like I was holding 3 bricks... which is about 18 pounds.
Fine. So, I was telling people at the Rally after party that it was like 40 lbs worth of soap. That's what it felt like.
I borrow a knapsack from my friend Elke and start putting them in there. All nice and neat, I put the rest of the things I'm bringing into the bag, put out my clothes for the night, and go to sleep. Or half sleep. I didn't sleep well that night.
I went to bed at 10pm, but didn't fall asleep until 11:30, and then woke up every half hour or so. It happens, every time I have to wake up at a certain time that's earlier than normal. So, I slept like crap.
Woke up, got ready, lifted up the knapsack that I had borrowed from a friend and said "Nope. No. Not gonna happen."
Yeah, there's no way it was only 16lbs. Christ, that bag was heavy. So I put it in a carry bag, brought my messenger bag... yeah, great idea John. Let's not put it all in one bag, let's unevenly distribute it in two. Perfect.
Sigh.
Eat breakfast, wash my face, brush my teeth, say goodbye to Karen and the kitties, and I head out the door.
The first thing I notice is IT'S COLD.
The second thing I notice is I'm exhausted.
I walk the fifteen blocks or so to the subway station, get down there, and a train approaches. I'm on the A line, and it's a straight shot to Port Authority. Well, it's not an A. Not a C... it's an F. I don't have to tell you what I proceeded to read into, that F.
I sit down, let it pass, and wait 20 minutes for... another F train. Oh man.
I run outside the station, flapping my hands too and fro, and catch a cab. "To Port Authority!"
We catch every single light for sixty blocks, no fooling. It was like some force was making sure we get there with some time to spare.
Awesome.
I get there, pay the guy, grab my 20lb bag of soap, and go into Port Authority where I find... the Information desk is shut.
There's a sign that says "Oh, hey, there's another one down there."
Ok, so I go down there. That one has a sign that says "Go somewhere else."
I'm starting to get mad.
I see other people and they're milling about. No one can answer my question. There's no sign that says "Peter Pan Bus Gates Here." Nothing on my ticket.
I'm thinking to myself, "Self... there aren't that many people around, we can't really follow a crowd. Let's go downstairs, see if there's anyone down there."
So, I go downstairs. A lone guy, with no affiliation to the Port Authority says "Washington?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Gate 71. Down there."
"Ok. I'm gonna get a danish."
"Yeah, man."
Au Bon Pain did not have any danish. Bastards.
So I head to gate 71. And there's a line.
Now, when you think of a line, you think movie theater line, or maybe even a line outside that club you want to get into, right?
This line was crazy. It spread out all the way down in the basement of Port Authority. It snaked around columns, followed long corridors, down short hallways, and ended with a bunch of people who were turning the end of the line into... wait for it... LEGENDARY.
No, I mean a circle. They were curling the end of the line. It was full on retarded.
Now, I don't like to meddle. Or maybe I do, because I think of myself as a problem solver. Or an elitist. I'm not sure where the distinction lies. Or not. Or whatever.
So, I go and talk to some PA guy and tell him what's happening. Instead of actually doing something about it, he looks, smiles like an idiot, and goes back to talking to his friend.
I walk back grumbling about "I'll show you..." and tell the people behind me that maybe they should, you know, in the interest of sanity, start curling the line so that it doesn't move in a circle. This woman, wearing a Viking hat says "Dude, take it easy, it's just a $30 ticket to Washington."
At this point, I took the war helmet and bashed her brains in. In my mind.
What I actually did was nothing, and I said "Hey, I just think that people are going to start getting angry, and you have an opportunity to start pointing the line in a good position. But, whatever."
Since her group were behind me, they were at a point where they could move the line, because of a structure they were next to. Alas they did not. So, for the next half an hour, while the line grew, it spiraled and continued to spiral, until there were two lines in a tight space. I decided, then and there, that I would not help save the human race from any asteroid strike in the future.
The line, which I have some footage of, was over 1,000 people, easy, and doubled back to the front of the line and then split off. That was AFTER they'd already filled more than ten buses.
It was unreal.
When I finally did get on a bus, it was 7:20, and we were on our way. I sat, for the first two hours... well, the whole way, actually... with a hardened plastic seat belt lock in my left ass cheek, pain in my left leg, and a seat companion who would turn around, get up on her knees, and talk to the people behind us.
By the time we got to the rest stop, we were on time. By the time we left the rest stop, we were 10 minutes late. By the time we reached Maryland we were an hour and a half late. We made it to DC at 12:45pm, five and a half hours after we left.
I wanted to die.
Let's start at Doubt.
After hearing about the Rally, and what I truly believe to be Reddit's enormous contribution to making it happen, I knew that I had to be a part of it. I didn't know in what capacity, but I wanted to be there. To share in the message, meet like-minded people, and get together with a fantastic group of people who, directly or indirectly, helped my family and I.
So, I started getting in touch with some of the Reddit admins. Or, I should say, I tried to get in touch with them. Running Reddit clearly takes devotion, passion, expertise... and time. Suffice it to say, while the Reddit Admins work hard every day, their work became exponentially more time consuming as the Rally got closer.
So, I didn't hear back from them. With good reason.
As the date got closer, I became more doubtful of my attendance. There was going to be a Reddit booth, maybe. I was hoping to be there. Maybe. I was planning on bringing samples. Maybe. Then there was no booth. Scratch the samples. Ok, maybe stickers. That would be cool.
Would it be cool? Eh, I don't know. Maybe I'll just show my face, I don't know.
A week before the Rally, I didn't think I was going to go. I hadn't heard back from anyone about a spot for me (not that I deserved one, but I wanted to see if I could get one, at a Reddit booth, or what-have-you...)
Now, two weeks before the rally, I had sent an e-mail to Reddit about advertising. I wanted to do some holiday advertising, and wanted to run some 250X300 banners.
Got in touch with a woman I hadn't heard of before at Reddit, who basically said that the advertising on Reddit had picked up steam, and the amount of money that we were willing to spend would not get us any real facetime on Reddit. Well, that was too bad, but she offered a solution.
Oh, 'she' is Lia. I'm not actually sure what her Reddit name is, but yeah.
So, she says 'we'll get you some ads of the Reddit Aliens and envelopes. We'll do that!'
Well, that was great news. Just in time for Secret Santa, and the holidays, for opening the UK store... awesome. Reddit has, time and again, does what it can to help us out. It's greatly appreciated.
So, a week goes by, it's a week before the Rally, I can't get in touch with anyone, and I'm sitting down on my mom's couch in Tampa, and we're talking about the rally and...
Heyyyyyyyyyyyy. Why not call this woman at Reddit? She foolishly left her work number on the bottom of her first email.
So I call her.
And she was like "They didn't get in touch with you? Oh, I'll take care of that, don't you worry!"
Ok, she didn't say any of that, but that's how it sounded. She got in touch with HueyPriest and he got back to me straight away, put me on the party VIP list and I turn to my mom and say "Uhhhh, so, yeah."
She shakes her head. "No. Nope. Uh-uh."
"Yeah."
"No, J."
"Yeah."
"Then you do it. I'm watching HGTV."
I can't, for the life of me, get away from HGTV. My girl watches it, my mom...
Here starts the Excitement phase.
So, I started making these:
6 trays, 16 soaps a tray. 3 trays at a time. Each layer has to be done separately, obviously, and cooled/hardened the next. So, it took some time.
Then I made these:
Full bars.
While I'm making them, I start looking for a way to get down to DC from NYC. Train is too expensive. Flying is out. Am I staying over a night or what? Hotel prices are crazy. Hostel's are sold out. Staying with a stranger isn't going to happen. I'm just too good looking.
What? I AM!
So, I decide on leaving at 6:30am Saturday morning, and coming back at 10pm. But that won't work, because the after party starts at 5... that's not enough time to meet everyone.
So, a Saturday 6:30am bus down, 1:15am bus Sunday morning back home. Yeah. That'll do it.
I'm 37. I should have known my body was going to revolt. I should have known.
I bought the tickets.
Got the soaps all finished, then I wrapped each one, labeled them, packaged them up, and got them all off in time before I came back to NY.
I also added some Reddit Alien soaps and and Envelope set. Alexis wanted one for his father, and I figured I'd give some out to people, and show them off.
I got them three days later, and lost five to a dented side, on the box. Sigh. So, all told, I had 91 samples, 5 large bars, 3 Alien soaps, and 1 Envelope set. Which leads us to...
FRUSTRATION.
How in the hell was I going to carry all of this?
That's about... well, let's see. Each sample bar is 2oz. Each Alien is 10oz. Each large bar is 6oz. Each envelope set is 8oz.
That's... 2... carry the 1... about 16lbs.
No. No way. Absolutely no way was that only 16lbs. It weighed like I was holding 3 bricks... which is about 18 pounds.
Fine. So, I was telling people at the Rally after party that it was like 40 lbs worth of soap. That's what it felt like.
I borrow a knapsack from my friend Elke and start putting them in there. All nice and neat, I put the rest of the things I'm bringing into the bag, put out my clothes for the night, and go to sleep. Or half sleep. I didn't sleep well that night.
I went to bed at 10pm, but didn't fall asleep until 11:30, and then woke up every half hour or so. It happens, every time I have to wake up at a certain time that's earlier than normal. So, I slept like crap.
Woke up, got ready, lifted up the knapsack that I had borrowed from a friend and said "Nope. No. Not gonna happen."
Yeah, there's no way it was only 16lbs. Christ, that bag was heavy. So I put it in a carry bag, brought my messenger bag... yeah, great idea John. Let's not put it all in one bag, let's unevenly distribute it in two. Perfect.
Sigh.
Eat breakfast, wash my face, brush my teeth, say goodbye to Karen and the kitties, and I head out the door.
The first thing I notice is IT'S COLD.
The second thing I notice is I'm exhausted.
I walk the fifteen blocks or so to the subway station, get down there, and a train approaches. I'm on the A line, and it's a straight shot to Port Authority. Well, it's not an A. Not a C... it's an F. I don't have to tell you what I proceeded to read into, that F.
I sit down, let it pass, and wait 20 minutes for... another F train. Oh man.
I run outside the station, flapping my hands too and fro, and catch a cab. "To Port Authority!"
We catch every single light for sixty blocks, no fooling. It was like some force was making sure we get there with some time to spare.
Awesome.
I get there, pay the guy, grab my 20lb bag of soap, and go into Port Authority where I find... the Information desk is shut.
There's a sign that says "Oh, hey, there's another one down there."
Ok, so I go down there. That one has a sign that says "Go somewhere else."
I'm starting to get mad.
I see other people and they're milling about. No one can answer my question. There's no sign that says "Peter Pan Bus Gates Here." Nothing on my ticket.
I'm thinking to myself, "Self... there aren't that many people around, we can't really follow a crowd. Let's go downstairs, see if there's anyone down there."
So, I go downstairs. A lone guy, with no affiliation to the Port Authority says "Washington?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Gate 71. Down there."
"Ok. I'm gonna get a danish."
"Yeah, man."
Au Bon Pain did not have any danish. Bastards.
So I head to gate 71. And there's a line.
Now, when you think of a line, you think movie theater line, or maybe even a line outside that club you want to get into, right?
This line was crazy. It spread out all the way down in the basement of Port Authority. It snaked around columns, followed long corridors, down short hallways, and ended with a bunch of people who were turning the end of the line into... wait for it... LEGENDARY.
No, I mean a circle. They were curling the end of the line. It was full on retarded.
Now, I don't like to meddle. Or maybe I do, because I think of myself as a problem solver. Or an elitist. I'm not sure where the distinction lies. Or not. Or whatever.
So, I go and talk to some PA guy and tell him what's happening. Instead of actually doing something about it, he looks, smiles like an idiot, and goes back to talking to his friend.
I walk back grumbling about "I'll show you..." and tell the people behind me that maybe they should, you know, in the interest of sanity, start curling the line so that it doesn't move in a circle. This woman, wearing a Viking hat says "Dude, take it easy, it's just a $30 ticket to Washington."
At this point, I took the war helmet and bashed her brains in. In my mind.
What I actually did was nothing, and I said "Hey, I just think that people are going to start getting angry, and you have an opportunity to start pointing the line in a good position. But, whatever."
Since her group were behind me, they were at a point where they could move the line, because of a structure they were next to. Alas they did not. So, for the next half an hour, while the line grew, it spiraled and continued to spiral, until there were two lines in a tight space. I decided, then and there, that I would not help save the human race from any asteroid strike in the future.
The line, which I have some footage of, was over 1,000 people, easy, and doubled back to the front of the line and then split off. That was AFTER they'd already filled more than ten buses.
It was unreal.
When I finally did get on a bus, it was 7:20, and we were on our way. I sat, for the first two hours... well, the whole way, actually... with a hardened plastic seat belt lock in my left ass cheek, pain in my left leg, and a seat companion who would turn around, get up on her knees, and talk to the people behind us.
By the time we got to the rest stop, we were on time. By the time we left the rest stop, we were 10 minutes late. By the time we reached Maryland we were an hour and a half late. We made it to DC at 12:45pm, five and a half hours after we left.
I wanted to die.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Quick update
Well, I just bought a Kodak Playsport compact camcorder for the trip this weekend. I plan on putting together a video of my trip, meeting people etc. Should be great.
I'm gearing up for this weekend. Just got my box of soaps from Florida, and the whole apartment smells like apple pie. Yummm.
Let's see. The UK site is almost finished. That's fantastic news.
I leave 6:30am on Saturday morning and get into DC around 11:00. I hope I get a good view of the show. I'm very much looking forward to the Reddit after party. That will be a lot of fun, and a relief. I'll be able to give out most of the samples by then. Whew. Lugging around 30lbs of soap is going to make for a tiring day.
My trip to Florida was moderately successful. We made a ton of soap, getting ready for the holiday season. I'm very excited to see what the next two months bring!
If you are going to the rally, are a redditor, and want a sample of our Soapert soaps, look for the tall blonde guy in the 8-Bit Reddit shirt. He's devilishly handsome (ehhhhh), in fantastic shape (oh, for God sake), and oozes charisma.
That last part is true. Ish.
See you in two days!
I'm gearing up for this weekend. Just got my box of soaps from Florida, and the whole apartment smells like apple pie. Yummm.
Let's see. The UK site is almost finished. That's fantastic news.
I leave 6:30am on Saturday morning and get into DC around 11:00. I hope I get a good view of the show. I'm very much looking forward to the Reddit after party. That will be a lot of fun, and a relief. I'll be able to give out most of the samples by then. Whew. Lugging around 30lbs of soap is going to make for a tiring day.
My trip to Florida was moderately successful. We made a ton of soap, getting ready for the holiday season. I'm very excited to see what the next two months bring!
If you are going to the rally, are a redditor, and want a sample of our Soapert soaps, look for the tall blonde guy in the 8-Bit Reddit shirt. He's devilishly handsome (ehhhhh), in fantastic shape (oh, for God sake), and oozes charisma.
That last part is true. Ish.
See you in two days!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Soapier's Big Announcement
Yay!
So, about two or three weeks ago, or more, I can't remember, I decided to take over the business.
So, I post on Reddit. Anyone who gets us a wholesale account, they will receive a $30 gift certificate to Soapier.com.
Well, I get an email from a lovely woman, Erica, in the UK, asking about franchise opportunities, or a wholesale agreement. We chat back and forth a bit, and, lo and behold...
Soapier UK is born!
Now, I won't get into the particulars, about cost, shipping, UK taxes, etc... but we both did everything we could to keep costs down so that our European customers will be saving money, purchasing Soapier products.
She is also selling our Reddit Alien and envelope soaps, along with Trollface soaps!
As of right now, we're selling our best sellers from the US in the UK. As time progresses, we'll be bringing over more product.
We're working out some logistic issues with the shopping cart right now, but Erica is taking pre-orders and will start shipping December 1, in plenty of time for the holidays!
So, that's awesome.
So, about two or three weeks ago, or more, I can't remember, I decided to take over the business.
So, I post on Reddit. Anyone who gets us a wholesale account, they will receive a $30 gift certificate to Soapier.com.
Well, I get an email from a lovely woman, Erica, in the UK, asking about franchise opportunities, or a wholesale agreement. We chat back and forth a bit, and, lo and behold...
Soapier UK is born!
Now, I won't get into the particulars, about cost, shipping, UK taxes, etc... but we both did everything we could to keep costs down so that our European customers will be saving money, purchasing Soapier products.
She is also selling our Reddit Alien and envelope soaps, along with Trollface soaps!
As of right now, we're selling our best sellers from the US in the UK. As time progresses, we'll be bringing over more product.
We're working out some logistic issues with the shopping cart right now, but Erica is taking pre-orders and will start shipping December 1, in plenty of time for the holidays!
So, that's awesome.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Soapier goes to Washington, DC
Well, it's just about a week away. The Rally to Restore Sanity, and Soapier will be there, hanging out with the Reddit crowd, and the rest of the country!
Should be a lot of fun. I'm hoping to take video, do a little montage of my trip...
AND, I'll be bringing down a couple of goodies, as mementos. Check it out. They're called Soapert:
You know, for Colbert? And the best thing is, it smells like apple pie.
My friend Nicole, who has her own pretty awesome blog, Thrift Store Confidential, gave me this idea. Thanks Nicole!
Anyway, if you see me down there (I'll be wearing a Reddit shirt, at the Reddit After-Party, smelling like soap) I might be able to give you one! I can only bring about 50 or so... they're heavy.
See you in Washington!
John
Should be a lot of fun. I'm hoping to take video, do a little montage of my trip...
AND, I'll be bringing down a couple of goodies, as mementos. Check it out. They're called Soapert:
You know, for Colbert? And the best thing is, it smells like apple pie.
My friend Nicole, who has her own pretty awesome blog, Thrift Store Confidential, gave me this idea. Thanks Nicole!
Anyway, if you see me down there (I'll be wearing a Reddit shirt, at the Reddit After-Party, smelling like soap) I might be able to give you one! I can only bring about 50 or so... they're heavy.
See you in Washington!
John
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Aid for Aidan
A family put a young boy's artwork up on etsy.com to raise money for his leukemia treatments.
Thanks to Aidan, Soapier has a new mascot!
The prints are $12.00, and go to a good cause. Yesterday, when I purchased, there had been 90 sales. Today, it's at 480, and they had to stop selling because they have so many orders. That's awesome.
Good going Reddit!
Thanks to Aidan, Soapier has a new mascot!
The prints are $12.00, and go to a good cause. Yesterday, when I purchased, there had been 90 sales. Today, it's at 480, and they had to stop selling because they have so many orders. That's awesome.
Good going Reddit!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Exhaustion, and looking ahead
Well, I've been here a total of five days, and let me tell you brother, my 60-some-odd year old mother is running rings around me.
I would venture that she's working harder at her job than most people do. Clearly that might be an exaggeration, but it can't be that far off base.
Let me see if I can break this down for you.
At present, we sell:
34 different soaps by the slice
6 different goat's milk soaps
6 different Soapier accent soaps
5 different soap slices in mens fragrances
3 different kinds of Reddit Alien soap
2 different Reddit Envelope Soaps
1 Trollface soap
We offer more than 40 different Soapier Samples
We have 6 different gift baskets for the holidays
3 different Soap of the Month Club options
8 different holiday soaps
and a set of Animal Cracker soaps for kids.
One woman, over the past four months, has been busting her ass to make all of this soap for our customers. My sister had been helping, but the business couldn't sustain her salary, so she had to quit. It wasn't an easy decision.
To be clear, if I had six months, I still wouldn't know everything about this business.
I've sat here... well, not really sat. I've walked around this apartment, and I've done my share of making soap, but there is no business without my mom.
Let me tell you what needs to happen, for Soapier to continue.
First off, we need orders. Now, I have some very, very good news that I'm going to spill on Thursday. This might be exactly what Soapier needs, to generate orders... we also have the holiday season fast approaching, and also the Reddit Secret Santa. Should be awesome.
We have two different venues for advertising this holiday season. I'm optimistic.
Second, we need to hire someone.
Third, we need a production facility.
Now, 'production facility' is just a fancy term for warehouse space. I like to call it a production facility because, well, that's what we do there. We produce a product.
The second and third things that we need are tied to us getting sales. We need to generate X amount this holiday season to allow us to hire someone and move our soap making out of my mom's house and into a space that is dedicated to one thing.
Clearly, moving our soap making business is not possible between now and the holidays. Not unless we received $10,000 in orders over the next two weeks. Hell, that would pay for a space AND a full time person for the next five months, at least. But I'm not holding my breath.
One of the things I've been looking into is Kickstarter.com. I want to put up a fundraising campaign, offering our Soap of the Month Club as incentive. We'll see if it happens.
Other than that... right now, it's a waiting game. We have to see how November sales are. Which kind of sucks, because November of last year was a busy month for us. It's one of the main reasons I'm down in Florida right now. We're making as much soap as we can, so that when the orders do start coming in, we can get them out without having to stop everything, just to make a loaf of soap.
Tomorrow, we put in a big order for soap base. We put in an order for some extra molds, a new mold for shaving soap (we've been getting plenty of requests), and some fragrances.
Then it's Keep on Truckin', making soap, wrapping it, labeling it, and storing it for the rush.
If you had a good relationship with your mother when you were younger, then the amount of respect you had for her will change, as you grow older. It might go lower... that's probably when you come to see some things about her, as an adult, that you might not agree with, and what have you. I hope that's rare.
Or, it might go higher.
For me, it's clearly gone higher. I've seen my mom fight her way through some personal issues, over the last five years or so, that would affect others in a much worse way, and come out damaged on the other side. Clearly, my mom can be defined as a fighter. She has high standards for things that actually matter, and it's one of the reasons this business has done as well as it has, this past year.
So, to all of you who are fans of our soap, your thanks should go directly to Linda. She's the driving force behind this company, and I'm going to do all I can to take the burden off of her shoulders.
We'll see how Soapier fares after this holiday season. I think that, at some point, I'll have some wonderful news for you, in the realm of our growing business.
I would venture that she's working harder at her job than most people do. Clearly that might be an exaggeration, but it can't be that far off base.
Let me see if I can break this down for you.
At present, we sell:
34 different soaps by the slice
6 different goat's milk soaps
6 different Soapier accent soaps
5 different soap slices in mens fragrances
3 different kinds of Reddit Alien soap
2 different Reddit Envelope Soaps
1 Trollface soap
We offer more than 40 different Soapier Samples
We have 6 different gift baskets for the holidays
3 different Soap of the Month Club options
8 different holiday soaps
and a set of Animal Cracker soaps for kids.
One woman, over the past four months, has been busting her ass to make all of this soap for our customers. My sister had been helping, but the business couldn't sustain her salary, so she had to quit. It wasn't an easy decision.
To be clear, if I had six months, I still wouldn't know everything about this business.
I've sat here... well, not really sat. I've walked around this apartment, and I've done my share of making soap, but there is no business without my mom.
Let me tell you what needs to happen, for Soapier to continue.
First off, we need orders. Now, I have some very, very good news that I'm going to spill on Thursday. This might be exactly what Soapier needs, to generate orders... we also have the holiday season fast approaching, and also the Reddit Secret Santa. Should be awesome.
We have two different venues for advertising this holiday season. I'm optimistic.
Second, we need to hire someone.
Third, we need a production facility.
Now, 'production facility' is just a fancy term for warehouse space. I like to call it a production facility because, well, that's what we do there. We produce a product.
The second and third things that we need are tied to us getting sales. We need to generate X amount this holiday season to allow us to hire someone and move our soap making out of my mom's house and into a space that is dedicated to one thing.
Clearly, moving our soap making business is not possible between now and the holidays. Not unless we received $10,000 in orders over the next two weeks. Hell, that would pay for a space AND a full time person for the next five months, at least. But I'm not holding my breath.
One of the things I've been looking into is Kickstarter.com. I want to put up a fundraising campaign, offering our Soap of the Month Club as incentive. We'll see if it happens.
Other than that... right now, it's a waiting game. We have to see how November sales are. Which kind of sucks, because November of last year was a busy month for us. It's one of the main reasons I'm down in Florida right now. We're making as much soap as we can, so that when the orders do start coming in, we can get them out without having to stop everything, just to make a loaf of soap.
Tomorrow, we put in a big order for soap base. We put in an order for some extra molds, a new mold for shaving soap (we've been getting plenty of requests), and some fragrances.
Then it's Keep on Truckin', making soap, wrapping it, labeling it, and storing it for the rush.
If you had a good relationship with your mother when you were younger, then the amount of respect you had for her will change, as you grow older. It might go lower... that's probably when you come to see some things about her, as an adult, that you might not agree with, and what have you. I hope that's rare.
Or, it might go higher.
For me, it's clearly gone higher. I've seen my mom fight her way through some personal issues, over the last five years or so, that would affect others in a much worse way, and come out damaged on the other side. Clearly, my mom can be defined as a fighter. She has high standards for things that actually matter, and it's one of the reasons this business has done as well as it has, this past year.
So, to all of you who are fans of our soap, your thanks should go directly to Linda. She's the driving force behind this company, and I'm going to do all I can to take the burden off of her shoulders.
We'll see how Soapier fares after this holiday season. I think that, at some point, I'll have some wonderful news for you, in the realm of our growing business.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Day 2
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Tension breaker, had to be done.
Soap. More soap. Soap everywhere I turn.
Soap to the left of me...
Soap to the right of me...
Niagara Falls!
Sigh.
Anyway. Here I am, it's a bit past midnight, and I'm exhausted. Figured I'd do a quick update on our progress.
We're running out of room. We're preparing Christmas soaps so that we can get orders out as soon as possible, when they come in. The faster we can get them out, the happier we'll be.
Here is a photo of the holiday soap that people will be getting if they order the 1-year subscription of our Soap of the Month Club.
It's called Snow Mitten, and it smells like Cranberries on Ice! Smells delicious. My mom and I spent yesterday and today making these.
We also have another Christmas soap we put up called Reindeer Games:
That's fragranced with chocolate mint. Yummy.
This weekend, we continue making the gift baskets, works of art soaps, and more. Not sure how much blogging I'm going to get to this weekend, but next week, I have a super, duper, awesome piece of news. I don't want to spoil it, but check back around Thursday or so (though, you know, check out my blog posts that I'll have earlier, too). It's going to be a big deal, for Soapier.
Oh, and two things. One, we signed up for an OpenSky.com account. If you're a blogger, you can make money promoting Soapier!
Two, we got this awesome review.
Tension breaker, had to be done.
Soap. More soap. Soap everywhere I turn.
Soap to the left of me...
Soap to the right of me...
Niagara Falls!
Sigh.
Anyway. Here I am, it's a bit past midnight, and I'm exhausted. Figured I'd do a quick update on our progress.
We're running out of room. We're preparing Christmas soaps so that we can get orders out as soon as possible, when they come in. The faster we can get them out, the happier we'll be.
Here is a photo of the holiday soap that people will be getting if they order the 1-year subscription of our Soap of the Month Club.
It's called Snow Mitten, and it smells like Cranberries on Ice! Smells delicious. My mom and I spent yesterday and today making these.
We also have another Christmas soap we put up called Reindeer Games:
That's fragranced with chocolate mint. Yummy.
This weekend, we continue making the gift baskets, works of art soaps, and more. Not sure how much blogging I'm going to get to this weekend, but next week, I have a super, duper, awesome piece of news. I don't want to spoil it, but check back around Thursday or so (though, you know, check out my blog posts that I'll have earlier, too). It's going to be a big deal, for Soapier.
Oh, and two things. One, we signed up for an OpenSky.com account. If you're a blogger, you can make money promoting Soapier!
Two, we got this awesome review.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Day 1
Got in last night, blew up the air mattress, and slept on the floor in the living room. That's SOP for me, in Florida, since the business takes up the second bedroom of my mom's apartment.
The only problem with sleeping in the living room is that my mom gets up at 5am to walk her dog, and makes enough racket to wake up the corpses that live under the complex here. Remember Poltergeist? Yeah, this place used to be a cemetery, but they didn't move the bodies.
Woke up this morning and greeted a friend of my mom's, who was here for 4 hours to help wrap soap. We were making the Gift Baskets today... it's a lot of soap, a lot of wrapping. We were lucky to have her help.
So, here's what happens when we make baskets. First, we have these cute metal pails, and we fill them with some paper filler.
We did this while the soaps were getting wrapped.
After wrapping, my mom put in shred...
Then my mom started placing them in the buckets...
... and then wrapped them in colorful wrapping, with a ribbon.
That is the Gentlemen's Club gift basket. It has six different soaps, in brand new fragrances: Dragon's Blood, Cool Water, Indian Musk, Vetiver, Issey Miyake, Nag Champa.
Should be a great selection of soaps for the guy in your life!
We went to lunch shortly after, at Boston Market. Wow. I deal with food preparers RARELY in NYC. Karen and I try and cook as much as possible. The people at the Tampa Boston Market were simply awesome, and the manager was an amazing upseller. They even brought our food to our tables, which is brand new. The only issue I had was that they were basically serving food, and were not allowed to accept tips. That's not right. Shame, Boston Market. Those people were busting their ass BEFORE this new situation. Now you have them doing more work, for the same money. Not cool.
Back home. Doing a second gift basket... this time, Sugar Rush, the basket we made for kids, and, you know, everyone who loves sweets. Let's see...
Those are the bars. The fragrances coming from these bars was nuts.
Bubble Gum, Caramel Apple, Cherry Cola, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Snickerdoodle (cinnamon sugar cookie), Marshmallow. Yeah, they're as good as they sound.
Here's another angle, just cooler.
All in all, it was a good day. We did 16 of each basket. That's all we're making, this holiday season. Once they're gone, they're gone. The reason is, the molds for our sample sizes makes 16 bars.
That's about it, for today. Tomorrow I'm making a red, white, and blue soap to sell between now and Christmas. It will be called Soapert... for Colbert. $1 from each bar sold will be donated to donorschoose.org. I'll have pictures on Monday, once we fix it.
Oh, and it's gonna smell like apple pie. Yeah.
The only problem with sleeping in the living room is that my mom gets up at 5am to walk her dog, and makes enough racket to wake up the corpses that live under the complex here. Remember Poltergeist? Yeah, this place used to be a cemetery, but they didn't move the bodies.
Woke up this morning and greeted a friend of my mom's, who was here for 4 hours to help wrap soap. We were making the Gift Baskets today... it's a lot of soap, a lot of wrapping. We were lucky to have her help.
So, here's what happens when we make baskets. First, we have these cute metal pails, and we fill them with some paper filler.
We did this while the soaps were getting wrapped.
After wrapping, my mom put in shred...
Then my mom started placing them in the buckets...
... and then wrapped them in colorful wrapping, with a ribbon.
That is the Gentlemen's Club gift basket. It has six different soaps, in brand new fragrances: Dragon's Blood, Cool Water, Indian Musk, Vetiver, Issey Miyake, Nag Champa.
Should be a great selection of soaps for the guy in your life!
We went to lunch shortly after, at Boston Market. Wow. I deal with food preparers RARELY in NYC. Karen and I try and cook as much as possible. The people at the Tampa Boston Market were simply awesome, and the manager was an amazing upseller. They even brought our food to our tables, which is brand new. The only issue I had was that they were basically serving food, and were not allowed to accept tips. That's not right. Shame, Boston Market. Those people were busting their ass BEFORE this new situation. Now you have them doing more work, for the same money. Not cool.
Back home. Doing a second gift basket... this time, Sugar Rush, the basket we made for kids, and, you know, everyone who loves sweets. Let's see...
Those are the bars. The fragrances coming from these bars was nuts.
Bubble Gum, Caramel Apple, Cherry Cola, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Snickerdoodle (cinnamon sugar cookie), Marshmallow. Yeah, they're as good as they sound.
Here's another angle, just cooler.
All in all, it was a good day. We did 16 of each basket. That's all we're making, this holiday season. Once they're gone, they're gone. The reason is, the molds for our sample sizes makes 16 bars.
That's about it, for today. Tomorrow I'm making a red, white, and blue soap to sell between now and Christmas. It will be called Soapert... for Colbert. $1 from each bar sold will be donated to donorschoose.org. I'll have pictures on Monday, once we fix it.
Oh, and it's gonna smell like apple pie. Yeah.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Heading to Florida
Well... I was going to shoot video, and put together a near little montage of my trip to Florida, but I fell to one of the worst genetic problems one can fall to.
Procrastination.
My whole family has it. I'm not going to say 'it's like a cancer', even though it is.
Ok, it's totally like a cancer.
I didn't end up leaving until 4:15. That was 15 minutes late. Then, I got down to the subway and had to wait two trains, because they were tooooo full, and I wouldn't have gotten a seat to relax and eat my sandwich.
Which was important.
The trip was uneventful. I'm not sure what I would have recorded, but I could have put it to cool music, and that would have made even the most benign footage interesting.
Oh well.
I'm at the airport, waiting for the call to get on the plane.
I think it was in The Stand, yeah, where Glen Bateman talks about planes crashing. The gist is that somehow, some people know if a plane is going to crash, and that most plane crashes are actually only half filled, because people sense something is wrong, and they don't get on the plane.
That might have been true in the 70s/80s. I don't suspect that people would give up a seat these days. The cost is brutal.
Anyway, I'm heading down for my initial visit, to help with the holiday rush. We'll be making soap every day, and doing some fixings to the site, and we'll see how it goes. I expect good things.
Then I'll be back up in NY for the Colbert Rally, we'll be hiring on some help, and getting through the holidays. From there... well, you all will know how we're doing. If you get one or two word blogs, we're busy. If you get a novel, buy as much soap as you can!
Procrastination.
My whole family has it. I'm not going to say 'it's like a cancer', even though it is.
Ok, it's totally like a cancer.
I didn't end up leaving until 4:15. That was 15 minutes late. Then, I got down to the subway and had to wait two trains, because they were tooooo full, and I wouldn't have gotten a seat to relax and eat my sandwich.
Which was important.
The trip was uneventful. I'm not sure what I would have recorded, but I could have put it to cool music, and that would have made even the most benign footage interesting.
Oh well.
I'm at the airport, waiting for the call to get on the plane.
I think it was in The Stand, yeah, where Glen Bateman talks about planes crashing. The gist is that somehow, some people know if a plane is going to crash, and that most plane crashes are actually only half filled, because people sense something is wrong, and they don't get on the plane.
That might have been true in the 70s/80s. I don't suspect that people would give up a seat these days. The cost is brutal.
Anyway, I'm heading down for my initial visit, to help with the holiday rush. We'll be making soap every day, and doing some fixings to the site, and we'll see how it goes. I expect good things.
Then I'll be back up in NY for the Colbert Rally, we'll be hiring on some help, and getting through the holidays. From there... well, you all will know how we're doing. If you get one or two word blogs, we're busy. If you get a novel, buy as much soap as you can!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Testimonials
So, I've been doing some research on how to improve sales, and one of the things I found was that I should add testimonials to the site.
On top of advertising on both Reddit and Facebook, this is something that should be reasonably easy to do.
If any of our customers would like to write us about a particular soap that they've used, I will send you a 15% off coupon on your next purchase, to use your testimonial.
You can email me at john@wordsfromhere.com. That would be great.
We did do some testimonials on our Trollface soap page. That was fun. Hopefully we'll get some really great testimonials, and I'll be able to put them on this blog.
I sent out an email to the First In Line Soap list, letting people know we were open again, and I was hoping for an order. :(
Then I forgot that today was a holiday. Sigh.
That's what happens when you aren't working. You forget the holiday schedule. Even with my girlfriend home, I kept thinking it was Sunday. Then Castle came on, and I was like "Uhhhh... wait, today is Monday?"
I head down to Florida on Wednesday, to help make soap for the holidays. Should be a fun and productive trip!
Thanks for reading, and for comments people have been leaving. It's nice to know people visit our blog.
In fact, after I did some research with our clicktale.com account, I found that people click on our blog a lot more than I thought they would. Interesting.
If you're reading, showing up for the first time, or want to just say hello, comment!
Thanks - John
On top of advertising on both Reddit and Facebook, this is something that should be reasonably easy to do.
If any of our customers would like to write us about a particular soap that they've used, I will send you a 15% off coupon on your next purchase, to use your testimonial.
You can email me at john@wordsfromhere.com. That would be great.
We did do some testimonials on our Trollface soap page. That was fun. Hopefully we'll get some really great testimonials, and I'll be able to put them on this blog.
I sent out an email to the First In Line Soap list, letting people know we were open again, and I was hoping for an order. :(
Then I forgot that today was a holiday. Sigh.
That's what happens when you aren't working. You forget the holiday schedule. Even with my girlfriend home, I kept thinking it was Sunday. Then Castle came on, and I was like "Uhhhh... wait, today is Monday?"
I head down to Florida on Wednesday, to help make soap for the holidays. Should be a fun and productive trip!
Thanks for reading, and for comments people have been leaving. It's nice to know people visit our blog.
In fact, after I did some research with our clicktale.com account, I found that people click on our blog a lot more than I thought they would. Interesting.
If you're reading, showing up for the first time, or want to just say hello, comment!
Thanks - John
Wholesale customers
Hi everyone,
About four months before my mom decided to close Soapier, she closed our wholesale division, First In Line Soap.
I just re-opened it, and we're looking for customers.
If you know someone who might like to sell our soaps in their store, let them know about us! If your suggestion results in a wholesale purchase (we have a $150 minimum purchase, which is 5 loafs), we'll give you a $30 gift certificate to Soapier!
Wholesale customers must have a tax ID#.
With each loaf, customers get wrapping paper for the soap, colorful labels (you all know the labels), and signs, just like this. And, if they sign up for our newsletter, they'll receive a 10% off coupon, for being a new customer.
Thanks!
J
Friday, October 8, 2010
Doing good for others
After receiving tons of support from Redditors last year, it seemed fairly obvious to all of us that we had to pay whatever we could forward to others.
I'm not going to list the things we did this past year because, the fact is, it would just be self serving, and that's not what I want to be about.
What I do want to let everyone know is that every once in a while, there's going to be something awesome that we find out about... that the Reddit community, or the community at large, rallies behind.
Just yesterday, there was a sickening story about a 7-year old girl and her family who was being harassed by her neighbors. The thing is, the 7-year old is dying. It's pretty disgusting, and it's garnered some national interest.
But the really cool thing is that a Redditor decided to rally the troops and get his fellow Redditors to chip in and show her that there are good people in the world.
Someone else took it a step further. He owns a toy store near the girl and her family, put up a donation page, and raised over $4,000 (much of it from Redditors), to get toys for her and for other sick children.
Unreal, isn't it?
We're going to see what we can do, not only for this brave girl, but for Mott's Children's Hospital, in Michigan. I'll have to run it past Linda (mom), but I think we'll contact the hospital and see if we can send the kids there a bar of one of our Works of Art Soaps. They might not want the kids to use regular soap... I'll have to find out and update this blog, but it's something I'd like to do.
This whole situation is one of the reasons I love Reddit. Not only does it bring to light news from all over the world, but it also shows how strong the human spirit is. I'm proud to be a part of the community.
J
Edit: due to the time constraints of this young girl's situation, we donated money, instead. If you feel you'd like to donate, you can do so here.
I'm not going to list the things we did this past year because, the fact is, it would just be self serving, and that's not what I want to be about.
What I do want to let everyone know is that every once in a while, there's going to be something awesome that we find out about... that the Reddit community, or the community at large, rallies behind.
Just yesterday, there was a sickening story about a 7-year old girl and her family who was being harassed by her neighbors. The thing is, the 7-year old is dying. It's pretty disgusting, and it's garnered some national interest.
But the really cool thing is that a Redditor decided to rally the troops and get his fellow Redditors to chip in and show her that there are good people in the world.
Someone else took it a step further. He owns a toy store near the girl and her family, put up a donation page, and raised over $4,000 (much of it from Redditors), to get toys for her and for other sick children.
Unreal, isn't it?
We're going to see what we can do, not only for this brave girl, but for Mott's Children's Hospital, in Michigan. I'll have to run it past Linda (mom), but I think we'll contact the hospital and see if we can send the kids there a bar of one of our Works of Art Soaps. They might not want the kids to use regular soap... I'll have to find out and update this blog, but it's something I'd like to do.
This whole situation is one of the reasons I love Reddit. Not only does it bring to light news from all over the world, but it also shows how strong the human spirit is. I'm proud to be a part of the community.
J
Edit: due to the time constraints of this young girl's situation, we donated money, instead. If you feel you'd like to donate, you can do so here.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Poker
I'm a big fan of poker. My gf and I watch the World Series of Poker religiously.
I like to go down to Atlantic City with my friends and play table games and poker. Whenever we can, we go to Vegas.
Lately, our trips have been few and far between. I haven't been working, and when you're not working, trips like that are just too expensive, and just... what's the word. Frivolous. That's a good word.
When I moved down to Florida in 2008 to help my mom and sister with the company, my mom asked my sister and I to write down a bunch of things we wanted, when the company became successful.
My mom's very big on positive thinking.
So, one of the things I wrote down was that I wanted to get into the main event at the WSOP. It's a $10,000 ticket, and, at the time, I felt that THAT would be the ultimate cool thing to do when the company went nuts.
See, we had a retail store, we had wholesale customers, and we had just hired a PR firm to help us get out into the world. We sent out press releases, received a HUGE amount of requests for samples, and we really thought we were going to have a serious amount of magazines, television shows, newspapers, and more promoting our awesome products.
At the time, $10,000 seemed like chump change. Sure, hey, I'll get to the WSOP. Maybe I'll even do well. Sure.
Hell, one of the other things I wanted was an original Jeffrey Jones painting. Something like Age of Innocence. One of the most phenomenal paintings out there, in my opinion. I'm a huge Jeffrey Jones (the painter, not the pedophile) fan.
A bit more than 2 years later, my list has changed completely.
I would never consider paying $10,000 for a seat at a poker tournament. I respect people who can do that. After being out of work for so long, I have to save whatever money I make, and, believe me, I won't be making much of anything for a while.
Soapier needs help. Marketing help, actual physical help. We need to hire someone, to help us with soap making, wrapping, shipping. All very important to the survival of my mom's mental health, and our business.
Let's see. What's on my list.
Well, I'd like to be able to help pay rent and bills.
I'd like to be able to buy Christmas presents this year, though I know how much a handmade gift can be appreciated.
I'd like to be able to get my mom a vacation. She hasn't been on a proper one in many years.
I'd like to get my sister a new (used) car.
I'd like to save enough money so that the company won't ever be on its last legs.
I'd like to have enough money so that we can continue to donate to great causes that Reddit finds.
I would Soapier to be a shining light in the world. We're not interested in making millions. We're interested in having a stable company, with stable employees that get the rewards they deserve.
I had this fantastic idea for franchising Soapier stores. I hope to be able to promote these franchises next year. I think it will revolutionize how businesses franchise. I really do... and what it will achieve will be huge for people who want to start their own businesses, but don't want to pay $50,000 before they even open a store. There's a better way.
The WSOP will always be around. Maybe one day when I'm making a salary, and have a significant amount of savings, and won't stress out about spending the money... then I'll be able to do it.
Until then, it's a nice dream... but there are quite a few nicer, more practical ones that hold priority, and I'm fine with that.
Thanks for reading. I head down to Florida for my initial trip on Wednesday. We'll see how it goes.
J
I like to go down to Atlantic City with my friends and play table games and poker. Whenever we can, we go to Vegas.
Lately, our trips have been few and far between. I haven't been working, and when you're not working, trips like that are just too expensive, and just... what's the word. Frivolous. That's a good word.
When I moved down to Florida in 2008 to help my mom and sister with the company, my mom asked my sister and I to write down a bunch of things we wanted, when the company became successful.
My mom's very big on positive thinking.
So, one of the things I wrote down was that I wanted to get into the main event at the WSOP. It's a $10,000 ticket, and, at the time, I felt that THAT would be the ultimate cool thing to do when the company went nuts.
See, we had a retail store, we had wholesale customers, and we had just hired a PR firm to help us get out into the world. We sent out press releases, received a HUGE amount of requests for samples, and we really thought we were going to have a serious amount of magazines, television shows, newspapers, and more promoting our awesome products.
At the time, $10,000 seemed like chump change. Sure, hey, I'll get to the WSOP. Maybe I'll even do well. Sure.
Hell, one of the other things I wanted was an original Jeffrey Jones painting. Something like Age of Innocence. One of the most phenomenal paintings out there, in my opinion. I'm a huge Jeffrey Jones (the painter, not the pedophile) fan.
A bit more than 2 years later, my list has changed completely.
I would never consider paying $10,000 for a seat at a poker tournament. I respect people who can do that. After being out of work for so long, I have to save whatever money I make, and, believe me, I won't be making much of anything for a while.
Soapier needs help. Marketing help, actual physical help. We need to hire someone, to help us with soap making, wrapping, shipping. All very important to the survival of my mom's mental health, and our business.
Let's see. What's on my list.
Well, I'd like to be able to help pay rent and bills.
I'd like to be able to buy Christmas presents this year, though I know how much a handmade gift can be appreciated.
I'd like to be able to get my mom a vacation. She hasn't been on a proper one in many years.
I'd like to get my sister a new (used) car.
I'd like to save enough money so that the company won't ever be on its last legs.
I'd like to have enough money so that we can continue to donate to great causes that Reddit finds.
I would Soapier to be a shining light in the world. We're not interested in making millions. We're interested in having a stable company, with stable employees that get the rewards they deserve.
I had this fantastic idea for franchising Soapier stores. I hope to be able to promote these franchises next year. I think it will revolutionize how businesses franchise. I really do... and what it will achieve will be huge for people who want to start their own businesses, but don't want to pay $50,000 before they even open a store. There's a better way.
The WSOP will always be around. Maybe one day when I'm making a salary, and have a significant amount of savings, and won't stress out about spending the money... then I'll be able to do it.
Until then, it's a nice dream... but there are quite a few nicer, more practical ones that hold priority, and I'm fine with that.
Thanks for reading. I head down to Florida for my initial trip on Wednesday. We'll see how it goes.
J
Update, new products, and more!
Hi all.
Today, we have some fantastic products for this holiday season, including a Soap of the Month Club! We can send this to friends and family... people you think are stinky. Whoever you want. We have 3 different subscription options. Each month you or your enemy... sigh, or your family member or friend or someone else... they'll receive a brand new soap in a brand new, exclusive fragrance.
These are very limited, so get them while you can! As we get orders, I'll be updating the site to let customers know how many we have left.
We have holiday soaps, holiday gift baskets, stuff for kids... and all of our other great products.
Most, if not all of this stuff are pre-orders. The Soap of the Month Club members will receive their first order just in time for Christmas!
Gift baskets and gift soaps will not start shipping until the first week of November.
And yes, yes, yes, we have our infamous Santa's Nog soap.
One other thing. To try and market us better, I have added Facebook Like buttons to all of our pages. If you see something you like, Like us on Facebook!
You can also become a fan of Soapier on FB.
Thanks everyone. Two more things.
First, if you or anyone you know is looking for work this holiday season, and who lives in the Tampa area, Soapier is looking to hire someone! Email me at john@soapier.com and we'll see what we can do. It's just one person we're hiring, and we need a really good person, who is creative, hard working, and doesn't need to text 24/7. This job could possibly become full time (we hope it will) if our holiday sales are good enough to sustain them through the new year.
Two. We're looking to move into a new facility. This, too, is dependent on holiday sales. The next two months will be crazy for us, but I believe it's imperative that we find a new space, so that we can get all of our orders out in a timely fashion.
Oh, and one more thing. Normally, we charge orders when we ship. It's taking too much time for us to do this, so we're going to start processing cc fees straight from the gateway (cart). For those of you who need to wait a couple of days, or have some special need, just contact us. We'll work with you!
All the best,
John
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The Rollercoaster
Hello all. Thanks for stopping by and reading what will surely be a strange, yet provocative piece of non-fiction. Nothing to tell the grandkids, you know, but still...
At the end of August, my mom decided to call it quits with Soapier. She just couldn't do it alone any more. My sister had taken a full time job because the soap business wasn't able to support both my mom and her.
So, basically, my mom was overworked.
She said "I'm done. Done. DONE. I can't do it any more." This was on the phone, you know.
So, she said tell them we're closing. Tell them we're closing, but if they want to buy us, they can. If not, I'm going to, I don't know, be a greeter at Wal-Mart or something. But don't tell them that.
Sigh, ok mom.
Now, listen. I love everything that we've done over the past however many years. I love it. I love, more specifically, the amount of help, support, and love we've received from Reddit. I don't know how many retail companies can say the have received as much as we have. It was truly unbelievable.
I know I say it often enough, but I don't think people grasp the full scope of what happened.
I post a thread on Reddit and receive quite the sendoff.
But from that moment on, I was kind of obsessed with keeping the business.
We received over 40 interested parties who wanted to obtain Soapier. We sent out emails with an asking price, and by the end of the month, we had two potential buyers, and one party interested in investing with us.
In the end, none of it was a good fit. I was both relieved and a bit disappointed. My sister and my mom (not to mention myself) could have used the money from the sale. But I had other plans.
I haven't been working steady since February of this year. Nothing's really been working for me. I've been a graphic designer for 13 years, and I'm, unfortunately, in that position where people won't hire me for entry positions because they think I'll rabbit if something better comes along. I'm also in the position to know the value of my experience, and when a company is looking for me (or someone like me) to do the work of 3 people for a ridiculously low salary.
Ok, ok. I applied to those jobs, too. Beggars can't be choosers.
But nothing was happening. I even applied for dog walking positions. One place told me they received over 400 resumes for the position. That was when I knew that not only were things tough, but that my not finding work was not my fault.
So, I thought. And thought. Thought some more. And I decided that I would go down to Florida and take over the business.
Posted it on Reddit, got in touch with our customers who purchased during September, to give them the opportunity to return their product, just in case they felt that they were buying under false pretenses...
And now we're at present day.
Oh, check this out. Stephen Colbert mentioned Soapier in a letter he sent to Reddit. That day was pretty much THE day that I decided I wasn't giving up. It's not every day that someone like him mentions someone like us. I was floored. I mean, seriously floored. I read that letter five times. I couldn't believe it.
So, I'll be heading down to Florida, then heading to Washington, hiring a part-time person to help us get through the holidays, and trying to find a warehouse space in Florida that we can use, so that I can get the business out of my mom's apartment.
I also have a couple of great ideas for the holidays that we're sure are going to be fantastic gift ideas this year.
We're very excited.
Thanks for reading. One of the things I'll be doing is updating this blog more and more, as the days of my being at Soapier continue. Should be a lot of fun, and I'm very excited (and nervous) to get started. Wish me luck.
John
At the end of August, my mom decided to call it quits with Soapier. She just couldn't do it alone any more. My sister had taken a full time job because the soap business wasn't able to support both my mom and her.
So, basically, my mom was overworked.
She said "I'm done. Done. DONE. I can't do it any more." This was on the phone, you know.
So, she said tell them we're closing. Tell them we're closing, but if they want to buy us, they can. If not, I'm going to, I don't know, be a greeter at Wal-Mart or something. But don't tell them that.
Sigh, ok mom.
Now, listen. I love everything that we've done over the past however many years. I love it. I love, more specifically, the amount of help, support, and love we've received from Reddit. I don't know how many retail companies can say the have received as much as we have. It was truly unbelievable.
I know I say it often enough, but I don't think people grasp the full scope of what happened.
I post a thread on Reddit and receive quite the sendoff.
But from that moment on, I was kind of obsessed with keeping the business.
We received over 40 interested parties who wanted to obtain Soapier. We sent out emails with an asking price, and by the end of the month, we had two potential buyers, and one party interested in investing with us.
In the end, none of it was a good fit. I was both relieved and a bit disappointed. My sister and my mom (not to mention myself) could have used the money from the sale. But I had other plans.
I haven't been working steady since February of this year. Nothing's really been working for me. I've been a graphic designer for 13 years, and I'm, unfortunately, in that position where people won't hire me for entry positions because they think I'll rabbit if something better comes along. I'm also in the position to know the value of my experience, and when a company is looking for me (or someone like me) to do the work of 3 people for a ridiculously low salary.
Ok, ok. I applied to those jobs, too. Beggars can't be choosers.
But nothing was happening. I even applied for dog walking positions. One place told me they received over 400 resumes for the position. That was when I knew that not only were things tough, but that my not finding work was not my fault.
So, I thought. And thought. Thought some more. And I decided that I would go down to Florida and take over the business.
Posted it on Reddit, got in touch with our customers who purchased during September, to give them the opportunity to return their product, just in case they felt that they were buying under false pretenses...
And now we're at present day.
Oh, check this out. Stephen Colbert mentioned Soapier in a letter he sent to Reddit. That day was pretty much THE day that I decided I wasn't giving up. It's not every day that someone like him mentions someone like us. I was floored. I mean, seriously floored. I read that letter five times. I couldn't believe it.
So, I'll be heading down to Florida, then heading to Washington, hiring a part-time person to help us get through the holidays, and trying to find a warehouse space in Florida that we can use, so that I can get the business out of my mom's apartment.
I also have a couple of great ideas for the holidays that we're sure are going to be fantastic gift ideas this year.
We're very excited.
Thanks for reading. One of the things I'll be doing is updating this blog more and more, as the days of my being at Soapier continue. Should be a lot of fun, and I'm very excited (and nervous) to get started. Wish me luck.
John
Friday, August 13, 2010
Martha Stewart Would Love These Soaps!!
Lemon Pound Cake Soapanimals!!!Well, we think she'd love them.
She loves animals right? Got all those cute dogs and new pet products, check she likes animals.
She loves food right? Has her own recipe magazine, plus she started with a catering business way back when, check she likes food.
So we combined two of Martha's loves and made our very cute soapanimals (that's a new word that we're hoping will catch on).
First lets talk about the scent. A rich buttery lemon pound cake fragrance that has you going back for more. I'm a food fragrance lover, actually I love all the fragrances but I think the food ones are the best. They are the most fun and they always bring a smile to my face. It's a bit uplifting to smell a really good food scent and my gosh lemon pound cake is one of them.
Now we would be remiss if we didn't discuss all these cute face animals. This set of nine different soapanimals includes the cat, giraffe, hippo, lion, cow, elephant, dog, chick and bunny. There isn't a sad one in the bunch, I think they all look pretty happy, but maybe it's the lemon pound cake fragrance that has them so content.
Mix a bit of lemon pound cake scent with a bunch of animals and I'm sure we could have Martha Stewart singing, ahhhhhh, a bit off key but singing.
I have to tell you that making these soaps is so much fun and I think using them would be just as enjoyable.
Each glycerin soap bar weighs in at 2 ozs each and you receive one of each of the following; Sorry folks only one set is available and it's only on Etsy. Click HERE to find them
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Cool As A Cucumber
August, the do
g days of summer! It's hot, it's humid, we all want relief!
I live in Florida and the beach is pretty close but my days are so hectic that I rarely get to go. What's a gal to do? Showers, lots of showers! I love a good shower, it cools me off, makes me feel human again and it helps to relieve that hot humid fatigue that sort of comes with the dog days of summer.
Wanting relief from the heat got me to thinking about a cool smelling soap for these humid days. Cucumber Mint or as I call it Cool As A Cucumber was the answer (pictured above) . It's cucumber cool and minty fresh with just a touch of sophistication. Pretty... cool! So fire up those showers, get cooled off and then you'll be human again to do those things you need to do.
Because I love this soap so much all orders from August 6th till the end of the month will get a guest size bar free (2 ozs) in each order. (shown here) You can order the best soaps on the net HERE
Remember keep it cool!!
Linda
g days of summer! It's hot, it's humid, we all want relief!I live in Florida and the beach is pretty close but my days are so hectic that I rarely get to go. What's a gal to do? Showers, lots of showers! I love a good shower, it cools me off, makes me feel human again and it helps to relieve that hot humid fatigue that sort of comes with the dog days of summer.
Wanting relief from the heat got me to thinking about a cool smelling soap for these humid days. Cucumber Mint or as I call it Cool As A Cucumber was the answer (pictured above) . It's cucumber cool and minty fresh with just a touch of sophistication. Pretty... cool! So fire up those showers, get cooled off and then you'll be human again to do those things you need to do.
Because I love this soap so much all orders from August 6th till the end of the month will get a guest size bar free (2 ozs) in each order. (shown here) You can order the best soaps on the net HERE
Remember keep it cool!!
Linda
Monday, May 10, 2010
FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY
I don't want you to think that I think that I can do things extraordinary, but really what I wanted the title to mean was don't just settle for ordinary, take it to the next level.
I have this wonderful guest soap mold, that makes these cute 2" x 2" x 1" soaps. Each soap weighs about 2 ozs each. Great size to put at the bathroom sink. I love the size, I love how it has a bit of beveled edge and on it's own it's pretty.
Here I just swirled two colors for each set to make it a bit different. I was pleased with them. They actually were made for my Day At The Beach Gift Set available now on Ebay. You can find them HERE
A blank canvas can become almost anything, so can this soap mold, almost anything. So my first attempt was these heart ones below. I loved making these and they went very well during Valentine's Day. Each color was a different fragrance and I packaged them up four in a clear cello bag, pretty ribbon and a gift tag. They would make great bridal favors or wedding favors.
Then I realized that I had some small silicone molds for seashells. I made a bunch of them in white soap and added them to the top of clear turquoise beach fragrance guest soaps. These are so cute, they are perfect for a destination wedding or even as a gift for someone you are visiting at the shore.
Now I could of added a small toy to the top but I only like using soap on soap. I fear that a toy object might be accidentally rough, scratchy on the skin. Below is the finished product. I just added them to Ebay under our new Ebay name SoapFavors and you can find them HERE
I have a few more ideas cooking in my brain for this blank canvas and I'll give you a holler so you can see and then tell me what you think.
I have this wonderful guest soap mold, that makes these cute 2" x 2" x 1" soaps. Each soap weighs about 2 ozs each. Great size to put at the bathroom sink. I love the size, I love how it has a bit of beveled edge and on it's own it's pretty.
Here I just swirled two colors for each set to make it a bit different. I was pleased with them. They actually were made for my Day At The Beach Gift Set available now on Ebay. You can find them HERE
A blank canvas can become almost anything, so can this soap mold, almost anything. So my first attempt was these heart ones below. I loved making these and they went very well during Valentine's Day. Each color was a different fragrance and I packaged them up four in a clear cello bag, pretty ribbon and a gift tag. They would make great bridal favors or wedding favors.
Then I realized that I had some small silicone molds for seashells. I made a bunch of them in white soap and added them to the top of clear turquoise beach fragrance guest soaps. These are so cute, they are perfect for a destination wedding or even as a gift for someone you are visiting at the shore.Now I could of added a small toy to the top but I only like using soap on soap. I fear that a toy object might be accidentally rough, scratchy on the skin. Below is the finished product. I just added them to Ebay under our new Ebay name SoapFavors and you can find them HERE
I have a few more ideas cooking in my brain for this blank canvas and I'll give you a holler so you can see and then tell me what you think.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Soap Pets Are Fun!!!
ELEPHANT, LION, HIPPO AND GIRAFFEI love these soaps, I love how cute they are, I love the different animals and I love their faces. I just want to squeeze their cheeks, but I can't.
Along with the great design of these molds, we want to make sure we give them a look you will love. So we did them up in our Oatmeal Milk and Honey recipe with that great fragrance of the same name and we added oatmeal for it's great benefit. The texture that comes thru on them is really special. It just gives these guys a bit of oomph!! Don't you agree?
Now you could buy these for your kids to entice them into the bath, you could buy them as baby shower favors, or as favors for those kids parties. Oh yeah you could also buy them for yourself, but you better hide them like that candy you don't want hubby and kids to find.
These cute soaps as of today May 8th 2010 are up for auction starting at .99 for the set of four. You can get there from HERE If you can't wait for the auction to end you could also buy them at $4.00 for the set plus shipping and you can get there from HERE . Take a look to see what we hav going on at Ebay.
Have a great day, week, month, year!!!
Linda
Friday, May 7, 2010
Closeout Soaps and Soap Favors Now On Ebay
We've just opened a new Ebay account under the name SoapFavors where we are listing closeout soaps and soap favors.
Pictured shown is a set of 3 White Chocolate Covered Cherries soaps in red and white on a wooden soap dish. With all soap it's important to keep it from sitting in water. Water sitting will make your soap dissolve quicker and become a bit gummy. This wooden soap dish solves that problem with it's slots that let the water escape from the soap. Keeping your soap dry in between washing will let you keep your soap that much longer. You get it all for $12.95 here at EBAY
You say white chocolate covered cherries, what can that possible smell like? It's yummy and one of those scents that you just can't stop putting up to your nose to inhale the sweetness of it. Double fragranced like all of our soaps, the scent will linger awhile on your skin. It will also make your bathroom smell divine after your shower. Oh yeah I know you know this but I'll mention it anyway, glycerin soap is great for your skin. It moisturizes plus the lathered is rich and creamy. Soapier's great soap is an affordable luxury that you enjoy to the very last piece of it.
Don't forget while you are there at EBAY check out some of our other cools soaps. These soaps that you find on Ebay won't be found on Soapier.com. Act fast before they are gone, and once gone, they are .......... gone.
Have a great day and thanks for thinking of us here at soapier.com
Linda
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