Short and Sweet:

I made the Pumpkin Bars a couple of weeks ago.
Very Easy.
Very Good!

The weather here has been in the low teens (or lower) at night and not quite reaching the freezing level during the day.

I can honestly say “I’m tired of the cold’.
And YES that makes me a wimp.
We have rain here not FREEZING TEMPERATURES!
Still in the forcast for Friday (evening), Saturday, Sunday and even perhaps beyond….
SNOW!
Which is great ’cause at least it will be above FREEZING!

Major Disaster Averted
When originally developing our lotion formula it took me 9-12 months of test batches and revamping of formula and APC testing to get it just right.

I went to reorder a specific emulsion ingredient from my regular supplier and they don’t carry it in stock any more. It’s on a pre-buy basis only.

I cannot wait for a pre-buy and panicked! (pre-buy means we will order the product when we get enough orders to make it worth while).

I put a call for help out to my ‘soapy’ friends and like always these lovely people came through with another supplier (yes, apparently I’m google search challenged!).

I just wanted to give a shout out to all of you in this industry. Even though we may be in competition with each other you (meaning you-collectively) never hesitate to help a fellow cosmetic manufacturer!

I could and would have had to reformulate our lotion using the emulsion combination we use for our creams but that would have entailed probably another 6-9 months (at the least) of testing and reformulating and I really didn’t want to have to go there!

Arthritis
During the year I had purchased some ointment for my arthritis. I went back to her site…and her site is gone.

So this is going to force me to make my own!
I’ve got the arnica and comfrey infused oil sourced now all I need is time!

Hopefully I can start on this new project sometime in January. It will be cream based rather than ointment based so it won’t be greasy. I will let you know if it works!

Holiday Swap
Few things are more fun than swapping cosmetic products with your fellow small business friends!

This is my second time around this year hosting a swap (I did one this summer) and this weekend I will be repackaging everything to ship out. I will be taking pictures (something I failed to do the first time!) and will be uploading them to our Facebook and Flickr accounts sometime after the holidays!

That’s it for today.
Busy weekend and next week as we gear down for the Christmas Holiday!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com