It’s cold in the south

This weekend we spent all day outside at the Athens Indie Craftstravaganza.  What a great event.  Local arts and crafts and generally unique people abound.  The temp this morning was 28 degrees and somewhat damp.  We stayed pretty cold all day despite the hot tea, burritos, cookies and brownies.  What surprised me the most about this festival was that there was no food being sold.  What a drag!

Boy was the beer soap popular.  You know men generally don’t like to be seen perusing a handmade soap and body products table, so we put the beer products on a separate table.  Here’s how it typically goes:   1) Guy walks by expecting to be unimpressed by anything 2) As he walks by, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a sign or a label that says “Terrapin”  3) takes a few steps further along his route, stops, turns, looks and gets a confused look on his face  4) could it really be that there’s a product that a man could get excited about???  4) takes a look, doesn’t want to be fooled or taken for an idiot – asks about the soap and why beer (yadda yadda yadda) 5) takes another tour around the festival and 6) comes back to buy something “beer”.

My husband is quite good at selling as is my son – I just like to talk about what makes our soap so great.  The shea, the olive oil, the cocoa butter etc., but what our beer soap customers really care about is having a cool item in their possession.  I’m just hoping that somewhere along the line they inadverdently realize that their skin is the happiest it’s ever been – being cared for, nurtured, protected and soothed.  I don’t know, maybe that’s too much to ask???

I had a customer yesterday who told me she’s been in love with lip balm for 15 years and has tried everything she could get her hands on = she’s been using our lip balm for the last little while and her statement was, “this is the best lip balm I’ve ever used”.  She also bought a beer shampoo bar and came back to say that she couldn’t believe the lather and how soft her hair felt – it was a good day for me!

On another note – we hope to cook breakfast for some local homeless families on Christmas morning – in an effort to bring meaning to the Christmas season.  I cannot imagine, as a parent, how painful it would be to be in a shelter with my children on Christmas day.  I hope we can ease their pain.