You probably already know that I am a busy little bee. Between mommying, teaching, and soapmaking; I'm pretty much done by the end of the day. However, I have decided that one of the things I really need to do is to go through all of my products and really look at what I have. There are two reasons for this; I have stretched myself too thin and I don't feel I'm being true to my original vision.
As I've shared many times, I have a lot on my plate. Everything on that plate is there by choice. I wanted to be a mommy and we had to try really hard for my sweet boy. I started a business (before I was a mommy) knowing that teaching is more than a full time job. I keep teaching because I'm really not quite ready to stop. I'm not complaining about all of the things I have to do; I do them all by choice and I am blessed to have what I have. However, I got caught up in trying to keep up with ideas that others had and requests and my own whirlwind of ideas, that I overdid it. I need to take a step back and rethink what I offer.
My original idea was to create products that were blended with a specific purpose; blends that were healing and wonderful. When I first started, I would spend so much time deciding exactly what I wanted my final product to be for (dry skin, eczema, oily skin, etc). I would then spend more time looking at ingredients and carefully formulating for exactly what I was looking for. Then, I would make it and see how I like it. Then, I would make it to sell.
Recently, I have started to feel like I make the same thing in several scents, just to make sure that I have something that will appeal to anyone. Many of my recent soaps are made with the same basic formula in a wide variety of scents. The upside to this is that I have been more creative and artistic with my soaps; the downside is that it isn't what I wanted to do. Plus, I end up having to make several batches that are essentially the same, except for the scent. At some point, I may be able to make that work for me with a larger batch that I split up and scent separately. I'm not there yet.
So, I am getting back to where I started. I will be rethinking each product, analyzing it, and deciding whether or not it stays. I apologize in advance if I get rid of something that you like; please understand that I am trying to create the business that I want to run, not the one that runs me.
