Just wanted to post a new post stating that I have changed the ship date of orders placed during the holiday, I will start shipping them on Jan 3rd (since just realized the post office is closed tomorrow, Jan 1st). But I will be packing orders this weekend, so several will be shipped on monday. Thanks for being so patient while Earth Alkemie was closed (and I hope everyone likes the free sample/small product in each order!)
Happy New Year! 🙂
Take care,
Li
Happy New Year! I wish everyone much joy and prosperity in the coming year. 🙂
Our holiday gift sets will only be available for a few more days (until the end of Jan 3rd) and won’t be seen until next year! They are currently on sale for 15% off, and come with a free gift (with a retail value of $6-13) and a VERY good coupon.
Our outdoor oils are also on sale for 30% off, and will be sold until they run out.
All orders received by Jan 3, 2010, 11:59 pm EST, will receive a free petite (sample) or xiao (small) size of out of our new upcoming products.
We will reopen on Jan 1st and all orders received during our closing will start shipping out on Jan 3rd.
EDIT: I changed the ship date to the 3rd because I forgot the post office is closed on Jan 1st!
Earth Alkemie is still currently closed (EA will reopen Jan 1st, see post below). But there is a holiday game on the forum. Please play 🙂 At least one person will receive a prize. Details on my forum.
Happy holidays and Happy New Year!
Cheers,
Li
Happy Holidays! 🙂 I wish everyone a wonderful holiday, surrounded by family and friends, and filled with much love, joy, and happiness!
Earth Alkemie is currently closed and will reopen on January 1, 2011. Though my store is closed, the shopping cart will remain open. Orders placed during this time will not ship until Earth Alkemie reopens, and will ship in the order received.
During this time, I will be busy catching up, revamping and reorganizing the business, and crafting new products galore! Lots of new beautiful mineral makeup colors, new aromatherapy soaps, a new Pina Colada product (yummy!), and a couple other goodies in the works! Want to be the first to try them? All orders placed when we are closed will receive at least one petite (sample) or xiao (small) size of new, upcoming products! Which one will you get? 🙂
Holiday gift sets are still on sale for 15% off. The holiday gift sets will only be available until December 31st, and then replaced with other gift sets (which will not come with a free gift or a coupon). These gift sets are amazing deals: 15% off regular product prizes, and you get at least one free surprise product with a retail value $6-13, and a very good coupon for a future purchase.
I put the Dehydrated Skin Care gift set back for sale on the site, however, it will now come with rose hydrosol (preserved with leucidal) instead of Balance toner. I have dropped the price because of the substitute. (The status of Balance is still pending. I only have a little of the two rare hydrosols left, so for the meanwhile have taken it off the site. I am still searching for vendors and need to try a couple vendor’s hydrosols for quality. I love that toner and it is one of my best selling products, but it is so hard to source some of its ingredients!).
Earth Alkemie’s seasonal outdoor oils are onsale for 30% off. The outdoor oils will be sold until they are out, and won’t be back until the spring. Don’t let the term ‘outdoor’ oils fool you. They make amazing body oils for dry, winter skin (apply liberally to damp skin, for soft, moisturized skin). Though I choose ingredients good for being outdoors, I crafted them with scent in mind, so these don’t smell like the typical ‘bug repellent’ products out there. They smell amazing, especially Lemongrass Forest, that one in particular smells like a perfume! But I love the scent of all of them.
During Earth Alkemie’s closing, I will be adding a new section to the website featuring a small selection of bottles/jars, herbs, carrier oils, and essential oils. So check back often for some amazing deals on containers and raw ingredients!
And I may or may not have other sales and specials during this time, so read daily (big grins) 🙂
The website will be revamped while I am closed (I am redoing a lot of the pictures and also some of the text on the site). Please keep checking the website and let me know how you like all the updates.
Lots of new articles will also be posted either on the website, this blog, or the forum!
I have a lot of new things in store for the New Year! Thank you all for making this year, Earth Alkemie’s first year, a success!
Just a reminder, Earth Alkemie will be closed starting from December 21st, and will reopen January 1st (so if you wish to receive your orders before then, please order now 🙂 ). During this time the shopping cart will still be open, however I will not be shipping orders during this time; all orders made during this time will ship after Jan 1st. But please check the website, this blog, and the forum during that time (hint, hint).
I’ll still be working during this time and will mostly be using this time to catch up on things I am behind on, make new products, do their labeling/packaging etc, take new pictures/work on the website, reorganize, and revamp the business. But most importantly, I need a little time for myself to relax and rest a bit before the New Year.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year! 🙂
It’s snowing here! I love snow but it is so cold!
All orders I have left will hopefully go out tomorrow (since I can’t get to the PO tonight. I hope I can get the mail picked up tomorrow since I can’t drive in this weather).
(Posted on my forum too)
Sharon (of anb mall and the other all natural beauty websites) is having another holiday special for the anb mall’s special. Posting it here since Earth Alkemie has a product (and a VERY good coupon) in this.
http://www.allnaturalbeauty.com/
Sale is for today (thursday Dec 16) and friday (dec 17).
I finally updated the ingredients webpage and included the ingredients for the new masks/scrubs (Cinderella and also Morning) and also new elixir (Midnight). Will try to be updating more this weekend, and write more about these fabulous new products. 🙂
I realized when updating that I accidentally left off guar gum off of the New Day aromatherapy bar soap ingredient list and label (guar gum is often added to organic liquid coconut milk, or at least is added to all the organic brands I’ve seen). So I have fixed that on the webpage and also the labels (also fixed the sizes on a couple of the soap labels since the bar size of some soaps are larger now. I had sent out some of the Alata Samina and New Day soaps with new labels that had the new batch numbers on them, but hadn’t changed the size on the actual label yet to the larger size. The labels for the masks and scrubs had the correct label/batch number/jar size though).
I begun to change the labels a couple months ago on many of the products (except for the soaps and mineral makeup and perfumes; those have the same labels as before. I may change the perfume labels eventually once I use up more of the labels I have left, but the soap and makeup labels will remain the same). I’ve changed nearly all of the labels now. The ones I changed are now either waterproof or resistant to water (so the labels will stay put and won’t smudge if product gets on them or if they are picked up with wet hands).
I am finally done with the orders from my last sale (just have one more to ship out tomorrow). Every order that was shipped after my stated shipping times in my policy section received a free gift since I took a while to ship (and also to give refunds).
I am now working on orders placed afterwards, but those are being shipped faster, so I am almost back to shipping within a few days again. If you place an order before I go on break at the end of the month, it will ship out within a couple business days (since this past couple weeks I’ve restocked and made new batches of over half my products, so most things are almost ready to ship (just need to be labeled and electrical tape/shrink wrapped, boxed, etc)). I am doing refunds this weekend too so I am slowly getting all caught up. (I appreciate that all my customers have been understanding at my slowness due to my health/energy issues; thank you for being wonderful and very patient with me. I am trying to organize better and do things more efficiently, so hopefully next year will run more smoothly).
The new batch of grande (full) size bars of Alata Samina African black soap are a little bigger than usual, at least 3.3 ounces (though several bars weigh even more) instead of the regular 3 ounce size (so some people in the black friday/cyber monday sale got the ones from the previous batch but a couple lucky people got the ones from this batch which are bigger). I did not charge extra for sending out the larger bars but have just now readjusted the price on the website (it is still the same price per ounce, the price has not risen per ounce, but the price is a little higher because the bar is bigger). A couple customers ordered alata samina today before I changed my website, so I will honor the old price for them too 🙂
This batch of the grande size of the Alata Samina is darker than the previous batch (according to my vendor, it is made with the same ingredients but with African black soap there are color variations. I think that it is due to how the ashes are burned to make the natural alkali). It is the same color as the xiao sized bars (a new batch of that one was made a little while ago). So I need to redo the pictures for that on the website (I hope to revamp all my pictures and work on the website some more later this month) since they no longer look quite like blondies when I rebatch them to form them into bars (though is the same great soap!).
The new batch of the grande (full size) New Day aromatherapy soap also weighs more, about 3.8 ounces! so I have readjusted the prices on the website for them too. I am using the same molds, it depends on how I pack the rebatched soap into them. Sometimes I can get a lot in there, sometimes not so much. People who bought the grande size during the sale got this larger new batch at the sale price for 3 ounces, so got a very good deal, since I did not charge more for sending larger bars. It is still the same price per ounce (so I did not increase the price per ounce, but the price is higher because the bars are much bigger).
I am thinking about buying some new bigger molds at the end of the month or next month (depending on my budget) since a customer asked for bigger soaps. I love the scent of the new batch of the grande New Day soap–I just bought a new lavender essential oil–which is fabulous–and used a different ylang ylang, so it is a little more floral and sweeter than the last batch, but still has a strong citrusy/orange scent. Added a touch more essential oil too, to make sure the scent sticks (orange/citrus scents are hard to keep in soaps since they are notorious faders). It smells amazing. There are still several bars left of the xiao (small) sizes of the first batch (which also smells good). More aromatherapy bars are coming out soon, so are more mineral makeup colors, and I hope a couple other goodies.
For the two new masks and scrubs (Cinderella mask and Morning mask and scrub), I changed the jars for the grande/full sizes. When I was packaging them, I didn’t like the plastic jars I was using since I was filling them to the absolute top which created a mess and it was hard filling it to the weight I wanted (which was 1.8 ounces. Some of them filled a bit less, depending on how fluffy the dry mask was). So I switched to bigger containers (the same ones I use for the grande/full size Coconut Dreams and Uganda Buttercreme, which are blue PET #1 plastic). These hold about 2.4 ounces of the masks and scrubs (note: they hold more of the Coconut Dreams and Uganda Buttercreme–4 oz of Coconut Dreams and Uganda Buttercreme), so the container is HUGE and holds about 0.6 ounce more than the original jar. I like using this jar since I have left a little room at the top, so less messy for me and also my customers (so they won’t spill any of the powdered mask when uncap it and they scoop it out).
I have shipped those who ordered the grande 1.8 ounce size of Cinderella mask and Morning mask and scrub during the last couple weeks the larger 2.4 ounce size (at the 1.8 ounce price or the 1.8 ounce sale price, depending on when they bought it), so those people are very lucky. 🙂 I just changed the prices online to reflect the much larger size (I have not increased the price per ounce, it is the same price per ounce). The petite (sample) sizes are the same size (0.4 ounces; the tiny jars are so cute!)
Just deleted my last post (I was renewing my insurance for Earth Alkemie and thought it would take a day or two so was going to close my store for a day on monday, but it was renewed immediately online). Just disregard the previous post if you read it 🙂 Earth Alkemie will be open on monday.
Hi everyone
For the past week and a half, I’ve been crafting every day (restocking/making new batches of several products and also testing) so I am still processing orders from my sale. All orders will be shipped soon.
My mini blender/grinder decide to break recently, and also my mini food processor also broke too 🙁 (I used them for mineral makeup, and also the masks/scrubs. The final batch of Morning mask and scrub needed a grinding before packaging). Happily I got a beautiful new Cuisanart chopper/blender/mixer (it comes with a couple different blades and many cups, so it’s like a couple machines in one, and I can use one blade and set of cups for makeup and the others for the masks/scrubs) so I was able to grind/finish and package Morning mask and scrub. (I ended up totally hand mixing the final batch of Cinderella mask, since I did that before I replaced my food processor, which took a very, very long time to make, since I had to make sure the essential oils were well incorporated into the powders, and because of the powdered coconut milk–which is difficult to work with since it tends to clump. I had hand mixed Morning before I got my new Cuisanart too, but ran it through the Cuisanart since many things needed to be chopped. The test batches were easy to mix by hand but not final/larger main batches!). So far I love it, and it seems to chop/grind very well–finer and also faster (I wish my other equipment hadn’t broke though!).
Balance toner is now out of stock (the last batch flew out the door, and I have been having issues sourcing some of the rare hydrosols I use in it for some time, since the vendors that sold them no longer carry them or have gone out of business). Will keep everyone updated on Balance’s status.