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Oh wow! 2025 has been interesting and a challenge in so many ways. Health challenges, growing pains, new products, new connections.

We went out with a “bang” today. The beautiful thing is we sold “across the board” which means I don’t need to make new product for Monday online orders fulfillment. Does this mean I have a day off? What the what? (Don’t worry if you have an online order pending, its still fresh as most everything, except soap, was made this week!)

We love online orders! We know exactly what to pack in your order. Sometimes we know exactly who you are and it makes us smile. Most of the time we add a little something extra. Paul will ask “where is this one going?” The girl who had the moped accident! My early adulthood friend! T who has the duck! New York! Mississippi! We always send it off with love whether we know you or not. Does the big “A” online retailer do that? I think not! We are just missing the human F2F interaction with the customer.

This is where markets bring the F2F human interaction and extra sunshine into our lavender world. What we are missing is to know exactly what to pack for market. It’s been a minute, actually over half a year, since we have worked an “artisan market” like we had today. We are used to the “farm stand” or the “farmer’s market” flow which is now our main focus for in-person events. Sprinkle summer tourists into the mix and that is where the REAL fun begins. We had to anticipate “our crowd” and what to bring for our people. I really put my effort into gift sets and making sure I had enough “Christmas” style gift sets. Paul stuck to the tried and true and made every single one of those rollerballs and packed every “Mini” gift set!

While a good portion of those gift sets and Christmas soaps sold, we surprisingly sold “across the board” as I mentioned above. Across the board, in our terms, means that we sold a lot but we still have a little of everything left.

The only products we had a big run on were things I was not expecting:

• Our brand spanking new Lavender Blossom Sea Salt Soap sold out. Our soap buying booth guests know what sea salt soap is all about and have very good taste apparently! I honestly don’t think we have had a regular soap release sell out other than “Lump of Coal” at the Holland farmer’s market last month! I have been making and selling soap for 10 years now, since before we even had a lavender farm. This tells me: I need to load up now so they can be cured for summer crowds!
• We also ran out of all of the semi-new Rustic Hot Process Soap we brought. It’s made with tallow which is a hot market ticket these days so kind of surprised since I thought I had enough but at the end of the day I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
• We had a BIG TIME run our Honey and Lavender Blossom Soap. We have been out of stock since early October as we have stringent curing standards for our soap and patiently waiting for the 3 month timer to go off to bring this back. Pleasantly surprised this one was missed so much! It’s a decent seller but not a best seller when it is actually in stock on a consistent basis.

The products that I expected huge sales from and were just “meh”:

• Gift Sets. I was expecting a “sell out” but none sold out. Just 60% sold. We will be listing them on our website this week!
• Holiday scented confetti soaps. I suppose there is an expectation that we offer natural scents created from our farm grown botanicals, our booth guests, mostly familiar with our products, spoke with their dollars that way today!
• Our “naked” soap seasonal offering of Christmas trees for $3. Super surprising since our affordable naked seasonal offerings usually sell very well! We don’t sell the naked seasonal offerings on our website since so many scents are offered. The “naked” soap seasonal offering is usually the end of the batch pour that goes into the seasonal mold. I usually cannot remember what scent it is 3-6 months down the road, after cure, so it is hard to identify for a website sale. Funny enough, these sold pretty well in August, September and October because we cure them in our farm stand. It’s easier for people to sniff in person to decide if they want it. We sold about 75% of these. I will be identifying the scents and adding the rest to our online inventory in the next couple of days.

Now you can probably understand the balancing act of trying to figure out what to bring to a market! I would say I mastered it successfully, for this market. (Sorry S that I don’t bring refill bags to this market!) It was a fabulous day meeting new people and seeing so many familiar smiles and getting so many hugs. I have to give an honorable mention to a special couple who drove from South Haven to Allegan just to say “hello” because it was “on the way” to their home in Holland. Each and every one of you mean something to us. You don’t get that working (and I worked at Target in my younger years) or shopping at a big box store.

We are unsure whether this is the last market of 2025 or not. We treated it as if it was. Can you tell I am emotional about the exit of the 2025 market season? The connections we made and have kept are real and exceptional. We may return to Holland before the end of the year, if the weather cooperates, but this December has been a little cruel with temperatures. If it is 29 degrees at start and temps are expected to rise, we will be there. Otherwise, we cannot due to the amount of water based products we have that can freeze. There are two more opportunities but next week’s forecast is not promising.

Thank you for your support to keep our dream alive and real! Words just cannot express how real our tribe is to us.

XOXO,

Paul and Renee