Mar

Hard Lessons & A Free Lotion Recipe

This is one of my rare posts relating to work, and a past business relationship that bit me in the butt. Remember when we were kids, and were told to be careful about the friends we kept? Well, that applies to business relationships, as well as personal relationships. Several years ago, I maintained a business relationship in which the boundaries between business and friendship became very blurred. Long story short – the association was doing damage to my business and my reputation in a very small niche industry with a long memory. It took me quite some time to recognize what was going on, and when I finally did, I realized I was going to have to extricate myself from the situation. It’s been more than 5 years, and occasionally I’ll run across a current online conversation mentioning the old association. Lessons learned 1) Try to choose your friends and associations wisely. 2) Always get it in writing.

In my blind loyalty, I agreed to allow some of the business’ intellectual property, in the form of original formulations, to be included on a CD. It was a verbal agreement, nothing in writing. Yesterday, when perusing traffic statistics for the website, I discovered an entry link with a familiar title. What I discovered was a link to a full e-book for sale, which included my material, as well as material of a few other business associates. Upon contacting one of these other businesses, I found they had not made agreements for an e-book either.

After discussing it with The Essential Herbal Magazine and Lancaster County Soapworks, we have decided to respond by making the formulas and recipes we contributed publicly available in a series of blog posts. About 1/2 of the recipes in the e-book were contributed by theses two businesses. A lot of the other material contained in the book is public domain, easily found with a bit of searching on the internet. My personal opinion is that it’s not worth the $27 price tag, especially since we are going to give you 1/2 the recipes for free.

The following formula is one I created several years ago, submitted for use in the original CD, and now appears, without permission, in the e-book. Over the last few years, some of the ingredients have been discontinued from my website, The Original Soap Dish. I have plans to reformulate it with more readily available, and less expensive ingredients. Once reformulated, it will be added to the formulary of free recipes offered on my website.

-Here is The Essential Herbal’s first installment with a free recipe
-Maryanne of Lancaster County Soapworks writes, “If You Are Going to Steal My Recipes, At Least Get Them Right!”
-The second installment from Tina at The Essential Herbal blog, “handcrafted recipes -#2 Whipped Body Butter”
-Number three from Tina, Handcrafted Recipe #3 – Incense Cones
-Another from Maryanne, who also owns Torchsong Studio, More Purloined Recipes
-Another from Tina, Handcrafted Recipe #4 – Melt & Pour Remedy Soap

Multi-Performance Hydrating Cream – From The Original Soap Dish
Gentle enough for under eye use. Makes a good overnight cream. Can also be used like cold cream to remove makeup.

Part A
Behenyl Alcohol 1%
Emulsifying Wax 5%
Olive Butter 20.5%
Avocado Butter 20.5%
Evening Primrose Oil 8%
AquaEm 4%
PEG-7 Olivate 5%
T-50 Tocopherol 1%
Phenonip .5%

Part B
Water 29%
Phenonip .5%
Antioxidant Compound 4%
Fragrance 1%

Melt Behenyl Alcohol, Emulsifying Wax, Olive Butter, and Avocado Butter together. Cool to around 150 degrees. Add remaining Part A ingredients. Mix well.

Heat water to approximately 150 degrees, and add phenonip. Blend thoroughly with stick blender. Add Antioxidant Compound and fragrance. Mix well. Add Part B to Part A with mixing. Alternate cooling, and mixing with stick blender until mixture reaches around 110 degrees. Pour into jars and allow to cool completely.