Looking at 2024 and forward to 2025.

As we close the year on 2024, I can’t help to think of how to best say, “I am glad it is over”.
2024 had its moments, but Iām definitely ready to close the chapter and move forward. While not my best year, Iām hopeful that the next one will bring a bit more ease and excitement.
2024 had its bright spots, and I’m grateful for those moments. But overall, it wasn’t the year I envisioned. Here’s to learning from it and embracing the opportunities that 2025 has to offer.
2024 was definitely our best year since 2020, but wasn’t our greatest year. That award belongs to 2018. š
Several accomplishments, have been made in 2024 that will propel Earth Circle Creations forward into and beyond 2025.
We have a couple of new wholesalers who loved our products so much, they asked to carry our soaps. This is very exciting for us as we can produce more soaps and put them into the hands of those who love them.
We are in the midst of re-formulating and finding new sources of olive oil for our soaps as the cost of olive oil has skyrocketed due to a drought in Spain. The cost of oils for us to produce a bar of soap has more than tripled and we are attempting to resist the need to raise our prices to keep our soaps affordable.
We are using Shippo to assist with postage increases and to make it easer to ship. We have always used USPS for shipping our products to you, now we can save more money and time to send packages out to you.
We invested in a oil/wax melter to eliminate a bottleneck with production time. Melting oils is a part of our soap making process. Currently, we have to melt oils two or three times per batch and use multiple containers. This will help us in producing more batches in less time.
We have added events to our calendar. While we have always been picky to attend some events, we have relaxed this to attend some one-day events. We have gone out to Bowling Green, KY for a couple of back-to-back weekends, including an outdoor event where we set up in the rain and the rest of the day was hot; Clarksville, TN for a one-day craft fair; and a Kwanzaa celebration at the Louisville Urban League at the end of December. These were fun, other than the hot one in Bowling Green, we never dried out between the rain and humidity. š
Looking forward… We are looking to step up the soap making game in 2025:
More time in the workshop and a regular schedule going into the workshop. š This us difficult because of our home schedule, our work schedule and our personal schedule. Sometimes, we spend a marathon session in the workshop over the weekend or we have an event that weekend and it makes it difficult to go. Sometimes, it’s several weekends before we can get back out to the workshop to make product. Most of the time, it is prep-work that sets us behind. Blending lye and water, measuring oils and lining soap molds are the most time consuming and we can spend the better part of a day just doing that.

We are looking into larger soap molds or doing something with the molds we already have to increase the number of soaps we can make in one day to maximize our time in the workshop. Lining molds with silicone other reusable material can help cut down on making hospital corners in our soap molds which takes a considerable amount of time.
Reformulating our recipe to cut down on costs without sacrificing quality. We LOVE our soaps, have fun making them, we have a good recipe and a great following with lots of folks who enjoy our products. We do not want to change that. Nor do we want to raise prices due to material costs.
Note, it usually takes one of these bottles to the right for one batch of soap.

Looking into more shows in the area. While hanging out in the Louisville area is fun, we know that there are other events that have evaporated since 2020 for different reasons. Going out of town gets expensive with hotels and travel expenses on top of event fees (I stopped going to the St. Louis area after seeing my expenses after an event). We have been able to mitigate some of this by opting for single-day events or traveling to the location the day of to avoid the cost of an evening at a hotel. But, we like the events and seeing people.
Upping our wholesale game! We have signed up for Faire. This should allow us to get more soaps out there and into your hands.
New products! Yes, as if we didn’t have enough to do, we have thought about expanding our products. We have been asked to supply candles that would pair well with the soaps we currently make, beard soaps for shaving, shampoo/conditioner bars and and other items that can compliment our current lines.
We tell people, “we are preparing for our retirement” and this could not be closer to the truth. After seeing some inspiring videos on YouTube, we can really do this!