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Tuesday, January 22, 2013 in , , , , ,

Certification Proliferation - the real costs and meanings of the cute seals on your natural and organic skincare products



The natural personal care is beset with a bevy of certification options for products, all proclaiming products to be pure, clean, and healthy.  The state the industry has gotten to is that there is so much confusion over various ingredients, production methods and safety issues that no one seal covers it all.  Every seal offers some level of assurance to customers, an extra bump of supposed confidence that you are purchasing something wholesome.  We all want to feel good about what we're using and the fear generated by so many of the industry uncertainties regarding ingredient safety, true naturalness, labeling trickery and complications, and profiteering is indeed enough to make heads swim.

There are many reasons why a company may choose to certify products and many reasons they may choose not to.  Not every product lacking a seal is an uhealthy or "bad" choice.  Not every product carrying a seal is the best item available.  An intelligent consumer should be asking questions beyond the pretty icon adorning the products they purchase.  As an industry veteran of 10+ years that has seen the organic program evolve and various certifications rise, thrive, or fail and done a good bit of research into the pros and cons of each I'd like to illuminate some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of certifications.

The Cost of Certification 

As a manufacturer I am all too aware that the certification process for any program also comes with fees for the participating company.  Some are no tiny investment and can eat up a significant chunk of a small company's yearly revenues for nothing more than the right to use a logo on products.  Certifications are simplifed statements for a flawed world in which we've reached the point where we have difficulty just trusting the companies that sell us the wares we use.  

Well+Good NYC is reporting that Non-GMO certification from the NonGMO Project is set to be the next certification label popping up on skincare and beauty products.

You can check out their article on their site.

 If you read through you'll note that at the end of the article it says that "for a small, boutique beauty brand looking to get the label onto its five-ingredient product, the cost could be as low as a few hundred dollars."

The first thing that pops into my mind reading this is that a typical Blissoma skincare recipe has 20 to 30 ingredients per formula.  That's a lot more than 5.  I know few skincare brands producing products with only 5 ingredients, namely our friends at S.W. Basics of Brooklyn who are focused on streamlined, minimalist formulations and do a good job of it.  Blissoma works with synergies of herbs that all work towards common purposes, and we love including as many herbs in a product as makes sense to generate active levels, a pleasant feel, and achieve something that works for whatever purpose we're intending.  Generally that number is somewhere between 8 and 15 herbs in any recipe then plus oils, emulsifiers, antioxidants, and our plant based, natural preservation.

We currently have 15 skincare products and 6 more in the apothecary genre not counting perfumes.  If a 5 ingredient product costs several hundred dollars to certify we'll guess they mean $200.  We could extrapolate pretty fairly that a 20 ingredient product would cost at least $400 even if we don't multiply it out completely by the number of ingredients - maybe they give a volume discount.  Multiply that times 21 products and you get a total bill of $8400.  

This is an estimate just based on the article, the dollar figured mentioned therein, and extrapolated by our product complexity and volume but it gives you some idea what the cost can be. 

That is currently as much as it would cost us to provide a company health insurance policy for 6 months.  Or more than it could cost us to formulate and introduce a new product.  Also more than it would cost us for most of the equipment upgrades we'd like to get to improve our operations.  $8400 is nothing to sneeze at.

While this is an insignificant cost to a large manufacturer it is prohibitive for a bootstrapped boutique beauty brand.  In fact this non GMO certification is a higher cost than what it would take for us to become a NOP Certified Organic Handler and have our facilities inspected and some of our products actually certified organic.  Organic Certification the last time I checked had a base cost of about $2500 to 3000 for yearly inspections and audits.  There's probably additional fees, but the inspection fee and the extra labor cost it would take us to manage the paper trail is why we haven't done that yet either.  In fact the NonGMO site itself says  many of its members first have an organic certification and then the NonGMO designation to go with it. 

I can't help but feel that the proliferation of certifications like this with price tags in the thousands of dollars represents less about purity issues and more about marketing.  Only the big guys can afford to do it, and so it generates "confidence" in a product that may actually be fundamentally lower in medicinal, therapeutic quality and overall efficacy.  Keep reading below for an easy food comparison that demonstrates what I mean by this.

If I am giving it to you straight I have to tell you that after years of shopping at, selling to, and dealing with the natural beauty products sold in natural grocery locations my belief at this point is that if you are on a truly strict budget and can't afford a premium line of skincare you are better off using just plain organic oils like straight organic jojoba, rosehip, and fresh aloe gel or wildcrafted, or bulk herbs on your face than almost any product that you can pick up at Whole Foods that costs less than $15.  Notice I say almost, there are exceptions to anything and I will explain my thinking below. (natural and organic bar soaps and simple salves come to mind as likely exceptions, but I'm talking predominantly about facial care anyway in this post)

Why do I think this?  

Because regardless of certification I know exactly how that retailer and the natural food industry in general works, and how many marketing dollars are built into every one of those already slim price tags.  Free fill (where you give them initial stock for free), discounts, reps to service the stores, product demonstrations, samples, free shipping, etc....  If a product is only costing $15 to begin with and the manufacturer has to fit all those incentives into the WHOLESALE price of the product the sad reality is that you are probably paying more for the plastic bottle, pump, and label than you are for the product inside.  There is just no room to pay for the best ingredients AND a hefty marketing budget, certifications, your employees, facilities, and all the other costs of doing business.  I tried, and I am a crazy budgeter with real skills at running a thrifty operation.  We couldn't do it, which is part of why we left that sales environment.

You get what you pay for, and with some lines you are paying mostly for the certifications, packaging, distribution, and marketing and advertising.  If it seems like the ingredients list is filled with fancy sounding actives but the product has a cheap price you should be asking questions and lots of them.  There is very much such a thing as "too good to be true."

There are a plethora of certification options available to those companies that can afford them.  Shoppers are often confused about what various certifications mean and how natural or organic that really means the product is.  If you happen to be interested in purchasing a product that has seals you need to interpret, then here is a primer with links to the associated websites.  


Major Natural and Organic Personal Care Certifications include:


The USDA National Organic Program (NOP) - allows display of the familiar green organic seal for food and qualifying personal care products.  There has been difficulty over time for many personal care products to fit into this standard as the shelf life expectancy is longer and "preservatives" are prohibited in organic products.  Therefore products that fit into this model are made entirely of food ingredients and may include a lot of oil based products that do not require preservation against bacteria and molds.  Dry products like powdered scrubs and masks can also work well for this standard.

NSF/ANSI 305 - A standard developed for the "Made with Organic Ingredients" personal care products so that personal care specific ingredients and processes could be monitored and certified to a natural standard.  This can work in conjunction with NOP certification.
Natural Products Association Seal - a USA based "natural" certification for personal care products, developed in part because of the confusion over personal care not fitting well into the NOP standards.  The Natural Products Association is a trade industry group so effectively this is a self-monitoring seal with standards determined by member companies.

EcoCert - a European based standard for natural, organic, and ecological/sustainable products encompassing personal care, textiles, and farming.  Products certified to Ecocert are considered Certified Organic in the EU.

BDIH - a strict European standard for natural personal care and cosmetics, may include organic components or not but the entire product must be composed of BDIH approved natural/biological materials.  Americans are generally unfamiliar with this particular certification despite it's respected status and strict requirements in Europe. 

Now we can add Non GMO Certified to this list. This certification means that even Certified Organic origin natural ingredients are tested for trace content of GMOs to ensure a lack of cross contamination of crops due to pollen drift or other issues.





In addition there are the two markings Blissoma bears, which have less to do with natural and organic and more to do with animal related practices:


Certified Cruelty Free - a certification from the Leaping Bunny program that denotes no animal testing in any products or in supplier raw materials.

Certified Vegan - a certification from Vegan.org that designates that no animal ingredients are used in products and no animal testing has been performed.

 





For standards not particular to personal care there is Fair Trade Certification, a great program, and Biodynamic Certification.  You can see how the list starts to become a little dizzying.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.  There are groups like OASIS who tried to produce a meaningful standard but failed in part due to the fact that the board is made up of giant corporations like Aveda, Hain Celestial (owners of Alba, Avalon, Zia and more personal care brands), and L'Oreal in addition to some smaller natural companies.  It is difficult to create a meaningful certification standard when your board is populated by the very people that are making money off of sliding toxic ingredients into so many products.  No one really uses this seal and it fizzled almost as soon as it was written.

 For a small personal care producer the Cruelty Free certification and Vegan certifications are among the most approachable.  The fees are less than $1000 and the paperwork achievable even with a modest staff.  One has to send a lot of inquiries back and forth to ingredient suppliers requesting signatures and detailed process information to make sure no animal traces or testing is being included anywhere in their process but this can be accomplished in a matter of a month or 2.

Why Seals Are Only a Part of True Quality

Many of the lovely, local farms I am near and eat food from are simply too small to afford organic certification.  I eat their food anyway because I know the people that grew it and trust them.  Their food is no less fundamentally clean just because they lack a seal.   A seal can mean a lot or very little depending on the company that has gotten it and the product it is on.  Seals are supposed to make it easier to do your shopping, but they are certainly not the last word in quality.

Many ingredients coming from developing countries face challenges with certification.  Years ago when I was starting you could not find a Certified Organic Shea Butter because all the indigenous villages producing it were too poor to pay the fees.  It was only as bigger business moved in that a Certified Organic Shea Butter appeared for purchase.  This sometimes disenfranchised village based producers as bigger companies took over their resources.  The small producer's butter was not grown with pesticides - in most cases was completely organic but just not certified.  Many socially minded natural products companies like Moksa Organics have chosen to at times prioritize Fair Trade over Certified Organic ingredients when they are assured of the cleanliness of the ingredient despite a lack of certfication.  This is because of the holistic benefit to the community through Fair Trade.  You can read about their Shea Butter procurement process and the importance of the benefit of Fair Trade to some ingredients on their blog.

 Say you have a choice of eating a processed, frozen, packaged veggie burger made of altered grains, soy proteins, and other manufactured foods and eating a freshly prepared salad made from greens from a local, small, uncertified organic farm.  One is decidedly more natural than the other, but the veggie burger can bear a seal while your salad will not.  Which is higher in nutrients?  Which is actually better for you?  I think you know the answer.  The less processed food, despite lacking a seal, is the better choice.  But the veggie burger with its clever packaging, ease of use, and perhaps multiple seals assuring you it is tremendously wholesome makes a compelling case to the overwhelmed shopper.

 In the end it is up to the consumer to remain educated, dig deeply past marketing gimmicks, and look for real substance.  No one can do that for you.  Not even a seal or certification.

Certifications Are About Trust

What if you trusted the companies that made your products to be honest about what they make, seal or no?  Now THERE is a revolutionary idea!  The fundamental problem that seals attempt to address is a lack of trust and a lack of transparency.  What if you could believe that the company you purchase from had your best interests at heart instead of their own pocketbooks?  Not everyone is out to swindle or poison you and it is possible to find people that are genuinely making good, safe products.  This is the importance of developing a relationship with the companies with whom you shop. The more personal you get the easier it is to see when claims seem a little hollow or things just don't add up.  Are you supporting honest humans or a marketing machine?  A seal won't tell you that.

 Blissoma believes in being super pure.  We've made it our everyday business.  It's why we produce our own herb extracts by hand to ensure a lack of added preservatives, it's why we make our own products in house, and it's why we buy from suppliers we trust.  We are vegan and vegetarian, cruelty free, gluten free, petrochemical free, and more.  We hope someday to bear at least one more certification seal - which one we haven't entirely decided yet, and since it's a pricey move we're going to wait until we're good and sure.  Until then we're just concentrating on making a quality, clean product, which is what we'd be doing once we got the seal.  It won't be a big change other than paperwork to file and a fee to pay.

Seals and Certifications don't make a product or a company worth your dollar carte blanche.  Look for forthright information, people you can hold accountable, honesty and authenticity first.  If there's a seal, bonus!  But the reason to support any particular company goes so much deeper than a cute icon on their packaging.  But you're smart, so you probably knew that already.  
 

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 in , , , , ,

The Path to Natural Perfume


Natural scent has been a long love of mine.

For more than a decade scent has hurried my days and haunted my nights, kept me up late, annointed poignant moments as well as those that are more mundane, and defined my career and my life's path through my business, Blissoma. Today I share with you a bit about how I came to stock the dozens and perhaps several hundred essential oils that I now keep on hand in my cabinet, or, as I like to think of it, an entire olfactory world in a small wooden box. From Morocco, Indonesia, India, Turkey, Bulgaria, Egypt, Australia, Somalia and more they come to reside with me, keeping stories of spring rains, winds both sharp and sweet, shifting sun, and the crush of rich earth locked up in their molecules until the moment the bottle is opened and the aroma soars.


Few things in life to me have held as much joy as opening a new bottle or sample of essential oil and taking a long deep whiff. The longer and deeper the better which is not proper technique at all, but I can be a bit of a greedy gourmand when it comes to wrapping myself around a new aroma. The discovery, the moments after the initial sharpness wear off and the aroma begins to bloom deeper in my throat are things that I hunger for in part because it is so transitory.


There is no duplication of how a scent burgeons in one's head. You cannot see it, you cannot even touch this experience and yet it is there. Even food which has great aroma component to it lacks the ethereal quality of a scent experience because you can chew it and feel it going down your throat. Not so with a scent. It may make your heart leap and your head whirl but you cannot hold it. It resides strictly in the realm of the soul, the memory, and emotion. It comes and then is gone like time itself, like the cycles of nature, like life and I am left chasing it down again to fill my nostrils once more. There is the empty and the full and they each lead to one another.


My foray into essential oils began in great earnest in my early twenties. Prior to that I can say that I had an attraction to scents but that I had not been ensnared by it just yet. I do remember that every time we would be in the grocery store there were barrels full of bulk coffee and I would linger at these each time. I grew up the child of a gardener, cook, and homemaker which are all domains of scented life but I also grew up in the days of Glade Plugins, Pinesol, and Apple Pie scented Yankee Candles. My mom was not huge on perfumes or beauty products and I spent a great deal more time with cans of hairspray working on my bangs than I did thinking about how I smelled. My father got a container of Elizabeth Taylor Passion for my mother as a gift one year and my reaction to it was very ho-hum. I had more interest in her hippie boots and vintage jewelry than in perfume at that point. Synthetic scent was everywhere and none of it struck a chord.


After graduating from college I moved back home to St. Louis to try and decide what to do with myself for "real life". I was a ceramics major and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to pursue that field as an actual career which left a lot of open ended questions about what path to take. I was supposed to be trying to save money for when I moved out. What happened was I spent it all.


Every dime that I earned during that time got spent on my first bottles of essential oils that I procured from Wild Oats. I had enjoyed occasionally burning incense during my days at college and always loved the lingering smell of Nag Champa in an otherwise rank dorm room. My father has a very sensitive nose and couldn't stand incense so when I moved back the easiest way for me to enjoy some scent in my environment without aggravating his allergies was with something smokeless. Candles were my chosen method of dispersal and essential oils became my aromas.


I began making candles with an old Crock Pot and a coffee can for a double boiler. I set up on an old desk and measured oils by drops into a pound or two of wax. In those days all my recipes were written in drops. That was the fall of 2000. By January I had moved out into my first St. Louis city apartment and allotted an entire bedroom to my creative activities.


Those who know me know that I really don't do things halfway. I'm either in or I'm out and once I'm in I pursue my endeavors with a constant passion. I followed my scented path in just such a way, ordering essential oils as often as I could even though my fiance and I were eating peanut butter and jelly and oatmeal to get by on our own. I put us into several thousand dollars worth of debt purchasing oils. I expanded my repertoire, ordered larger sizes, and sold my blended candles at whatever sales events I could. The return was modest but that didn't stop me. I loved the feeling I got when I was standing over a pot of liquid, scented wax.... warm, floaty, buzzed and altogether better about life. I wanted more. Lots more.


I still didn't begin to get into scent as wearable art until years into my journey. Even when I started crafting body products my concern was largely aromatherapeutic rather than perfumery oriented. I looked for topical effects and benefits to skin rather than just scent alone. Ever the scientist as well as artist the multipronged approach pleased me most.


My small collection of BLENDS perfume oils launched just in 2008. I created strict parameters for myself in attempting to create a final recipe that would be pleasing and yet over 80% total organic content. The market for organic essential oils is a volatile and unsure arena. Some oils are grown and distilled by only one supplier worldwide, making sourcing an interesting challenge. Still, I was able to put together a palette of 6 different creations representing a variety of moods. I played with oils I had been dying to buy and experiment with for years; the most expensive, unique, and pure I could find. The range is most definitely unique. I wanted scents that were balanced, lasting, and rich but at the same time completely different from the department store concept of "perfume". I never wanted to wear those scents. I had no idea I could enjoy perfume so much until I started making it.


I love the terroir of natural scent, the origin and story and the fact that it came from life. The chef and chemist in me loves the process of blending and the meld of science and art that must happen to understand the materials and their application. Like splashing paint on a canvas, each drop of oil into a test vial creates change and explores an unknown. It is that mystery that keeps me on my aromatic journey much the same as I have been on many others even simultaneously.


I create primarily for myself. I sell because I must and because I enjoy sharing an experience with others. But I am happy alone in my studio with my nose buried in a new blend. I am happy, just me and my plants; me and my aromatic reverie. Fame and power mean little to me as none of that matters in the moments when one is counting drops. In those moments I am of one mind and that mind is full of perfume.





 



Please visit the blogs written by these other participating natural perfumers which is today's blog event sharing how each of us have come to natural perfumery.
Absolute Trygve

Anu Essentials Blog

Anya's Garden Perfumes

Aromatherapy Contessa

Aromatics International

Being Led by the Nose

Blossoming Tree Bodycare

Ca Fleure Bon

DSH Notebook

Ellenoire

From the Bathtub

I'm Just Saying

Les Parfums d'Isabelle

Lord's Jester Inc.

Natural Perfumes

Olfactory Rescue Service

Olive and Oud

Perfume Journal

Providence Perfume

The Western Cape Perfumery Blog

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 in , , , , , ,

Good Energy - daily direction and what is worthwhile


Energy. 
It is one of our most finite resources. And it is in the news a lot lately. From fuel for trucks that carry our goods from coast to coast, to the electricity that keeps a child's nightlight on to scare away the monsters, it runs our daily lives more than we even realize. But I'm not going to be talking today about that type of energy. Nope, I'm talking about *your* energy as one single human being.

You, too, have finite energy. Though we all awake each day with seemingly limitless possibilities we must be careful how we allocate this most precious resource. As a small business owner I am very aware that there is only so much I can accomplish in any given day. So I must be attentive to how I spend my time, and therefore energy. I want to spend my energy on things that will best benefit myself, my employees, and my family. Anything less is an injustice to myself and them.

Sometimes this makes decisions about what to do a little difficult. Every day I ask myself, "What is most important today?". Whether it is calling clients that are late on payments, working on a new label or brochure design, or simply caring for my daughter when she has a cold, there is always something that rises to the top of the pile. There are some activities that are just not worth my energy anymore, as well. I have to try and spend my energy on tasks that only I can do for the business. Anything that can be handed off to employees must be.

In some cases this is actually harder than it seems. After all, I started a business because I like to create. Sometimes it is difficult for me to spend my time on the finances instead of experimenting on a new soap or scent recipe. But we will never reach our collective goals if I can't manage my energy and time well. So for the sake of the company it is sometimes best if I keep myself on the computer instead of in the studio. (sad but true!)

Another factor of energy is the studio's collective energy. I am the steward to everyone here. Each employee brings their own energy to the studio and, potentially, conflicts if not managed properly. I am responsible for choosing the right employees, training them well, and communicating our business goals and methods to them so that they can embody those goals in everything they do here. Effective communication is key, and I have to try to maintain those open avenues so that our workplace remains positive instead of toxic.

Toxic work environments is one of the main reasons I felt inspired to create my own business in the first place. When there is discord in the workplace it diminishes the energy of the whole team. After all, energy spent complaining or bickering is that much less energy that can be spent towards actually accomplishing something. It is the job of each employer/employee team to make sure that a job fit is good.

Not everyone will be suitable to work for Blissoma. Some people (oddly enough) gain pleasure out of conflict and seem to want to foster it for their own excitement. Some people just aren't *really* interested in doing anything. Sure they might need a job, but don't care about the work. None of these would be individuals I would want on my team. I want our business to benefit as many people as possible, but allowing a negative or stagnant individual to be present on our team would damage that goal. I also spend 80 or more hours a week on my business, and as such couldn't stand to be around anyone nonproductive for that much time.

Some people are energy vampires - you've probly heard that phrase before. They take and take, without giving anything back. I can't be around people like that. I also can't be around people that gain joy from energy sabotage - saying belittling things and spending a lot of time trying to seem superior. Something I've found over time is that my energy to contribute to a job is very sensitive to my surroundings. When others around me are excited and active, that excites me! I can give twice as much when surrounded by good people. In that way the collective energy of a business can be exponentially more when a team is constructed of positive people, all feeding each other.

I also definitely believe that every person has a right to employment that really feeds their spirit. No one on earth should have to do work that beats them down inside. Your working hours make up a huge percentage of your life. I was never one that could think of a job as "just a job". If it wasn't really what I wanted to do I spent the entire time dreaming of the other things I wished I was doing. Very dissatisfying. Each person has their own calling, which is what is truly marvelous! Together we can all function as a society if people really find their calling. Whether that calling is communications, construction, agriculture, or research there should be places for all of us to thrive.

Here is hoping that anyone reading this finds the tasks that are truly worth your energy. It is our most important and lifelong pursuit.
 


Friday, December 14, 2007 in , , , , , , , , ,

Getting it Done - a brief guide to how I get creative now instead of later


Being creative is like a hurricane. Sometimes the hurricane is on the outside and sometimes it is on the inside. When it is on the outside your materials are flying and you are in physical action, possessed by the thought of "getting it done". But to get to this stage you have to channel your energy from the inside, and your inner self may not be so easily disciplined.

I spend a lot of time with my inner hurricane. This might look like doing nothing, but I am actually hard at work processing ideas and working them out. At least half of my creative time is with this inner world. And yes, even I have trouble just getting started on things sometimes. But the key is, well, just do it! Even it if is hard, or slow, or a little rocky. That beginning is the hardest part but the most necessary. I've found that when a creative urge isn't channeled it either disappears forever or turns into confusion and frustration.

People often think it is a dream to be their own boss. Well, sometimes it is not so dreamy - it is downright hard. Self discipline, critical thinking and problem solving, and the ability to take action when needed are all incredibly important traits. Not everyone has these traits, or is ready to use them if they do. With noone to tell me what to do every day I could easily just stay in bed. (Alright, so I have a 3 1/2 year old so I couldn't actually stay in bed, but I could certainly be a lot more lazy.) With no boss and no set schedule many people can lose their direction. I am frequently asked how I do everything I do. My first (and true) answer is: Sleep deprivation! But there is a lot more to it.

1. Brains need feeding!
In order to maintain a creative flow I find I need to spend time doing a lot of different things. Doing one thing too much stagnates your energy, and ideas need fresh input. I am voracious about consuming information, images, sounds, and input - everything I can expose myself to that will spark ideas. Alternating exposure with quiet time is important to being able to process all that new material. I try to choose quality sources of information. After all, junk in equals junk out. Um, I hope this doesn't rock anyone's world, but tabloids may not be the best reading material if you are hoping to achieve brilliance. Surrounding oneself with quality people and quality work will spur you on to do more and better things yourself. Open yourself up to even things that will shock you initially. Getting out of your own head and into someone else's can be a great thing to prompt new thinking.

2. Lack of experience is not an excuse.
I taught ceramics for several years and it was always fun to see new students begin to throw their first pots on the wheel. Like many other activities it looks so easy when done by someone experienced...but then - whoops! Their lump of clay would be flying of the wheel and onto the floor. Not so easy if you don't have skills with the materials.

Everyone starts at nothing, so failing initially is just part of the process. I've had some pretty fantastic failures in my career, in fact I'm pretty sure I learn best when I screw up. When making my first few batches of soap I did OK on the first one or 2, but I think it was the third that really got me. The lye and water didn't get mixed properly and when I added it to the oils everything just curdled and turned into this lumpy mess that looked like pink, oily, cottage cheese. Yum! That batch went straight into the trash can. And that is just one on the list of sculptures that exploded, shirts that didn't fit, and facial creams that wouldn't stay mixed. In fact, I'm happy to say that I truly believe that if you aren't failing at your endeavors a significant percentage of the time then you are really not pushing the envelope at all. Growth requires some screwing up, and am I ever good at screwing up!

If you can ignore your outcome, you'll go far - at least as far as learning is concerned. While you can't disregard your product indefinitely, practicing with an open mind allows you to become familiar with materials, and familiar with yourself. No goal other than practice is even really necessary. Everyone starts somewhere, and you can't get anywhere if you never start. Experimentation and knowledge of your materials will go a long way to help you know which of your ideas is possible, and which is not.

Everyone practices in a different way. I've often heard it said that writers are supposed to sit down and write every single day, even if they think they don't have any ideas. I was forced to keep a sketchbook in art school - something I honestly never really liked doing. I understand the purpose, but it just wasn't my thing. I like to draw, and actually have several sketchbooks but I tend to draw with purpose rather than just for the sake of drawing. I do much better when I am "sketching" with my actual materials. This, I think, is fine too. Anything that keeps you active is good. The idea is to make creative observation and activity part of your everyday life. So this step and your brain food actually are intertwined.

3. Don't think about it too much.
Now you're saying, "What?? She just said to think about it a lot!" Well, the other side to this is that you can't overthink your project or you'll end up psyching yourself out. Thinking too much can make things seem bigger than they really are. I know there are plenty of people out there that just can't get started on something because it seems like too much to handle. Turn off those voices in your head. They are just plain evil, and they will prevent you from doing amazing things.

4. Eat your Fear for breakfast.
We all need to squash whatever is stopping us from going after our dreams, and quickly. The start of every day is the perfect time. Decide what brave, adventuresome thing you want to do and then find some way to start working on it.
Usually when I am afraid of something I find that the reason I'm afraid is because I'm inexperienced, or not knowledgeable in that field or activity. So I take that and flip it around to action. If I'm afraid, that is when I know I need to dive right in! I don't want to be afraid of anything in my life.

There is a big difference between fear, and logically deciding something is not a good idea. I am usually afraid of meeting new people (suprise!) and yet I know for sure this is a good idea. I have the same insecurities as everyone else about how I am perceived, and get terribly nervous about public appearances or sales engagements at trade shows. I am lucky that I get to work with a population in the Natural Products community that is unusually friendly, welcoming, and warm. And I still get afraid! I would never be cut out for "The Apprentice" or any normal business environment - I'd be eaten alive and I know it. I am certainly not your average businessperson. But I make myself get out there and try. I remind myself that I can't run a business in a vacuum, and that gee, people might actually like me. (I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, gosh darnit, people like me!) Not everyone will, but some. I've found through working on my anxieties I've gotten much better at presenting. I just try to play up my strength - my passion for my materials and products!

I use this same "get over it" attitude with my creative endeavors. Just running my business and being responsible for other people's well being is a pretty scary thing - after all, if I tank they go down with me. But if I do nothing we'll tank for sure. Don't let yourself fear action.

5. The "just one more thing" mentality
I frequently tell people that if I had known just how hard it was going to be to start my own business I am pretty sure I might not have done it. In this case, ignorance may have been my best asset. I was too inexperienced to know the thrashing I was in for. Fortunately I've got a head full of rocks and noone is going to tell me I'm going to fail if I decide otherwise. Stubborn or stupid? Maybe a little of both...

It is a big job to launch an idea. So big that it can seem pretty intimidating. My personal method for attacking big projects is an alternative to the "baby steps" method. First I find little ways to get started. If you have been practicing and working regularly on your creative activities then finding something little to do shouldn't seem too hard. One of my rituals before a big sewing project was to clean up everything in my sewing area that related to previous projects. It seems like procrastination, but really it is an integral part of my process. I can't think about a new project with remnants of the old still sitting there. Then I'd pull out all the materials for the new project. Often this would be all I would do on the first day, just set the stage. Then when I returned the next day I was mentally and environmentally prepared to jump in, and it seemed that much easier.

Once started I look for pieces of the project that I know I can do. Then I can tell myself confidently, "Well, at least I can do that!". Then when I'm done with that piece the voice in me says, "That wasn't so bad. Maybe I could just do one more thing..."
I continue to say that after every little step I finish. Before I know it the project is half done, and by then I'm excited about it! It seems to be a great way to trick myself into getting something done, even when I may have initially been dragging my feet. It seems a lot easier to think about doing just "one more thing" for another 20 minutes than to think about working for another 8 hours.
*Caution - this method works so well, in fact, that you may end up working straight through important events, your dinnertime, and losing a good bit of sleep because you've stayed up 4 hours past your bedtime without even realizing it. If you miss your child's graduation or husband's award dinner because you said "just one more thing" to yourself a few too many times I'm officially not responsible. Use wisely!*So this is pretty much how things work for me. Let's review, and take heart, dear reader, in knowing that:
- I'm scared sometimes.
- It's hard for everyone, not just you.
- I screw up a lot. (no really, a LOT)

And somehow I still have managed to get up every day and work towards keeping my dreams alive. Nearly 5 years in on running Blissoma and while the finances could be prettier I'm pretty pleased with the rest of our progress...Quite frankly I don't know what else I'd be doing.

Now, go do something great!

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