This year I was more ready than ever.  I had over 600 bars of soap made, dozens of beard oils and balms, rollers of essential oils, wooden combs, woven inkle bands and nalbound wool hats.  It was going to be our best sales year ever!  We were even packed two weeks before and Thursday morning we woke up excited to head to our favorite event.  We hooked up the trailer and headed out on time, planning to have dinner at Lamberts "Home of the throwed rolls" in Sikeston, MO and had a hotel room waiting in Batesville, MS.
Not an hour down the road the truck started getting loud and it was obvious we had a problem.  Greg got out and looked, sure enough, we were missing a muffler.  We backtracked and found it; it didn't look good.  We found a nearby muffler shop who agreed to replace it immediately and so dropped off the truck and walked down to Wendy's for lunch.  While we waited I kept monitoring Facebook and the signs the event would be cancelled kept becoming stronger.  Sure enough, just as our truck was fixed, we got the word; Gulf Wars 2019 had been cancelled.
Well, glad that we weren't farther down the road, but sad about missing our spring vacation and concerned about how the income loss would affect us, we headed back home.  Once there we began to unpack.
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Here are all the bins of soap sitting in my shop waiting to be unpacked.  There are over 40 different fragrances, plus beard products, combs, soap dishes, beard kits, nalbound hats, inkle bands and more.  I am now working on photographing each one and putting them up on the website so people can buy them.  I am hoping to have a "porch sale" next weekend as well so local people can come and buy!  

​I figure it will take me about 25 hours to upload everything I have, so please be patient as I get it all up and then get orders filled.  Thanks to everyone for supporting me!

There is an old story that dates back to at least 1438 that tells of 4 thieves who robbed people who were ill from the black plague, yet never got sick themselves.  When finally apprehended, they went before a judge who promised to be lenient with them if they told him how they managed to stay healthy.  As they had been chemists before their lives of crime, they explained how they had created a special mixture of essential oils, including clove, cinnamon, lemon and rosemary that they wore on themselves and their clothing that kept the germs away.  You may have heard of this potion as "thieves oil".  Since that name has been copyrighted, I have chosen to call my own blend of these oils "plague ban". 
You might wonder what is so special about these particular essential oils, so I have researched them and here are my findings.  
Clove oil is both antimicrobial and antifungal.  https://www.healthline.com/health/clove-essential-oil#benefits
Cinnamon oil is antibacterial and disinfectant.  https://www.healthline.com/health/cinnamon-oil#benefits
Lemon oil is antibacterial and antifungal.  https://www.newdirectionsaromatics.com/blog/products/all-about-lemon-oil.html
Rosemary oil is anti bacterial and antifungal.   https://www.newdirectionsaromatics.com/blog/products/all-about-rosemary-oil.html
This is just a quick overview, please follow the links and do your own research to learn more!  As you can see, those chemists turned thieves may have been onto something.
While I don't make any medical claims about my products, I do make a point to use high quality essential oils in them.  In this flu and cold season, washing hands frequently is the best way to keep yourself healthy.  Any soap is a good choice, but I like to recommend my handmade soaps because they are moisturizing rather than drying and that's important when you wash your hands a lot.  I use my plague ban oils in both my soap and roller bottles you can apply to your skin.