Honeybee Lotion Bars in the Grand Canyon

Our full line of Milk+Honey body care products will now be available to visitors and adventurers to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Bar 10 Ranch, a lodge, family cattle ranch, and host of Grand Canyon activities from river rafting to helicopter tours, will be offering our Nanny Goat Milk soaps, Honeybee Lotion Bars and Anywhere Balms.

Our products are perfect for their Ranch! Several years ago, a ruggedly-handsome young man came to my booth at the Farmers Market to tell me that my lotion bar was the only thing that saved his hands while he was going down the Grand Canyon. Since then, I have wanted to get my products into the backpacks of more outdoor adventurers, knowing that their natural ingredients were appropriate for camping, soothing for active skin, easy to carry, versatile, and consistent with environmental values.

Bar 10 Ranch has smartly ordered all my products in tins, so that folks can easily pack and protect their soaps and lotions during their Grand Canyon journey.

I'd love to hear more stories of adventures my products have been on!

Update on Milk+Honey at the United Nations!

Kathy just shared this press release with me:

WINNING STRATEGIES FOR ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION OF RURAL AND INDIGENOUS WOMEN

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2012, UNCSW 56

The Women’s Intercultural Network (WIN) invites all NGOs to an interactive Roundtable and Forum on “Winning Strategies for Economic Participation of Rural and Indigenous Women” .

This 4th WINNING STRATEGIES Parallel event convened by WIN and US Women Connect at a UN CSW Session is a follow up to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Women’s Economic Summit (WES) convened by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in September 2011. This year’s UN CSW theme of ‘Empowering Rural and Indigenous Women’ is a perfect opportunity to engage women who are isolated and left behind in most countries.

Secretary Clinton launched the Women’s Economic Summit as “The Age of Participation” and brought together 800 senior private and public sector players for a dialogue on fostering women’s economic empowerment among APEC economies and formed a set of economic policy recommendations in the San Francisco Declaration.

This year’s WINNING STRATEGIES Forum will expand the WES Declaration globally adding experiences and comments of rural and indigenous women working ‘on the ground’, living with an economy and surviving economic policies they often have no voice in making. They will add a fresh perspective with innovative micro-enterprise models and concepts that are replicable for sustainable growth and prosperity.

We will video tape and post the 'best practices' and winning strategies on web media. All women are vital as participants in economic recovery locally and globally.

Panelists:
Olivia Calderon, Moderator, CA Legislative Director New America Foundation, WIN Board of Directors
Dian J. Harrison, Chair, WIN, USA; Advisory Council Kayunga Peace Centre, Republic of Uganda
Marily Mondejar, President, Filipina Women’s Network
Mona Motwani, Human Rights Attorney, Co-Founder, SPARK San
Francisco
Helene Rama Niang, Exec. Director, NGO Network for
Development, Dakar, Senegal
Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez, Tewa Women United; Co-Chair US Women Connect

Location: First Floor Chapel, Church Center UN
777 United Nations Plaza, corner of 44th St. and First Ave
New York, NY 10017
Co-Sponsors:
Women’s Intercultural Network (WIN)
US Women Connect (USWC)
Women News Network (WNN)
TEWA Women United
Filipina Women’s Network (FWN)
NOW Foundation
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

For more information : win@win-cawa.org
Women’s Intercultural Network (WIN)
1950 Hayes St. #2, San Francisco, CA 94117
415-221-4841

Fast-breaking news: M+H to be presented at the UN Commission on the Status of Women!

Kathy Sanchez, co-director of Tewa Women United and co-chair of the national organization USWomenConnect, will be presenting at the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York City next week. She will be presenting at the UN panel discussion on micro-enterprises, reporting on rural women businesses. She has chosen to present Milk and Honey as an example of a successful, woman-owned micro-enterprise! She'll be handing around our products, and sharing our story with photos of the goats and Farmers Market. We're so excited!

Stay tuned as we get more information! Kathy's talk will be recorded and available on the web after next week, so we'll send out a link.

Success Client of the Year!

Milk+Honey honored as Success Client of the Year:
"Off to a Honey-of-a-Start"

Read about us in today's
Santa Fe New Mexican!

"It takes a village to produce a business, and Daven Lee has done just that -- in the form of her Milk and Honey Soap, which is made in Santa Fe and sold all over the country.

"Sales in fact doubled in 2011, despite the weak national economy.

"In a telephone interview, Lee said her "original assistance" from the Santa Fe Small Business Development Center came in the form of helping create her first business plan and then obtaining a microloan from Accion, a small business lender.

"'That started me with the production of my wholesale line of products,' Lee said. "They also helped me with the first round of financial projections" for her new company. 'I put those together when I was looking for other funding,' she said.

"Lee also thanked Mykris for helping her with her business, including nominating the company 'for this great honor' from the SBDC.

"'Daven is extremely passionate about all aspects of her business,' Mykris said in a statement. 'She considers her goats and bees to be her primary business partners.'

"Lee and other SBDC clients will be honored Wednesday at at awards banquet at Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe. Lt. Gov. John Sanchez will be the featured speaker. "

Read the complete article

Welcome new customers!

Cricket and I took a road trip to Phoenix last week to ply our goods at the Oasis Gift Show, where we met many new folks and picked up some more stores!

A special welcome to:

--Stacy's Hallmark two locations in Phoenix: N. Tatum & E. Cactus

DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun; Tucson

--Nana's; Auburn, IN

--Scottsdale Historical Society

--The Beatitudes Campus; Phoenix

--Old Town Emporium, Albuquerque, NM

Hurray! Crocheters love Lotion Bars!

We've made our debut in Crochet Today! magazine! Not only that, but our Honeybee Lotion Bars and Nanny Goat Milk soaps are charmingly included under the title, "We Love It!"--picks for gifts for the holiday season. We are so happy to be entering the fiber/knitter/crocheter market! Thank you Fiesta Yarns for taking us to market with you.

Organic Calendula Harvest Glows

The Organic extra virgin olive oil in my Nanny Goat Milk Soaps, and the almond oil in my Honeybee Lotion Bars are infused with local, now Certified Organic calendula, grown by Heather Harrell and Kristin Davenport.

I wish I was a better photographer; it is so hard to do justice to this stunning fresh-dried calendula that seems to glow with its own inner light. It is shockingly beautiful, and when it is infused into oil, it will impart its healing resin as well as some of its color, leaving the oil a darker orange color. This is one of the "secrets" of my products. This little herb adds no scent (it smells like alfalfa when dried), but has powerful benefits:

"Calendula is a plant extract that has been used throughout history in skin preparations. Calendula is beneficial for dry or damaged skin and also promotes the fast healing and regeneration of the skin because of its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. According to YourHealth.com, applying calendula topically is effective for decreasing inflammation and promoting the healing of wounds, burns, eczema and other inflammatory skin conditions." (source)

I'm in the process of ordering large quantities of oils; the fresh-dried flowers will go right into the oil, which will preserve its properties (leaving them in the air will slowly render them less potent). Then I'll pour off this rich infused concentration to blend with the pure oils, and that oil will go right into my products, and out to you.

By the way, my business is growing, and this is enabling me to support more local farmers. Heather Harrell, once my sole source of calendula, will now be joined by Kristin Davenport and Becky of SunStar Herbs.