Heads up perfume lovers, Magickal Realism is offering free shipping worldwide through the holidays. If I can legally send it to your country, it will be sent!

Stop by Magickal Realism and gather up your goodies while the shipping is free!

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Scoring a Treasury on Etsy is akin to scoring current-season Manolo Blahnics in the clearance bin at Barney’s on the day after US Thanksgiving. It can happen, but unless you’re a veteran of a type war unique to Etsy, it doesn’t very often. That said, I must have tripped a land mine or something this morning, because lookie what I got:

Believe me, it’s much prettier and more visible on the actual page.

So, since this small miracle happened, allow me to elucidate why getting in a treasury or scoring one matters.

1. Anything that gets you positive Etsy exposure off your Etsy site is good news.

2. A Treasury essentially nominates you for the front page. The front page listings are always pulled from the treasury pages these days, and they change every hour. If someone has included your item in a treasury, they are saying that you are front page worthy.

3. The more hits an individual treasury gets, the more likely it is to appear on a front page.

So what does this mean to you, especially if you’re in one or you root for someone who made one?

It means it’s time to tag team. If you’re in a treasury or if you make one, it’s a good idea to promote it.

How?

1. For treasury owners, we’re now allowed to convo people who are in treasuries and let them know. The spam edict has been lifted (do NOT try to take advantage of this and sell something while you’re at it.)

2. For treasury featured and for owners, the process is the same:

Twitter it

Myspace bulletin it

Add a screenshot to your flickr and to related flickr groups.

Add a note to your facebook profile.

Post it on your blog and/or livejournal.

Ask friends to click, or to retweet, or to reblog.

If it makes the front page – 1. GET A SCREENSHOT and 2. Make a big deal all over again. The front page is a very big deal.

And of course, you can do some promos on Etsy – search for treasury threads, and blog threads after you blog about it. Make sure you post. Etsy keeps you to grassroots marketing, and grassroots really is what makes it all happen.

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I did the Nokomis craft fair last Saturday. It was a small but surprisingly steady turnout, especially given that we were getting reports of snow all day. While I did find I needed to work out a few kinks in the tester system – I had to stop a few people from breaking open heat-sealed items – for the most part, I’m pretty happy with how my display was set up and I think I could do more good things with it over time.

I’m sticking to what I have learned works: when possible elevate, and if that doesn’t work, reflect. Give people a chance to sign up for your mailing list (thus the clipboard.) Above all, make it pretty.

The hard part for me, however, was in explaining what everything was. While I didn’t think it was difficult, a surprising number of people walked up to my booth, waved their hands over it and asked me what I was selling. If it were an isolated incident, I would attribute it to an isolated person. But it wasn’t.

This raises my question: how do I get across what I’m selling well enough that a person can look across the room and figure it out? I have no interest in selling soap, ever, so some other technique beyond having soap out would help.

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I love sandalwood. Adore it. My first experience with a scent that I wanted to make my signature was a sandalwood – it happened at the time to be a fragrance oil, decent enough quality for the early 90s, but nothing compared to the day that some of the real deal came into my hands. The rich wood that smelled of all the best parts of age, faint yellows puffing into my nose and luxuriating down my spine… there are plenty of plants that smell pretty, but few you can experience quite like you can sandalwood.

It wasn’t too long after I’d somehow finagled my first full ounce of sandalwood that I found out that it was endangered on nearly all fronts. This bad news, delivered around 2000, hasn’t changed much 8-9 years later, though I admit I’m pleased there’s some sandalwood still around. If I can find a loophole on this whole endangerment policy, I will grab for it. While I won’t use fragrance oils myself, I am glad of them in that they have reduced the damage to endangered species like sandalwood. Imitations are always pale, but when the original is paling because it’s going out of existence, it’s time for me to suck it up and accept a compromise.

There are five plants sometimes referred to by commercial interests as sandalwood. Two are fakes. One is an enigma.

Santalum album

This is known Indian sandalwood, and comes from the Mysore region of South Asia. It is by far the most endangered. I have been misinforming people – it is the Australian sandalwood that is the parasite. This is an actual tree that can’t be harvested until it is 40 to 80 years old. There are all sorts of problems with the overuse and overharvesting of sandalwood, not the least of which is a big problem authorities have with sandalwood thieves.

Santalum spicatum

Australian and a parasite. I’ve never smelled it, although I’ve heard reports it is similar in texture to Indian sandalwood. However, on a chromotography analysis the molecular composition differs quite a bit from the album family. I have also been incorrect in that it is possible to grow this version of the plant sustainably, but I have not found any details on what is involved. Part of the confusion is that some sources list album as parasitic, and others spicatum. I know that one is and one isn’t, but which is which? Since the Australian government does put in a great deal of control on the growth and harvesting of spicatum, it does make it the more responsible purchase if you’re going to pursue sandalwood.

Santalum ellipticum

Hawaiian sandalwood. I’m not finding a lot of data on it. It’s sometimes known as “coast sandalwood” and is pictured in this blog post. According to the encyclopedia Brittanica online, it was the first of the sandalwood family to fall to overharvesting.

Amyris balsamifera

This is not sandalwood, and to me doesn’t even smell like sandalwood. It’s an evergreen commonly grown in Haiti. That’s not to say I don’t love it- I adore it, and I do use it. It’s just frequently labeled and sold as sandalwood when it’s not.

Pterocarpus santalinus

Also not sandalwood, but it tries hard. Chinese in origin, it is distinctive for its red coloring. While it does smell very similar to golden sandalwood, its molecular properties are distinctly different.

Other species that merit further investigation:

Santalum austrocaledonicum

Santalum yasi

There are plans in place for restoring sandalwood to its glory, but these plans take a lot of time – a generation’s worth, before we can see any real benefits. Given that Indian sandalwood has become a social problem of its own because of its scarcity, there may be more problems to resolve than that of simply growing plants so that the plant and the soil lasts.

There’s much more to learn, and I may come back to this over time. Or not – there’s always so much to learn, after all.

Stop by Magickal Realism shop for wood-scented goodies of the safe variety.

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Image by Sterin via Flickr

I’ve done a lot of trading on Etsy – my first year, when I was toddling through the birthing stages of my new business, trading got me through the holidays. My family loved it. It was definitely a top 10 hit year for me.

I also learned a lot of good things about trading, and by sticking to these rules, I’ve limited disappointment.

A few things to know before you get started:

1. There is no central trading post for Etsy traders. There’s an interminably long and confusing list on Etsy forums that I skip – Etsy is too large, the list is too long, and many people fall off of it too easily. Even attempted thread restarts don’t work. There is a group called Esty-Traders on yahoo that is very slow, and once in awhile someone will throw up a thread in the promos forum.

2. If you trade on Etsy, Etsy rules requires you to “purchase” thought Etsy. To simply delete your listing is viewed as fee avoidance.

3. Traded items are taxable – when you trade you should record the income and outgo value in your books as though a purchase was actually made.

So, knowing that, the way to conduct a trade on Etsy:

1. Search tags and check profiles. People who like trading usually indicate they do in their shop.

2. Expect some of your trading convos to be ignored. Some sellers see trading as “not business” and put their priority on customers paying in cash.

3. You will only get a trade when you have something the person you’re trading with needs or wants.  For instance, a lot of traders want to trade earrings, but I don’t have pierced ears and I’m not about to wear clips. That would be a no trade.

4. Some traders are open to higher-value trades, if they really value what you have to offer.

This is extremely important:

5. Treat your trade partner with the same respect with which you treat a customer, because that person IS a customer. Money went into the materials both of you used, as did time, as does postage. Use the feedback system and honor the transaction in an equally timely manner.

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Yes We Can, directly inspired by Obama’s acceptance speech. It was an amazing, powerful moment for me, one that has profoundly changed my own belief in all of the activist causes I’ve committed to. Change really is possible. I actually believe it now.

Yes. We can.

The fragrance contains notes of celery seed, lavender, citrus accord, and pine.

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Take the FDA Cosmetics quiz and find out. You may learn a few surprising things along the way!

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I’m a fan of King of the Hill – it’s surprisingly subtle humor given the craziness of the characters, and while I know Hank would find knowing me uncomfortable, when everything comes down to a final decision, he’s actually a decent kind of guy.

Check out this video: King Of The Hill – Lost In My Space

On last week’s episode, Strickland propane discovered the world of social networking – and to Hank’s horror, tried it out.

Along with the wackiness of drunken antics, poor blogging behavior and contact list shenanigans were a few small lessons even in the midst of using myspace.

• Social networking allows you to connect with individuals on a personal level.
• Even with that personal dimension added, be careful. You are as you represent yourself online or off.
• Lots of friends may not translate to lots of business.
• If you have employees, make sure you have oversight on their passwords etc. just in case they go rogue on you.
• Person-to-person interaction is still far more important than what you do online. The person in front of you and the order already paid for matters much more than who might be watching or who you might attract.
• It’s fine to be wacky and funny, but draw a line.  It’s not all hookup culture on myspace.
• Be positive in public. You really have no idea who is reading.

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Magickal Realism will be at the Nokomis craft fair thiscoming Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm. Take a look at my shop – if there’s something you’d like to pre-order for pickup, send me a convo or leave me a message here!

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