We haven't had a major shake up here at Flesh & Mane since we dropped the "MONSTER" part last year. And we are creatures of change.
We've watched how you've been buying stuff over this past year, and made some adjustments. Some observations:
- Shampoo, conditioner, beard wash, and beard conditioner, were basically only selling in a couple of scents. Some had hardly any orders; a couple of them had dozens a week each.
- Bride, Witch, and Countess all lagged far behind others in popularity.
- We probably have at least one message a day asking when we are bringing back Cthulu & Extraterrestrial. These messages begin the day those Sinister Stash runs end.
So here's the changes we've made in response:
- We are streamlining the bottled cleansers and conditioners. Instead of offering every fragrance, we're going to go back to how we used to do it and offer a common fragrance for all. We're calling this one Blackwater. It's heavily based on bergamot, lavender, and our "ocean blend" (what you smell in Cthulu). The scent is fresh, a bit sweet, a bit wild, and complements all of our fragrances. Whatever soap you used with it, it won't clash.
- We have made Cthulu and Extraterrestrial part of the main line of scents now. You can buy them any day of the year.
- Witch and Countess are both going on a vacation. Maybe permanent. We'll see who asks about them, and maybe they'll end up in Stashes.
- Bride...well, that chocolate scent isn't very popular. It's VERY popular with a few people, but 99% don't care for it. So we're ditching it. But the Bride is an important part of the culture around here. Her look is based on Lori, who is half this business. So we can't get rid of her. Instead, we are replacing the chocolate scent with a scent we describe as Mountain Ash, based on the Cascade foothills where we live; the fresh air, the berries, the wildflowers, and that unique smell when the sun touches clover and clay.
You'll notice we've also updated our look, from the site to the labels. We dig this aesthetic better than the kinda quiet one we were going for before. Honestly I think the hectic life of two people running a business, a nonprofit, and raising a toddler just made us want something slower, but...it just wasn't fun. We were getting bored by our own brand, and who needs that?
The Bottleneck
A combination of injury and supply chain difficulties in the last couple of years that have led to setbacks with our fulfillment. That's kinda the professional way of saying we got way behind on our orders because our supplies were taking forever to get here, and when they were here, half the time we've been dealing with an injury (a problem with my elbow - specifically on the soap cutting arm, so that's fun).
As of last week, we're more or less caught up on our backlog of orders. We are waiting on a shipment of skulls as I write this, so we have about a week's worth of 60ml orders stacked up waiting for that shipment to get here, but other than that we're good.
Streamlining the shampoo and conditioner scents is also meant, in part, to help us make production simpler. Making 8 scents, especially when 6 of them aren't selling great, we just taking too much time. A single scent allows us to scent in the master batch and pour directly, saving hours from the process.
We hope you like the changes we've made. If you haven't tried us in a while, please come give it another shot. In fact, use the code NEWERA26 to get 20% off any order. We're excited about this stuff, and can't wait to share it with you.