Quick Check In + Lessons from World War Z

 It has been a long time since I posted here. My life has been simultaneously incredibly busy and incredibly slow. I am drafting a longer post about the last year or so, but wanted to check in with you guys quickly today. 

I had an epiphany the other day about my Etsy shop and my current situation, I am fighting against the current, as it were. If you have ever been swimming in a body of water with a current, like a river, you understand the futile nature of such actions. 

I have been selling hemp seed oil based skincare on Etsy since 2013. Hemp Seed Oil is cold pressed from industrial hemp seeds, they contain no THC or CBD or any of the other active cannabanoids. Industrial hemp was used until very recently for fiber and oil for everything from paper to bio fuel. During the industrial revolution companies pushing wood-based and petroleum-based products began demonizing hemp in order to further their own agendas. Hemp disrupts not only these, but a few medical and drug industries as well. For this reason, it remains on the shadowy side of the law. Even Hemp Seed Oil, literally just a fatty oil like Sunflower or Olive, continues to face scrutiny. 

Hemp Seed Oil has an ideal ratio of Omega Fatty Acids 3 - 6 - 9 as well as an obscene percentage of Linoleic Acid (a fatty acid that helps break down and thin thicker oils and nourishes human skin like no other.) Back in 2013 before CBD was a thing I was a pothead with terrible skin, a big heart, and a desire to find a way to use my love of cosmetology to help and not harm. I stumbled onto hemp seed oil as one of the few high linoleic oils available, Flax and Chia are also similar lipid profiles. I fell in love with hemp seed oil because it impacted my skin like no other oil ever had. It helped with my acne, my eczema, and my psoriasis. It was like a miracle. 

For this reason, I have been a die-hard advocate of industrial hemp for the last ten years. To my detriment, if I am being honest. The powers that be...pharma, petroleum, paper, wood, and I am sure several others are not a fan of hemp and have made it almost impossible to sell my hemp oil skincare without being lumped in with CBD or THC. Because my skincare is in a weird gray area, places that don't allow CBD struggled to understand if I was allowed (I am, hemp seed oil is not the same as CBD or THC...it's actually not the same as anything else having to to with the Cannabis Sativa plant. Cannabis Sativa Seed Oil from industrial hemp seeds has been legal in the US always, as none of its constituants are regulated. But, try explaining that to the people at Shopify. Everyone but Etsy banned me or needed me to find a third party payment processor (to take online payments) that specialized in pornography and tobacco. As you can imagine, my skincare didn't fit there either. 

So, for the last ten years I have struggled to keep my Etsy shop open. Each week items get flagged or my shop gets flagged for contraband. Rather than similar shops who started around the same time and make very similar items who have 40k followers on socials, I am sitting pretty at 4k, because I am not allowed to advertise on IG or Google with hemp-based items, so I get shadow banned, Not exactly banned, but they don't show people your items. 

Today I was in IG and they showed me an add for a product that I had a chance to manufacture back in 2020. The product is doing really well and their socials are popular. I had to ask myself if it was worth dying on the hemp hill? Can I do this another ten years?

Excuse my language, but FUCK NO! I am TIRED of fighting a battle againts everyone and all the big industruies just to have potential customers be the ones to suffer. I know most natural deodorants stop working after three months...why do you think Unileiver and Clorox are buying natural brands? I think they have reasons for what they do, and I am going to start countering with equivalent intensity. 

I cannot die on the hemp hill. I can keep advocating, start my own CBD and Hemp brand off Etsy, but I cannot keep fighting to keep my business afloat, not when there are so many other layers to what I do. I started this brand because I wanted people to be able to buy everything they needed for their skin and know they could trust it to be safe, clean, and as well-researched as possible, I don't use hormone disruptors because they contribute to PCOS and infertility and no body butter should cost you babies. There is a bigger mission here than JUST hemp. 

The first part of my plan is to remove the word hemp from my advertising. It will still be in the products and in the ingredients, but will be removed my my titles and google search tags. This initail change is to try to circumvent some of the issues I have been having for the last several years. As we learned in World War Z, sometime the best thing you can do is find a way to blend in and hide from those seeking you. Seems dramatic, but someone taking food out of my mouth each week is pretty dramatic. I was doing about $2000 a month in 2020 and since catching Etsy's attention during the pandemic, I did $69 in sales over the last week. It has continued to decline week after week. 

I love creating new products. For the last almost three years I have had to put a hold on creation for fear of the new item causing issues with Etsy and getting my shop closed. It was my only source of income and my only way to support myself. Now that my health is in order and I am established here in Colorado, I have the Farmer's Market I can count on as a second income stream. The realization I had today was that I can use everything I have learned and start a new shop with a different name and without the hemp focus off Etsy. *Mind Blown*

Hemp Seed Oil is great, but so is Chia Seed Oil, Fractionated Coconut Oil and all the other seed and berry oils. There are so many beautiful plants out there that can offer benfits to our skin, there is no reason to limit it. 

I will continue selling on Etsy but will be moving listing info to here and linking other products in my personal shop that won't be available on Etsy. 

Loner's Apothecary is our sister brand, she will be where I stretch my formulating wings. I will share links as I have them, for now follow us on IG loners.apothecary.