Hyena Butter: A Handcrafted Solid Lotion Bar Collection

Shipping Updates! Delays and Deadlines
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 03:15:49 AM

Hey everyone! By now some of you have received your bars, I'm happy to see that you like them! on the other hand there are also some of you wondering where yours are, which is understandable. So I thought that now would be a good time to touch base so you can see where things are at! 

Currently I've gotten roughly half of all orders shipped out - turns out 100+ orders (and more than 400 bars!) is a lot for one person to handle all at once 😅

I've also gotten a full time job which has significantly slowed the shipping process. That being said, my goal is to have the rest of the orders shipped by the end of this month at the latest - I've recruited some help with order packing to ensure I meet that deadline! If you have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to reach out. I'll be replying to the messages I've already received shortly as well!

Thank you for your patience and understanding, as well as your continued support!

Shipping Begins! + Sneak Peeks
about 3 years ago – Sat, Feb 20, 2021 at 09:12:28 AM

Hello everyone! We're now in mid-February, which means orders will begin shipping out! I'll be sending them out in waves to ensure the post office isn't too overwhelmed (and to make sure I can give each order it's fair share of attention!). I hope you're as excited as I am!

Since we're in the home stretch, I wanted to take the time to show you all the final results of the label art, as well as finally give you a look at the completed Clean Yeen Coffee Bean scrub packaging!

First up, the scrub!

These 4oz containers are super cute, featuring a label sticker where I can indicate if the scrub is the plain variety or the variety with charcoal! I love the pink caps ✨

The scrub itself is super nice. I used fine grounds for both the coffee and the salt, ensuring it feels super scrubby and exfoliating without being harsh to sensitive skin. Combined with the jojoba oil, this scrub leaves your skin super soft and moisturized! It smells great too :)

The  1oz free samples going out to eligible backers will be packaged in little (recyclable!) plastic condiment cups. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you think once you try it out!

Here's what the scrub looks like next to a novelty pack! The novelty boxes got one last overhaul before their final printing and I think they look so much nicer now. I'll have some more professional pictures of those specifically in the next update to show off all the sides:

Next up are the labels! I'm SO PROUD of how these came out. The full sized prints will be shipped to their respective owners separately from the rest of the rewards (to ensure they stay flat and clean!). I know at least two of the non-backer designs will be going into my shop as prints too (like the Funfetti label, which features my mascot Ark!) - If you're a backer that claimed a label and would like to see your full illustration also offered in my shop as a print shoot me a message!

I'll be posting the uncropped, text-free images on my social media accounts in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out if you'd like to see them!

That's all for now! I hope you all are having a good February!

Backerkit Charges, Bar Previews, & Size Updates (plus a video!)
about 3 years ago – Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 06:17:52 PM

Hello again!

Since we're getting close to the estimated February shipping dates you may see a charge from backerkit show up on your accounts - not to worry! This isn't a double charge, it's just any additional things you may have added during your survey checkout being withdrawn (add-ons, shipping upgrades, etc) that weren't charged at check out. If you have any questions about it don't hesitate to reach out either to me or to the backerkit team with concerns!

In other news, I have some more bar previews for you!

Here's some of the current bars I have on the curing racks. These are going to get stamped in the next couple of days once they're hard enough to withstand it

My kitchen smells like a bakery LOL. I also have the To The Earth bars currently ready to be demolded (once I make more space 😅). I'll take pictures of those once they're out, but for now have a sneak peek of the first half of them! They'll have two different color layers when they're done!

I've also got four large loaves of varying scents ready to be demolded and sliced as well - once I have space for them on the racks. I'm stamping some of the harder bars today to make room.

I've got two more updates for you today aside from these previews. Firstly is an update on weights of the bars! When I initially estimated the weights of each bar type I used what I saw from reviews on the molds I was aiming to use, as well as some guesswork based on the weights of the different ingredients. Now that I've got enough bars made to find an average I have some updated bar weights for you all, give or take a little bit depending on the amount of water that's dried out of the bars as they cure/age. (keep in mind there's still a little bit of variation from bar to bar due to the handmade nature!)

•  Standard Bars: These ended up a bit bigger than expected, which is good for you guys, not so good for my math skills when determining what supplies I need to order 😅. With the molds I'm using these bars end up weighing roughly 2.5 ounces

•  LARGE Bars: These stayed pretty true to my estimations! The bars all sit at just around 4 ounces

•  Novelty Sticks: These are the ones that surprised me the most. After curing the sticks shrink down to 1.5 ounces each 😲! They're quite a bit smaller than my original estimation of 2 ounces - and with a four pack ending up weighing in at around 6 ounces instead of 8, I felt it would be best to give those of you that ordered novelty packs a heads up about it! If you have concerns about the difference in weight please shoot me a message! I want to be transparent about my process to you all and ensure the final products you receive are ones you're satisfied with!

My second update is a fun one, I promise! I recently joined tiktok due to it's quick growing artist community. One of the recent videos I uploaded on there was a timelapse of me mixing, pouring, and cutting some large size Pure bars! I thought I'd upload it here for you guys to watch so you can see my process in full - especially with the new equipment I have to make larger batches!

 That's all for now! I hope you all have a great week! I'm flying through making the rest of these bars (I've only got 4 varieties left to pour!) and then I'll be mixing up the coffee scrub, so look forward to seeing that soon!

Oh! One last thing before I forget - I sent out the first newsletter update with those of you who chose to be added onto the list included. If you haven't received it (would have been from Ark--Bark Arts! and titled "LIFE IS SWEET Jacket Update #5") make sure to check your spam folders! Google especially seems to love filtering out mailchimp messages.

Small Update
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 10:17:41 PM

Hi all! As we get closer to February I'm going to start giving little updates here and there to keep you all in the loop! I'm away from my computer so not many pictures for this update, hope that's ok!

I ended up miscalculating my ingredient amounts a little bit after adjusting the final bar recipe, so I've had to order another batch of kokum butter. as of right now USPS is late delivering it so while I wait I'm plugging away at the label art. I've gotten the lineart for almost every scent done - if you claimed a scent & haven't gotten a sketch update from me yet expect one within the next few days.

As of right now the mid-february date for starting to ship orders is still tentatively set. If the kokum continues to be delayed and I have to push it back I'll let you all know asap!

As a final added treat, take a look at how the large size dragonfruit bars came out! they remind me of a sunset!

That's all for now!

Happy Holidays! Updates, Sneak Peeks, and Timeline Thoughts
over 3 years ago – Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 11:33:07 PM

Hello everyone! I hope you had a good holiday season! I've been busy at work over here, and bar production is well underway!

I ended up printing out a stamp on my 3d printer and it seems to work great! I *did* notice after stamping almost a dozen bars that I forgot to mirror the design so the logo is technically backwards on the bars, but that's okay 😅

I've got most of the unscented and dragonfruit standard sized bars all set and curing as well as a decent amount of the brown sugar ice cream and green tea bars done. I've ordered double the number of my standard molds, a much larger melting pot, and a huge mixing jug so I can really start cranking these out quickly! I'm also going to be going out tomorrow to see if I can get my hands on a tall shelving unit to use as drying space since it turns out these bars need one to two weeks of curing time before I can safely stamp them and package them up!

Currently the standard sized bars and the novelty packages are looking like they'll be set and ready to ship by the estimated February deadline. However, I've run across a slight problem. As I mentioned, bars take at least a week to harden enough for me to stamp them without risking crushing/cracking - with that in mind I'm concerned that the large size bars may be met with delays. Since the molds I'm using for those are significantly larger loaf-types, they'll already be taking a decent amount of time to cool and harden to safely demold/slice. Adding that time onto the curing time makes me think the large sized bars may need more time than I estimated to ensure they not only look nice, but are properly cured/firm enough that they'll survive the shipping process.

I'll be working as quickly as I can to try and keep to the estimated ship-by dates, but for now I just wanted to let you know that if your order includes larger bars, they'll probably be shipping out at least towards the end of the batches (I plan to ship in waves just so I don't overwhelm my local post office - makes it less likely that anything will get lost in transit!). If you have concerns about your order please don't hesitate to shoot me a message so we can talk it out!

In lighter news, I've finally received the extra goodies for the campaign, and I wanted to give you guys a peek at them! Apologies for the colors in the pics, I'll be taking some better images a bit later on to show them more accurately.

Firstly we have the sticker packs! The stickers are super cute and teeny, with the largest "peekaboo" sticker coming in at just about 3" in length, and the rest sitting around 1.5x1"

Next up is the pins! The screen printed details on these came out great! The colors of the hyena changed a bit during the making process (my manufacturer had trouble matching the initial pantones I sent in) but I think he still looks adorable. They have two posts on the back so they'll be very secure on whatever you stick them on!

And finally we have the novelty packaging! This tester came out so nice! I've already poured a few of the sticks to wrap and make sure the size is correct, and then I'll be making the full order. I think it looks really good!

I've also received the ingredients for the Clean Yeen Coffee Bean scrubs. I'll be mixing up the first batch soon, so my next update will have pics of that, as well as the packaging for it which I am very excited for. I'm also finishing up several of the initial label designs and will be reaching out to their corresponding backers in the following weeks to make sure they're happy with them :)

That's all for now! 2020 has been a wild one; thanks for making this part of my year so special, and here's to the future of the Hyena Butter line! I hope you're all ringing in 2021 with good vibes and good company (even if that company is via zoom 😊).