Fresh Bet Bits, Claire Burke Original Memories, Home Fragrance Product Updates and Commentary

Those of you who are long time Claire Burke afficionados will remember that we usually have the Original and Apple Jack Vapourri 2-packs in early January every year. Last Fall I started asking Claire Burke if these would return. I was delighted to hear they would offer these again, but a bit disappointed that it would not be until February.

I asked Mark about these last month and he explained the reason for the delay. These are produced in Massachusetts and the Factory has been slammed with orders. However, they are on order and expected to arrive by mid February.

We are now showing these on our website at zero cost. This is because we do not want your card to be charged prematurely until these are ready to ship. So, if you would like to place a pre-order, please CALL us (1-800-322-0525) and provide order information. This way we can better control when your card is charged just before we ship.

If you add them to a shopping cart order, we will email you requesting you contact us with payment information. We will not be taking shopping cart orders for these 2-packs until they are actually in-stock.

These are produced in limited supply and this offer only comes around once a year. You can get 2 Vapourri for $15.00 - a savings of $5.00. So, hurry and place your pre-order today!

Chocolate candles and home fragrances have been growing in popularity over the past few years. Typically I am reserved about adding new trends that I am not sure will be long-term. However, I continue to see more and more chocolate items, so I thought we better get on board.Sonoma Lavender is a lovely company out of the Napa Valley of California who produces natural, hand-made products in the USA. It has become rare to find domestically produced products, so I usually jump on them when I find them!

Sonoma has introduced a new line of Sonoma Chocolate just in time for Valentines Day. I sniffed these at the show and they are truly chocolate-ey! We are pleased to announce we have added 3 new items:
* Cocoa the Bear
* Sonoma Chocolate Soy Candle in Glass
* Sonoma Chocolate Soaps in round Gift Box

You can find these items by clicking this link.

If you are looking for other wonderful Valentine’s Day Gift Suggestions, we have them! Our Kama Sutra line is perfect for this holiday.
Click here for Valentines Day Gift Suggestions.

This is just a quick post to bring you up to date on some of the recent personnel changes at Freshbet. Leia was with us for nearly 2 years and we absolutely adored her. Sadly, she has had to move on to greener pastures to insure her future financial success.

Deb who started with us around Labor Day 2007, is now full-time and doing an excellent job!

Our newest employee is Dawn who will be with us part-time in the middle of the day. Please be patient with Dawn as she learns about our business. We think Dawn will be a wonderful addition to our team and she is so enthusiastic!

Pamela continues to work for us part-time in between pursuing her degree from Clemson.

Jenn who worked for us in 2006 and early 2007, has returned to working part-time doing website maintenance and uploads. Jenn is now expecting her 2nd child and we hope she will continue along with Freshbet as her family grows.

Our storefront is now starting to be frequented by local customers who are discovering our unique product offerings. We have just renewed our lease for an additional 2 years, so if you are ever in Upstate South Carolina, do stop by!

WOW, Wade & I had a hectic trip to Atlanta for 2 days to attend the huge January Gift Show to order new merchandise for Spring. Needless to say we were exhausted by the time we left. Here is a brief recap of what we have planned for Spring/Summer 2008:

* New WoodWick candles and Reed Diffusers.
* New Old Virginia Tarts.
* More new WoodWick car scents and Home Fragrance Oil scent choices.
* New WoodWick Fusion art-glass Candles & Reed Diffuser - simply stunning!
* New WoodWick Reed Diffuser oil refills w/new Reeds.
* NEW Olive Oil Organics in travel tin candles and large 22 oz clear glass. AWESOME scent!
* More new Hillhouse Farm Naturals tin candles and new Pomegranate Reed Diffuser.
* Hillhouse Good Dog Linen Spray and tin candle.
* NEW Greenleaf Reed Diffusers and refills. These are ceramic and so charming.
* Greenleaf has introduced a new scent called Evening Twilight which is a powdery soft scent that will be available in Aroma Decor Diffuser Oil.
* 2 New Greenleaf Aroma Decor Diffusers: Yellow Vase, Shanghai
* Greenleaf has also reformulated their lotions to include Jojoba making them even better!
* Greenleaf has a new Spa line which we will be adding soon: Bath Salts, Scrub, etc.

We are optimistically guarded that we will soon be selected to become an Aromatique retailer. They gave me their new Peach Pizazz candle to burn and it is phenomenal! We are excited to report we have ordered:

* The Smell of Spring
* Summer Sorbet
* Fresh Fig
* Citrus Plum Berry
* Peach Pizazz

Thanks to the feedback from Sandy Wood who was kind enough to share her thoughts with me regarding Aromatique!

We have also ordered several other new lines which will be arriving over the next few months:
* Baekgaard leather purse accessories in bright colors.
* Scentier Parfum Fragrance Lampes and Oils
* Lastly, we are expanding our Caswell-Massey lines due to your comments and strong interest to include: Men’s Verbena & Tricorn, Ladies: Almond & Aloe, English Lavender.

I also visited the Enchanted Meadow showroom and will be ordering a few of their new lines as well. So, it was a busy market and we expect Spring to be very busy at Freshbet. As always, if you have comments or suggestions, please email Bet.

Well, it’s been a long haul with Claire Burke since last July when their parent company went belly up. This is such a wonderful old brand that many of us hate to hear about these kind of problems. Last week I attended the Gift Show in Atlanta and was pleased to meet the new management: Richard is the new owner and Chuck is his 2nd man in charge. Naturally it was a pleasure to see Mark again who is now over their procurement.

Richard is a delightful man who has a long background in the fragrance industry. Essentially he has come out of retirement and bought Claire Burke/Vitabath with cash assets. He made a point of telling me this so I would know the future financial health of the company is secure. Richard told me there are 2 top priorities at this point:

1) Insure that inventory is ALWAYS available
2) Immediately start improving upon all of their candles

Naturally I was delighted to hear this and give them more suggestions for products for 2008. Here are a few recaps from our conversation:

* They tell me they will be making Original Refresher Oils available again in a non-spray format with a plastic dropper insert style top to meter the droplets out of the bottle.
* Original & Apple Jack Vapourri 2-packs ($15.00 for 2 sprays) will be available in February.
* Original Warmer Refills are promised to ship to us by January 31st, 2008.
* Apple Jack Warmer Refills are already enroute to Fresh Bet from their new Canadian warehouse. We expect these to arrive by January 25th, 2008.

There wasn’t much new to see in the Claire Burke line for Spring. Naturally they have been so busy trying to get their “sea legs” under them, they haven’t had much time for new product development. This is totally understandable and we will all try to be patient in this regard. The only new item I saw was a White Lavender Reed Diffuser, which we will be adding soon.

They are starting to focus on their Fall/Christmas lines for 2008 and have assured me that next Winter we WILL have simmer oils and many more products available in Christmas Memories and Oh Christmas Tree. They will be launching Pomegranate Plum for September 2008.

The much-awaited warmer refills in Oh Christmas Tree and Christmas Memories will be available in June 2008. We are pleased to take your pre-orders by PHONE for these items to avoid premature charges to your credit card by ordering on-line.

* We also expect Vitabath Gelee gallons to arrive this week in all 4 scents!
* I forgot to ask about the Apple Jack Simmer Oil. This is expected sometime in February. It had to be reformulated for a new Factory because the previous Canadian manufacturer decided to retire.

Richard has a lovely woman named Nikki who has apparently worked for him many years. Nikki will now be in charge of reformulating all Claire Burke candles to make them more fragrant and improve the wick quality.

All in all, it was a very productive meeting and I was able to share many of my concerns with all 3 of these gentlemen who assured me that Fresh Bet is FIRST in line for backordered product shipments. I sensed that many gift retailers have opted to drop the Claire Burke product line as a result of availability issues; please know that Fresh Bet will always offer Claire Burke because this line is so near and dear to my heart!

Fragrant Regards,
Bet aka “Freshbet”