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Indian Summer, Sleepy Lagoon, & Listening When Folks Say "Hey..."

Posted by Hayley on

Alright, my little windfall peaches, let's talk about Indian Summer. I mentioned during the Weenie launch madness that this would be the last year I will be offering that PBSW OG blend, & here's the skinny:

On a practical level, I am at the bottom of the bottle of my favorite, long-discontinued blackberry single note, & have yet to find a replacement that makes me remotely happy. On a more important level, though, some of you have reached out about the name itself, & it's my responsibility as a creator to listen & adjust.

Every one of us carries nostalgic, romantic, deeply emotional connections to words, terms, names, & phrases. Part of a shared culture is the joint understanding of a fragment of language as conveying so much more than its literal meaning. This is social shorthand, & I lean on it a lot in my scent names & descriptions to transport you into the worlds I've created in my mind. It is powerful & delicious & a key part of the magic.

But our shared culture isn't the only culture, & it's certainly not the trump card in a non existent game of who-gets-to-say.

When I'm doing scent development, I make a point of doing some creative Googling to see what associations surface in connection with my going concepts. I'm looking for several red flags: the potential to step on another indie maker's existing work; copyright constraints & Big Beauty affiliation; & any obvious connections to fascism, racism, bigotry, or related bullshit. I also look deeper, for more nuanced concerns of exoticism, imperialism, appropriation, & other Why-Are-White-People shenanigans. Writing it out looks pretty daunting, but while it's definitely work, it's not difficult to take a moment to do some cultural vetting before I release a new scent.

Even with this work, I sometimes miss a critical association when researching a blend for launch; Sleepy Lagoon is a prime example, & I am grateful to the PBSW community for alerting me to the term's weighted and deadly meaning to the Latinx community in Los Angeles.

But sometimes, blends have been part of the PBSW wallpaper for so long, I don't see them through a critical lens, & I miss a really blatant & obvious offense.

The term Indian summer is so deep in my Anglophile vernacular, & conjures such vivid and welcome associations, that I have worked with it in my catalog for over a decade without seeing it for what it arguably is: an offensive term rooted in anti-Native American racism. It is the season that gives way to cooler temperatures, only to take it back, like the "untrustworthy Indian" stereotype that pervades both outdated frontier American narratives & modern policy discourse on Native tribal sovereignty.

I am deeply thankful to the PBSW fans who called me to task on perpetuating this slur, for their work to demonstrate the harm done by this & similar terms, & for their confidence in my ability to see & correct my mistake. And I'm thankful for you, for reading this & for taking a moment to consider how anti-Native American bias & appropriation exists and thrives in white spaces, particularly in the creative & witchcraft/occult/New Age communities, & how we can work to dismantle it.

The Black Hound of Holiday Madness

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! While the turkey is defrosting & the pies are being planned, let's talk about what's undoubtedly on a lot of people's minds this week: Black Friday!The long & the short of it is this:No, there will be no gobsmackingly huge Black Friday discounts, sales, or coupon codes at PBSW. There never are.If [...]

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One of the absolute best perks of MakerLife(tm) is getting to meet other amazing Makers, & one of my favorite is the incandescent Lucy Bellwood, adventure cartoonist, part time Muppet, & overall spectacular human being. Lucy & I sat down for a real & rambling chat a few weeks ago about Benedictine labor, code switching, from-not-of syndrome, [...]

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From the PBSW Archives: 20K Gold, or How I Sold a Truly Ridiculous Amount of Soap on Etsy, or The Part Where She Bangs on the Table A Lot

Originally published July 25, 2015: Well, kids, here it is, the day I hit 20 THOUSAND sales in my Etsy shop! What. The. HECK. When I opened my shop 5 1/2 years ago, I never expected to sell more than a few bars of soap, let alone quit my day job & build an empire. But, thanks to some major [...]

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From the PBSW Archives: Hanging out with How I Pinch a Penny!

Originally published September 23, 2014:My friend Sarah, the tireless force of nature behind How I Pinch a Penny, invited me to her couch to talk all things Etsy, self employment, micro business and more! Check out two smart women talking shop & working the jazz hands!

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From the PBSW Archives: Selling out without selling out

Originally published September 3, 2014:So hey, I just wanted to publicly thank everyone for what is amounting to a a batshit INSANE opening week to the 2014 Weenie season. Seriously, that’s a whole lot of soap, & I am incredibly grateful for your enthusiasm & support!I also wanted to apologize for the speed at which [...]

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From the PBSW Archives: A word on FDA regulations, or Why I Can’t Cure Your Pentapox…

Originally published June 14, 2012:Buckle in, kids, this post’s a heavy one…Some of you may remember my venting a bit on Twitter a few weeks ago about trying to help a fellow seller navigate the waters of FDA regulations. Ultimately, it was wasted effort – the seller in question decided to ignore my advice – [...]

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From the PBSW Archives: We got Green!

Originally published April 27, 2012:The weather gods were more than kind last weekend, making this year’s Go Green in the City festival a bright, sunny success! This was my first public festival, and I owe a ton of thanks to my tireless friends & family who helped me set up & stay calm… Matt & [...]

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From the PBSW Archives: Avast!

Originally published July 26, 2011:I find it more than a little bittersweet that I launched a scent inspired by my love of reading just as the sun began to set on one of the giants of retail books. For those of you who missed the press releases, Borders will be closing its remaining stores by [...]

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