Education was big component of the year. The year started in January with both attending and learning at the United States Lavender Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. At this conference, I also gave a workshop on distilling lavender. This was co-taught with Sandra Shuff of Positively Aromatic. I also took a class on Essential Oil Pharmacology and Skin by Marco Valussi through the Alliance of International Aromatherapy.
Two middle school groups studying entrepreneurship toured our business as part of their coursework.
Several interns worked with us this year to learn about herbs and farming. These interns came from the Colorado School for Clinical Herbalism, Nutrition Therapy Institute and Herbalism Roots in Denver. We love having students join us in our work.
Several esthetician classes came to our shop and heard about our products and about Holistic Esthetics. They also toured our production facility. I taught a spring class in our store on Herbal Teas and hope to do so again soon.
We did several farm tours over the summer, both for garden groups and other private groups and then a public tour for our customers in September. We did a farm class / tour for teens where we discussed herbs used for stress. We had a great farm yoga class during the summer and hope to repeat that this upcoming summer.
We were invited as vendors for UC Health, Women’s Wellness (Evre) day at the Bronco training facility. That was a lot of fun being there in the training facility. We also vended at the Colorado Lavender Festival in Palisade Colorado. As members of the Boulder County Farmers Markets we did farmers markets in Longmont and Boulder over the summer. In fact, this was our 10th year as Farmers Market members.
Summer this year was strenuous and difficult but we persisted. We had a frost in June and a frost in September with extreme heat in the middle. This left us with a very short growing season. Our crop yield was quite low, especially for calendula, lavender, and squashes. We are hoping to make that up this next summer.
Our retail sales, wholesale accounts and consulting jobs all increased.
We were happy to have received a good amount of press in 2019. Here are a few of the highlights.
Our brand was mentioned in an article in Martha Stewart Weddings. During the summer, we had supplied the wedding favors (lotions, lip balms, and spritzers) for the couple’s wedding in Aspen. It was a pleasant surprise when we saw the article in Martha Stewart. Blythe Copeland, Wedding in the Colorado Mountains Was Planned in Just Two Months (in the bag, wedding favors), Martha Stewart Weddings. December 19, 2019.
Martha Mintz, a writer for John Deere (yes, the tractor company) magazines contacted us wanting to do an article featuring us and the pairing of farming with lab oriented skin care production. This is a great article about our Farm to Skin philosophy. Martha Mintz, The Beauty of Farming. John Deere, Homestead Magazine (print magazine), December 2019.
Authority magazine did a series of articles on Women in Wellness and I was featured in one of those. Authority Magazine, Dr. William Seeds, Women in Wellness with Dr. Cindy Jones, October 31, 2019.
Voyage Denver magazine did a series of articles about Colorado business owners and entrepreneurs and I was featured in one of those. Voyage Denver. Meet Dr. Cindy Jones of Colorado Aromatics in Longmont.
Our products were sent to several makeup artists in the film industry this year to try. It was a lot of fun to hear from them. We know that actors including Helen Hunt and Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard) have used and loved our products!
We began the first steps of the program through the City of Longmont to become recognized as a Sustainable Business and also partnered with Sustainable, Resilient Longmont on some events. Charities we supported included the Sierra Club and American Institute for Cancer Research as well as many local charities.
We are making plans for the upcoming year for workshops, farmers markets and classes. But one thing that happened, although not business related, was this puppy adoption! Meet Callie. She’ll probably get us out hiking a bit this summer!
Here’s hoping for an even better 2020! Happy New Year.