Mulhenberg Summer Festival- Day 2

The second night was much slower in sales than the first. But the weather was beautiful and the music was polka. This means the crowd wants to be outside, riding rides, playing bingo, and listening to music. Quite a few people came through the craft tents, but not many bought. In general it was the night for oddball questions. Like picking up a bar of soap and asking me what to do with it. When I responded "you bathe with it", she looked at me and said "So this is real soap?!". Hmmm… no its plastic and you just put it out in your soap dish in your bathroom, like people put out wax fruit, or the plastic sushi in the restaurant window… sometimes I wonder what people are thinking…

B came by because we are sharing a booth at the Allentown Fair and she is worried about answering people's questions. I am typing out a bunch of cue cards that she can look though and find answers to most of the questions that pop up. But really, 99% of the people who ask, really don't care about the answer, they just want to see if you sound like you know what you are talking about. If you do, they buy, if you don't, they don't, but very few know the right answer to the questions they are asking anyway. And probably 50% of people, who think they know the answer, are wrong anyway, and no amount of information spouting from my mouth will change their minds.
One of my favorites are those who think there is a thing such as lye-free soap (btw, ALL soap is made with lye, and ALL soap is lye free if it is made properly because the lye is converted in the chemical process to soap and glycerin) but they believe that you can make soap without lye. No amount of sending them to the FDA web site will change their minds about that one either. But my most favorites is "hypoallergenic". People come in and ask if my soaps are hypoallergenic, to which I reply "yes, but that is not a 100% guarantee that it won't bother you". Some appreciate my honesty, some tell me outright "than its not hypoallergenic". Here's a little info from the FDA:

"Hypoallergenic cosmetics are products that manufacturers claim produce fewer allergic reactions than other cosmetic products. Consumers with hypersensitive skin, and even those with "normal" skin, may be led to believe that these products will be gentler to their skin than non-hypoallergenic cosmetics. There are no Federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term "hypoallergenic." The term means whatever a particular company wants it to mean. Manufacturers of cosmetics labeled as hypoallergenic are not required to submit substantiation of their hypoallergenicity claims to FDA. The term "hypoallergenic" may have considerable market value in promoting cosmetic products to consumers on a retail basis, but dermatologists say it has very little meaning."

I could print this out and hand it to them, but it still wouldn't change their minds. It means that they've been lied to by whatever brand they are using now and are loyal to, and no one wants to admit they have been lied to by someone or something they love and believe in.