Nikki's Blog

I hate the canned meat and the junk email called spam!! I don't know to many who like either but I lately I would have much rather had the canned pork each day for lunch the past month and a half than attacking my store and rendering my business lifeless. This past month (beginning April 4th to be exact) SPAM has run rampant through my business emails. Not until a couple of weeks ago did we realize despite the hundreds of junk emails we were deleting each day there where still thousands still lurking in the que preventing REAL emails to come in. We have about 15 different business email addresses based on service and five major ones were attacked with an average of 1000 spams a day. Half were still bypassing filters and the other half were overloading spam folders. In other words, it's been a nightmare. We are changing our email addresses and placing a captcha contact form to help alleviate the invasion so we may be able to conduct business more timely. For those customers, reps, affiliates and inquires who have been affected by us not returning emails I sincerly apologize. Hopefully we have emailed everyone back with an explaination about our delayed reponse. If we haven't answered your email or processed your order within a week the email may have been deleted in error. Please resend your email. With this expensive and long lesson we have some tips from our webhost and things we learned along the way to help you prevent an attack on your email:

1. Use a Black & White List: This is something I have been trying to avoid for a while now because as a business sometimes even my reponse emails are sent to customer's spam. It's frustrating because I want them to know I responded but when the reponse comes back undeliverable.
2. Have at least 2 email addresses. Have a strictly personal email address for friends and use the black & white list. Use the other email address for other things and always add the email address to your safe list for people you are requesting a response from.
3. Greylisting: A temporary email rejection. This is something we are considering for our personal email addresses. Here is a little more info on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting).
   
4. Make your email adress as weird as possible. It is less likely you will be picked up by a Spam list. For example Sam123@hotmail.com is more likely to be targeted than 123Sam44@hotmail.com.
   
5. If you have a business, blog or are part of a social network do not publish your email or have link to your address. This will prevent computer generated emails if your email address is published as Sam(at)hotmail(dot)com than Sam@hotmail.com. Make sure businesses state they will not share your email address or publish it if it is a social network.
6. Report it or Unsubscribe. This can be a pain but it will be helpful. Report constant emails from overtly porographic websites immediately. For sites you visited or purchased from you may have been added to their mail list automatically. I would just unsubscribe. If you still receive emails after unsubscribing I would then report as spam.

We would love to hear if you have any additional tips to battle Spam.

This month and next month Nikki Makes Scents teamed up with several different companies to offer samples as a part of their sampler boxes. I love to try out products and getting a bunch of different samples in one box is a fantastic way to sample the many online businesses where one usually can't physically touch or smell them. I have contributed votives, lotions, perfume oils, body butter and soap samples. The soap samples aren't in my regular line yet. I was trying out new designs and with scents like Raspberry Ice and Fig & Sweet Almond (Yum). Usually there are between 10-20 different samples per box depending on the company. Look for us at:

• Home of the Sampler for their April box
• The Little Black Box on sale April 24th
• In the Company of Sistas in their May box

I love this planet. Since I was a small child many people thought I was somewhat strange with my obsession to keep it clean. I would frown upon people that would litter or run behind my friends and family if they dared throw a piece of paper or wrapper on the ground. In my 20's I lectured my girlfriends on the environmental benefits of cloth diapers. And I even drove an electric car in the early years of the millennium before it was "en vogue" or gas spiked to $4. I must admit though, as I have gotten older, busier and less bold, I haven't been as proactive as I should be. It seems the more "natural" it is the more expensive it is. One would think that getting something straight out of the ground than manufacturing it would be simpler and cheaper but that isn't the case. As micro-mini business it is even more difficult to remain environmentally friendly in all aspects. Nonetheless, I try my best.

For the past 4 months this phenomenon called Facebook has quickly consumed my web time. On days I should be updating my website instead I'm scanning old pics of old friends to try to out embarrass one another. Also, trying remember last names to find old friends and instead old acquaintances are requesting friendship and I'm trying to figure who they are. Applications, pictures, wall comments and chat have had me on the site until the wee hours of the morning.

Now that the newness has subsided and finally figured out how to make a fan page I invite you all to become fans. I'm sure most of you are already on Facebook already and if your not join this fun addiction of keeping in touch with old friends, classmates, relatives and favorite businesses.


Anyone who becomes a fan of our page will automatically receive 15% off their next order over $25.00
Now back to Faceboo....err I mean making the candles!

Happy New Year!! We are starting this year with an old favorite of the NMS staff. Grandma's Kitchen is one of the first scents we choose when we started this business and we were surprised it was never introduced as a Scent of the Month until now. A warm "homey" fragrance it is still popular 11 years later.

Labels: grandma's kitchen, scent of the month

Happy Holidays!! We received the nicest thank you from our winners of the 50 free candles. I think they enjoyed smelling them as much as we enjoyed making them. Here is a little excerpt:

Labels: contest, winners