The Wilmington Area Ice Jam on the Lower Kankakee River, January 2024.  The supplier of some of our raw materials (8% of liquid sulfate-free ingredients to be exact) has a wonderful operation off the Kankakee River in lower Illinois. Supplies are shipped to create our body wash, face off and shampoo formulas. There are no substitute for these ingredients as they comprise the base of these formulas.

According to weather.gov "a significant ice jam occurred on the lower Kankakee River in the general area of I-55 and Wilmington from January 15 to January 26, 2024. The ice jam was preceded by a period of very cold air temperatures and elevated streamflow levels. At peak extent, it is estimated that the ice jam covered an area from near Bardwell Island and the Will-Grundy county line upstream for approximately 12 miles to near Custer Park. While this ice jam was in place, multiple instances of flooding occurred at different locations along its reach. In addition to flooding, ice flow damage was also noted in some areas." Our supplier was wiped out. Everything damaged.

End of story. No? A back up supplier in Iowa was just helping to get materials moving to us a couple weeks ago when mother nature dumped a deluge of rain which triggered massive flooding. Nothing was salvageable. No joke.

So here we are in July. Everyone is still cleaning up the mess, trying to get operations back on track. We have begged, borrowed and nearly stolen ingredients to keep liquid D+L products in stock. In order to have 12 ounce and 4 ounce sizes to sell we've had to place a temporary hold on all 64 ounce refills. Though our supplies are limited for the moment, we are committed to having all sizes available again as soon as nature will allow.

We find ourselves, all of us, heading into a world that looks and feels different from the one we have known. Globalization offered us abundant resources and cheap prices. On the supply side, it is becoming more difficult to get simple ingredients, especially if they have to travel on cargo ships. Weather, pirates, tariffs, drought, fire, flood, shrinking river flows, crumbling infrastructure, all of it, now part of the U.S. supply chain equation. Thank you for understanding and for your continued support. 

"if it's not broken, don't fix it". sounds good right? yeah, but sometimes you have to look past the obvious. we look to update or repair before a product becomes outdated, and this is where our clean skin care mission begins.

anything worth having, like natural formulation technology, must improve over time, and we continue to look for ingredient options not previously available. our plan is always to keep what is best about any formula while making it better. so what does "clean skincare" mean? well, besides creating a natural alternative to mass produced bath, spa and skincare products, our formulas are focused on hydration, nutrition and efficacy. clean skin care design refers to minimal ingredients that are simple and transparent to understand while working to keep the skin and its micro biome strong and healthy. so at about the time we began planning our move to 11th street, we began testing new ideas with our formulas.

first up was the olive oil moisturizer. immensely popular for more than twenty years, this wonderful moisturizer was ready for an upgrade; meaning a superior product that works in a more natural, holistic way. P.S. in the process we exceeded the questionably low standards of the FDA

most likely you've been using the new formulas if you've purchased in the last nine months. moisturizers, shower gels, shampoos, etc. we've diminished the sudsing levels of of the wash/shampoo products but ultimately that makes it a better all around formula. it might take some getting used to but it is healthier for your skin and for our planet.

if you've ever stopped by the store on a monday or after 5pm any other day of the week, you might have been annoyed that we are closed. see what had happened was.. running the business for long hours seven days a week was just no fun. it's also unsustainable, and pragmatically speaking, unrealistic. shopping as recreation is out. working seven days a week is ridiculous. nobody needs the local soap store to be open all the time. it's easier to keep our prices low when our overhead isn't eating up all our resources. besides, knowing what we know about climate change, global resources and economic trends, how can the world possibly sustain at previous levels? the easy answer is that it won't.

the thing most never think about when it comes to their local small business is trajectory. growth, growth, growth usually leads to debt, debt, debt. it's the american way. which means that 75% of all small enterprises will close leaving proprietors with a mountain of debt that usually takes decades to pay off. ask a business owner how it's going and they will invariably tell you things are "wonderful! best year ever!" and in that same vein there is no end to the falacious excuses about why the business failed. but the simple truth is that some shit works and some shit doesn't. it's also about reach and grasp. betting on the future, or more likely, betting on a future that looks like the present or past almost never works out. we've been there. and done that.

a successful center city store should translate easily, right? a store in haddonfield. a salon. a yoga studio. they were all great endeavors and some made us money but they all sucked. mostly because we did what we thought we were supposed to do. what our society tells us we should do. to grow and grow and grow. military pilots report "no joy" when an attempt to acquire a target is unsuccessful. these failed attempts were, for us, simply "no joy". imagine how sad we were while it was all occuring yet so happy to have offloaded everything before 2020 when covid came knocking. we have the thing we value most: coming to work together at duross & langel.

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so here comes 2023

regardless of what happens here in america, a global recession is on the door step. to think it won't affect us is to blind oneself to the many sign posts along the path. regardless of what the fed continues to do to cool the economy, the way in which the world works continues to change and everything still costs more. a storm of things we've never experienced before continues to disrupt production, supply chains and goods in the marketplace. we all feel the squeeze. at duross & langel we are choosing to view both our long and short term future through the lens of sustainability.  the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.

so who knows where we will be as a business in ten years. who really cares? "can we pay ourselves? can we pay the bills? are we having any fun along the way?" those are the important questions. everything else is just noise and ego.

of course things will change when we lock the doors on the 13th street for the last time, and while we won't know what will come until it does, nothing in life ever really stays the same anyway. our mission (if that's still a thing) is to harness the best bits of our business and to build upon them while endeavoring to have a great deal of fun along the way.