Tweet Share Share Share Share Share

August 16, 2013

Start a Organic Hair Care Products Business






Many health- and environment-conscious consumers are seeking organic products for all aspects of their lives, including their hair care products. As the organic hair care product industry continues to grow, so does the business potential.
If you have knowledge in organic hair care products, or if this is something you're interested in learning about, an organic hair care products small business can be an interesting career with good earning potential.

Pros
The benefits of starting an organic hair care product business include:
·         There is a growing demand for organic products.
·         Your business can be entirely home-based.
·         It's a good type of business to operate part-time.
·         You have several options for selling, including through retail markets, online, or directly to clients.
·         You have a wide variety of products to choose from to sell as a distributor.
·         There is a good growth potential because you can add products and services as they are developed.
Cons
Some of the potential challenges you may face if you start an organic hair care products business include:
·         Your startup costs can be high if you're developing and producing products on your own.
·         You will need to do significant research on products before starting your business.
·         The learning curve for developing products can be steep.
·         Your competition may be large distributors.
·         You need to have expert knowledge in beauty products.
·         You will need to learn about organic ingredients and how they interact with hair and skin types.
·         You will need space for development and production.

Making your own organic hair products at home is easy and saves money in the long run.

Oily Hair Pre-Shampoo Conditioner

This conditioner works to control excess oil 
while soothing the scalp and hair roots.

Ingredients

·         1 1/2 cup jojoba oil
·         ¾ cup lemon juice
·         3 teaspoons brown sugar
·         7 drops sage essential oil
·         7 drops tea tree essential oil
·         5 drops rosemary essential oil

Directions

1.     Combine all ingredients in a clean glass jar with a lid.
2.     Apply the mixture to dry, unwashed hair, beginning at the scalp and massaging into the roots. Rub the oil using downward strokes away from the scalp. This seals the hair follicle.
3.     Comb the hair through completely.
4.     Follow the treatment with a mild organic shampoo. Massage the shampoo into the hair, adding water slowly until all the oil dissolves. Lather well and rinse as usual.
5.     Towel dry your hair by scrunching, and style as usual.
6.     Use this mixture 2-3 times per week for best results.

Herbal Shampoo For All Hair Types


This is a suds-free hair wash that leaves hair soft, shiny and remarkably clean. Although you 
may not have heard of some of these ingredients, they are readily available online or at most 
natural health stores.

Ingredients

·         ¼ cup bhringaraj, powdered
·         ¼ cup gotu kola herb
·         ¼ cup powdered lavender buds
·         ¼, cup neem, powdered
·         Purified water

Directions

1.     Place first four ingredients in a resealable plastic bag and shake well.
2.     When ready to use, boil 1 cup of purified water and remove from heat.
3.     Add 2 teaspoons of the herb blend to the hot water.
4.     Cover mixture and allow it to sit for five minutes.
5.     Stir the mixture thoroughly.
6.     Wet hair completely.
7.     Poor ½ cup of the mixture on your head and massage the scalp for two minutes.
8.     Repeat with the remaining mixture and rinse well.

Leave-In Rosemary Conditioning Rinse

This simple fragrance rinse stimulates limp hair and leaves a 
lasting fresh fragrance. Be careful when using this rinse as it 
may stain light-colored towels.

Ingredients

·         4 cups of purified water
·         1 teaspoon borax
·         ½ cup dried rosemary

Directions

1.     Bring water to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan.
2.     Add the borax and the rosemary and stir well. Remove from heat.
3.     Cover and let steep for two hours.
4.     Pour 1 cup over head and massage into the scalp.
5.     Do not rinse out.
6.     Store in the refrigerator for seven days, and then throw away the unused portion.


Show Your Hair How Much You Care


When you make your own organic hair products, you will be nourishing your locks with natural goodness instead of draining them of life. Your hair will thank you by being shiny, soft and easy to style.



Read more »
Tweet Share Share Share Share Share

August 12, 2013

Blog Consulting Business
  •  


A blog (also called a weblog or web log) is a website consisting of entries (also called posts) , usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video appearing in reverse chronological order with the most recent entry appearing first (similar in format to a daily journal).

 Blogs typically include features such as comments and linksto increase user interactivity. Blogs are created using specific publishing software.

Variations of the term blog:
  •       Blogging: The act of writing a post for a blog
  •       Blogger: A person who writes content for a blog
  •      Blogosphere: The online community of blogs and bloggers

Blogs Today:

As the Internet has become more social, blogs have gained in popularity. Today, there are over 100 million blogs with more entering the blogosphere everyday. Blogs have become more than online diaries. In fact, blogging has become an important part of the online and offline worlds with popular bloggers impacting the worlds of politics, business and society with their words.

The Future of Blogs:

It seems inevitable that blogging will become even more powerful in the future with more people and businesses recognizing the power of bloggers as online influencers. Anyone can start a blog thanks to the simple (and often free) tools readily available online. The question will likely become not, "Why should I start a blog?" but rather, "Why shouldn't I start a blog?"

Blogs are one of the most common ways for both individuals and businesses to create a distinctive "voice" online. In fact, there are over 27 million blog that use the WordPress platform alone.
The popularity of blogging brings regular changes and improvements to the technology, and for the novice user, this can create a sense of overwhelm and an inability to use the tools to their maximum potential.
If you are a blogging expert, you can create a very lucrative business by providing blog consulting support to all types of bloggers.

The Pros

Some of the reasons you may want to consider starting a blog consulting business include:
·         Startup costs are minimal.
·         You can offer support in any or all areas of blogging including, setup, customization, marketing and content writing.
·         You can tap into your creative passions while helping your clients.
·         You have a broad target market at your disposal, including personal bloggers, small business blogs, corporate blogs, etc.
·         Your business can be entirely home-based.
·         You can work as much as you want, whenever you want.
·         You can offer ongoing services to your clients, creating steady income.

The Cons

Some of the potential challenges of starting a blog consulting business include:
·         You must have expert skill, knowledge and experience with all types of blogs and blog platforms.
·         You have to be able to explain technical processes in non-technical terms.
·         You may have to include an element of education about why blogs are beneficial in your sales pitch.
·         The competition may be stiff, depending on your target market.
·         It can take a while to establish a solid client base.


5 Elements to Start a Blog Successfully

 

When you make the decision to start a blog, it's likely that you want people to visit it. In other words, you want to start a blog that has a good chance of being successful. Even your mother won't visit your blog if it's boring. Follow the 5 elements of successful blogs below to ensure you're on the right track from the moment you create a blog.


1. Personality

Your blog should reflect your personality and who you are. If it reads like dull news, it's unlikely that people will want to return again and again. Inject your personality into yourblog posts. Write like you speak. Make your blog posts conversational. Use your unique voice to tell your story in each and every blog post. Your unique voice is what makes your blog personable and interesting.


2. Opinion

One of the key components of your personality and unique voice is your opinion on topics related to your blog's overall subject matter. Don't be afraid to inject your personal opinions into your blog posts. Without your opinions, your blog posts will read like news stories. What make a blog interesting is the personal opinions of the blogger behind it.


3. Participation

Don't just publish a blog post and forget about it. The strength of a blog comes from the community that evolves around it. In order to grow the community on your blog, your readers need to feel like they are participating in a 2-way conversation. If someone leaves a comment, respond to it. If a reader emails you directly with a legitimate question or comment, respond to that person. Make your readers feel important by talking with them, not just at them.


4. Value

Your blog needs to bring something useful or interesting to readers or there is no point in their visiting. In other words, your blog needs to add value to readers' lives for them to take the time to read what you have to say. You can add value by publishing posts that provide more than just news recaps or a list of links to other websites and blogs. Your blog posts need to actually say something unique in your own voice, with your own opinions, and in a conversational manner.


5. Availability

Don't publish a blog post and then disappear for a week or month. Successful blogs are updated frequently Readers grow to rely on them for the useful information, valuable commentary, or engaging conversations that happen on your blog. If readers can't rely on you to be there when they visit with new content or conversations, they'll look elsewhere.

Read more »
Tweet Share Share Share Share Share

August 10, 2013

MUSHROOM FARMING


mushroom




A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source.
Mushroom farming  takes a knack and careful attention to important cultural details. Whether you’re considering building a large commercial Agaricus facility or growing a few Shiitake logs in the barn, profitable mushroom farming, like raising any farm crop, is a just a matter of hard work and careful procedures.

Organisms that support the mushroom bloom must be made to grow, and those that can spoil crops must be halted. Successful mushroom farming on any level is about establishing the procedures that ensure the right balance of control.
Even the seasonal mushroom growers who do not use climate-controlled environments have to maintain a strict adherence to bed preparation and mycelial growth procedures.

One key to any new mushroom-growing operation is good record keeping. As new growers experiment with different techniques in an effort to find the most productive methods for their farm, good records will allow them to more easily duplicate their most successful attempts
Create a Mushroom Growing Medium 
The mushrooms we see on top of the surface are the fruits of plants made up of thin, thread like cells called mycelium. Just as tomatoes are the fruit of tomato plants, mushrooms are the fruit of organisms that spend most of their lives in the form of a mycelium.

The basis of any mushroom-growing operation is the growing medium that supports this mycelium.
Mushroom fungi are saprophytic, which means that they eat dead plants rather than produce chlorophyll to trap energy from the sun like common green plants. They do not grow well in regular soil, but prefer more fiber-filled environments.

There are two basic categories of cultivated mushrooms: 
  • those that prefer composted materials, like Agaricus (button mushrooms), and
  • those that prefer woody or straw-type mediums, like Pleurotis (oyster mushrooms) and Shiitake mushrooms.

Types of Growing Mediums

Most U.S. commercial growers produce button mushrooms in tiered beds of compost that are housed in climate-controlled rooms. A fair amount of European farmers grow crops on hay bales in darkened greenhouses. Many Asian farmers grow their crops in rooms full of thousands of glass jars filled with spent barley husks. Tall plastic bags of straw are hung from the ceiling in some other facilities.

Many growers are now growing their crops on cut tree logs, either inside or in outdoor, open sheds. Probably the most popular new method is to grow mushrooms in plastic bags filled with sawdust. New growers can take their choice of designing a system that fits their situation, or following the methods of an established grower.

The basic requirements are the same: Growers must provide a controlled medium on which the mycelial growth can spread.

It’s no surprise then that a grower’s ability to locate a steady supply of the base materials they use to prepare their growing medium is a key point.

A nearby dairy farm, a field-crop refuse supply, or a relatively inexpensive source such as animal fodder or processing waste, are all possible material sources. Smaller growers may weigh the cost of slightly more expensive materials such as stove pellets or feed cubes.

Have You Developed a Marketing Plan?

Market research, potential customer interviews and the design of product packaging systems should all occur before the first crop is inoculated.

New growers will have a difficult time competing against established outfits. Instead, new growers must find a niche market, which is likely to be the small local grocer or farmer’s market. New growers may also be able to find a spot in the value-added marketplace by incorporating their mushrooms into a cooked food product.

The demand for specialty mushrooms is booming these days. Portobellos are particularly hot right now, but that’s a difficult type to grow if you don’t already have a large compost-type facility. There’s no doubt that mushrooms are popular with consumers. 

Historically, mushrooms were considered a food for the aristocrats, and both the Romans and Egyptians considered them the “food of the gods.” Since the first large-scale European mushroom cultivation in the limestone caves near Paris in the 18th century, mushrooms have been growing in popularity, and today U.S. mushroom consumption is around 750 million pounds per year.
Mushroom-growing industries are springing up in many countries around the world including Mexico and Bolivia. Huge quantities of mushrooms are grown for the Asian market, which is the largest in the world. Asian consumers also are devout believers in the medicinal value of mushrooms—over 50 different species are regularly prescribed by Chinese doctors.

Understanding Commercial Mushroom Varieties

There are two main types of mushrooms: mycelial and mycorrhizzal. Essentially all the cultivated types are mycelial and can grow wherever there is an appropriate growing medium.

Mycorrhizzal types need to grow in association with the roots of a living plant or tree. Morels, chanterelles and truffles are examples of mycorrhizzal types. There are some efforts to develop systems for growing truffles and morels, but essentially all of the commercially cultivated mushrooms are of the mycelial type.


If the idea of mushroom farming appeals to you, there’s no better time to get started. A bit of research, a little Yankee ingenuity, and you’ll be ready to start producing delicious mushrooms.

Some great Sites
Ø  www.gmushrooms.com
Ø  www.mushroommadventures.com
Ø  www.naturalmushrooms.com

Read more »
Tweet Share Share Share Share Share

August 09, 2013
Mr. Sinha wanted know the accrued interest and the latest amount of his investments for accounting and income tax purposes. Mr. Sinha is having a few long tenure FDs and every year he is supposed to mention the accrued interest in his ‘Computation of Income ‘ and the latest vale of his investments (including the accrued interest )in his balance sheet. For an FD booked on 21st December, the calculation of ‘accrued interest’ till 31st of March was really perturbing for him. Though Mr. Sinha was not bad in maths but he found all these calculations quite annoying and he decided to search for some online calculator which calculates the accrued interest between two dates that too with the quarterly compounding option. To make the job for people like Mr. Sinha easy, I created a simple Online Fixed Deposit (FD) Interest Calculator. When a user feeds principal, coupon rate (or interest rate), desired dates and the compounding periodicity (the default option is 4 as generally interest is compounded quarterly), he gets accrued interest and the latest amount of his investment.

Online FD Interest Calculator
www.iforp.in Investment For Prosperity
Principal
Enter Interest Rate %
Compounding Periodicity
Enter First Date (mm/dd/yyyy)
Enter Second Date (mm/dd/yyyy)
Accumulated Interest
Amount

NB: This is a Javascript application and shall work only when your browser settings and security 
softwares allow it to run.
Read more »
Tweet Share Share Share Share Share

August 04, 2013

What so far prevented the fall of Indian Rupee?


Having written previous two posts on the fall of Indian currency earlier (1 & 2), I shall now capture salient reasons responsible for the Indian rupee’s recent steep fall.

First, we should know that earlier rupee was not depreciating against the US dollar because US dollar itself was falling due to continuous bouts of Quantitative Easing or QE.


Why US Fed Reserve cutting down on QE?

QE is supposed to boost an economy and when the US economy started recovering this QE was supposed to be shunned. This means no new dollar will be printing.
Not only that, but if US economy further improves then the printed money too shall be destroyed electronically.

Simply put, to boost the US economy, US Federal Reserve was printing dollars. Thus more dollars ensured that Indian rupee did not fall significantly against the US dollar.
But things started to change when US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke hinted on discontinuing the QE and discontinuing QE means USA will no more injecting the money into the financial system by buying its treasury products.
So, no more fresh inflow of dollars and as per the Demand & Supply rule Rupee started facing the downward pressure.

The Indian Rupee’s steep depreciation against the US Dollar started since May 2013
But US Dollar has not consolidated in this period!!!




The US dollar-index chart shows that there was no significant strengthening in the US dollar since May 2013.
Under the QE programme US Federal Reserve was injecting $ 85 billion of liquidity per month into the financial system by buying back its treasury products and this inflow of dollar was holding the Indian Rupee as a part of it was coming to India. 


Why Indian Rupee is Depreciating?

(1)   Rising CAD: The main reason for the weakening of the currency of a nation is the Current account deficit CAD. Simply put, when a nation imports more than what it exports CAD gets generated due to negative BOP.
India predominantly imports crude oil, gold and coal. To run its economy India needs to import crude oil and coal but the import of gold is not at all a productive one.
As dollar being the reserve currency, higher imports mean higher spending of dollar and as a result rupee keeps on weakening.
Great demand of dollars from importers especially OMCs pressurized the rupee.


(2)   Higher demand for gold: Rising corruption In India and generation of huge black money ensured the flow of funds into the real estate and gold.
This is why import of gold kept on increasing and it inflated the CAD. And to tame this, Indian government came up with hiking the import duty on gold and silver.
Rising gold prices and the weakening of a few major global economies made gold as a safe haven and Indians started hoarding gold in the anticipation of lucrative returns.

(3)   The Negative Spiral: When Indian economy was growing at higher levels, foreign money was flowing in and due to this inflow, Indian rupee was strengthening but when Indian economy started to struggle owing to higher interest rates, this foreign money started fleeing resulting in weaker rupee.

Not only funds from the equity market are being withdrawn but foreign investors have also started selling Indian debt instruments and this is why 10 year benchmark bond’s yield has started increasing. The yield of a bond increases when the price of that bond starts decreasing (due to the selling pressure).

The catch 22 situation:  Indian Economy shall grow when interest rates shall come down along with headline inflation falling to RBIs comfort level but the already fallen rupee prevents the RBI to cut policy rates and reserve ratios fearing further beating of the Rupee (Explained in detail here).

Simply put, a fall in policy rates reduces the price of bonds carrying higher coupon rates and this situation makes foreign investors to redeem their debt instruments fearing value erosion in their debt portfolio. Such redemptions take the dollars out of India and as a result rupee starts depreciating.
This was the reason despite inflation being tamed,no rates cut took place. 

(4)   Preventive Measures Going Awry

RBI not only retained the current policy rates but it also raised the short term lending rates to prevent  Indian commercial banks  from using this money to buy dollars as dollar buying weakens the Indian rupee. 
This was the RBIs way of curbing speculation in the currency market by the liquidity tightening.
RBI increased the MSF (Marginal Standing Facility) rate by 200 basis points to 10.25 %. At MSF rates banks can borrow up to 1 % of their Net Demand and Time Liabilities. Banks use this facility to meet their emergency liquidity needs.
RBI also capped bank borrowing limit from its Repo window to Rs. 750 billion.
But these moves deteriorated the sentiment in the market as this move was supposed to raise the fund cost for businesses and as a result economy could be further pressurized eventually resulting in further lowering of the GDP growth rate.
This move resulted in heavy selling in banking stocks by FIIs and with this departure of foreign money Indian Rupee continued its southern journey.


(5)   Infrastructural Growth:  For a growing economy, infrastructure growth is a must. But for this infrastructure growth a significant amount of imports are necessary.
Telecom and other equipments, various machineries etc demand for a substantial dollar outlay. Rising power demand in India translates into more and more dependence on the imported coal and natural gas and higher imports means higher trade deficit and weakening currency.

(6)   FDI Policy Paralysis:  To hold the rupee, foreign money that too FDI is a requisite but lack of timely FDI reforms hindered the inflow of foreign money in the country.
Now government is mulling to further liberalise the FDI policy but the fruits of this FDI easing shall come only in medium to long period. For the time being such move can only improve the market sentiment.

(7)   Money Outflow from the Capital Markets: In the month of June and July FIIs were net sellers worth around $ 2.83 billion. This outflow of dollars came heavily on the Indian rupee. 

Read more »
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Powered by Blogger.