Running a small business while working full-time means there isn't an endless supply of time.
- Developing & testing formulas
- Ordering supplies
- Keeping records, retesting, reformulating
- Making products
- Making labels & packaging
- Taking photos
- Working on the website & store
- Doing the boring admin stuff
And occasionally remembering that the house needs cleaning...if only there was an app for that!
So if there's a tool that can help me spend less time wading through information and more time actually doing the things I love, I'm going to use it.
🤖 AI doesn't replace the work. It helps me get to the work.
It isn’t for everyone and that’s also fine - but we aren’t here to judge either way.
I recently came across a post on Facebook in a beginners' soap support group — let's just call it that. A woman had uploaded some artwork she'd created with AI. It was lovely, it captured everything she was hoping for with her packaging and, more importantly to her, it had a personal meaning.
She explained that she was a beginner and was excited about the prospect of producing and selling her own soaps.
And then I read the comments.
There were multiple people who told her, quite explicitly, that they wouldn't buy her products or support her because she'd used AI. Some even said they couldn't look at the artwork because it was “fake”.
I'll be honest — I had to read those comments more than once. I was genuinely shocked.
Not because everyone has to like AI. They don't. People are absolutely entitled to decide that they don't want to use AI in their own business, or that they don't want to buy products where AI has been involved.
What bothered me was the way the criticism was delivered.
This woman had shared something she was excited about. She was a beginner who was trying to turn an idea into something real. And instead of simply saying “AI isn't for me”, people were telling her they wouldn't support her because she'd chosen to use it.
I left the group. Because surely there's room in a beginners' group for beginners to… well… begin.
We don't all have to do things the same way. One person might draw their own artwork. Someone else might use Canva. Someone might pay a graphic designer. Someone else might use AI. Someone might use a combination of all four.
None of those choices tells you whether they make beautiful soap.
And that's really my point.
Please don't judge people for how they choose to operate their business.
Everyone has their own story they're trying to write.
You don't have to write it the way I would write mine.
If I can spend 15 minutes asking AI to help me:
“I've found six different answers to this question. Can you help me understand what they're actually saying?” - instead of spending three hours trying to untangle it myself...That's three hours I can potentially spend making, testing, researching properly, photographing, writing or developing the business.
I'm not using AI to avoid doing the work — I'm using it to avoid wasting time on work that a tool can help me do more efficiently.
That's a very different proposition.
It's a bit like asking someone why they don't hand wash all their clothes when they have a perfectly good washing machine.
Or asking why we use Google to research something instead of going to the library and reading ten books before we find the information we're looking for.
The tool doesn't do the thinking for you, it just helps you get to the information you need more efficiently. To me it is just that - a tool.
And that's how I use AI.
Besides, if I insisted on doing everything the old-fashioned way, I'd have to give up my washing machine, my dishwasher, my iPad and probably the internet……and I'm not ready for that level of commitment!
- The products still have to be made
- The ingredients still have to be measured
- The batches still have to be tested
- The decisions still have to be made
- The mistakes still belong to me 😂
Our branding is our own, our ideas are our own, our recipes are our own.
My cartoons….completely and unashamedly AI, because I can’t draw!! And I'm ok with that.
