Which is the process to start selling soap in your country?

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fotini22284

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Hi everyone! Recently I started thinking of the idea to sell my creations... Maybe not now, like tomorrow, but till next summer to open a small business. The thing is that... nobody can inform me on how to do this. Some told me that there has to be validation from the national drugs organisation (2000 euro fees for every single product in advance), some through transformation of agricultural products but not for sure... Soapmakers already running a business do not share the secret...Right now I am really diasappointed and frustrated!!! So here's the question... how this thing works in your country? I live in Greece by the way....
 
Iknow it makes no difference...it was more of aretorical question to people with same interests. But I am really angry with all the things happening in this country nowdays (dept, crisis, unemployment), and I think that is unacceptable in situtations like that to not even been able to inform someone who wants to run a business and support local economy....
 
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Who have you talked to? If you don't find the right contact person, you can't possibly expect to get the answers you need.
 
If I were you I would go first to the local government. The city hall and start asking there - try the city clerk first. If they can not help you they will at least tell you who can.
 
Who have you talked to? If you don't find the right contact person, you can't possibly expect to get the answers you need.

One week before I went to the nation drug org for infos... the employer said that for a business like that I had to hire a chemist to be supervisor of the production procedure.... But... there are local agricultural org. that produce soap, oil, jams etc. that they certainly don't have a chemist... my other sources were tax instructors, other soapmakers...
Iforgot to mention that I am a pharmacy student, at univercity.... handmade products are unhealthy and should not be produced excep of a scientific environment....
Am I crazy or the greek summer drove crazy all others???? wondering....

Who have you talked to? If you don't find the right contact person, you can't possibly expect to get the answers you need.


I will follow your advise, if I still get no answers, I will start thinking moving to US...:p
 
One week before I went to the nation drug org for infos... the employer said that for a business like that I had to hire a chemist to be supervisor of the production procedure.... But... there are local agricultural org. that produce soap, oil, jams etc. that they certainly don't have a chemist

So ask those agricultural orgs what they do. They are already in the business you wish to enter, in the area you wish to sell, and probably have some advice.

handmade products are unhealthy and should not be produced excep of a scientific environment....
Am I crazy or the greek summer drove crazy all others???? wondering....

Well....I disagree fairly strongly with your statement that handmade products are unhealthy if not made in a "scientific" environment. I'm going to assume the translation of "scientific environment" to mean "a lab setting" since otherwise it has little meaning. I still disagree with you.

I just handmade a sandwich, with bread I made by hand, in my kitchen, and a tomato I grew in my garden, picked by hand, and cut with a knife I washed in an ordinary sink with tap water and handmade soap. I'm pretty sure it's healthy.

I'm a biologist who works in a lab currently, and in a previous career was a pharmacy technician. I can tell you that we handmade many things, as it was a compounding pharmacy - and we often used ordinary household kitchen items in our work, entirely within regulatory standards. They restored health to those who used them.

I posted links to the regulations, but if there are local soap makers, EU regulations require that they have contact information on their labels, so I would suggest contacting people who have successfully navigated the system and ask if they would be willing to guide you.

If you aren't in a hurry to start to sell, you have time to do some reading and calling and emailing locally. That's my best advice, unless we stumble upon someone in Greece who uses this forum and has better information for you.
 
This is what wiki has to say "In the European Union the manufacture, labelling and supply of cosmetics and personal care products are Regulated by Regulation EC 1223/2009.[58] It applies to all the countries of the EU as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. This regulation applies to single-person companies making or importing just one product as well as to large multinationals."

wikipedia isn't my favourite source of reference materials, but the regulation is the one setting the standards to which you will have to comply.

The link I posted earlier is to a brochure that spells it all out fairly simply. If you start with the main site, you may be able to find it in Greek. https://www.cosmeticseurope.eu/publ...ion-cosmetics-directives.html?view=item&id=15
 
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So ask those agricultural orgs what they do. They are already in the business you wish to enter, in the area you wish to sell, and probably have some advice.



Well....I disagree fairly strongly with your statement that handmade products are unhealthy if not made in a "scientific" environment. I'm going to assume the translation of "scientific environment" to mean "a lab setting" since otherwise it has little meaning. I still disagree with you.

I just handmade a sandwich, with bread I made by hand, in my kitchen, and a tomato I grew in my garden, picked by hand, and cut with a knife I washed in an ordinary sink with tap water and handmade soap. I'm pretty sure it's healthy.

I'm a biologist who works in a lab currently, and in a previous career was a pharmacy technician. I can tell you that we handmade many things, as it was a compounding pharmacy - and we often used ordinary household kitchen items in our work, entirely within regulatory standards. They restored health to those who used them.

I posted links to the regulations, but if there are local soap makers, EU regulations require that they have contact information on their labels, so I would suggest contacting people who have successfully navigated the system and ask if they would be willing to guide you.

If you aren't in a hurry to start to sell, you have time to do some reading and calling and emailing locally. That's my best advice, unless we stumble upon someone in Greece who uses this forum and has better information for you.

I may said it the wrong way... It was not my statement (otherwise why to think run a business like that), but univercity teachers'... You see we have to support the big industry that feed us, not things that people started to make years ago...
I emailed to a local org. and the answer I got was that they have no legal rights to sell, but it costs less to pay the penalty from nat. drug org than do the paperwork...
I hope you have understand by now why I made the thread... :problem:
 
Being on a European Forum I can tell you it's not that bad. The very first thing you need to do is start making product so you can learn how to. The next step is to get in touch with a Safety Assessor who is a chemist to get your recipes approved. You do not need a chemist overseeing your production. Your Safety Assessor will be able to guide you the rest of the way as to what you have to do to be legal. It is not cheap over there but once you have your assessments then you will be able to start selling and making some of that money back.
 
I do have to dig deeper, thats for sure! But I am in no rush... Thanks for the support, I hope till next summer to found my way out...
 
There is a thread in this area about EU regulations - it won't be too many pages down. It logs my epic battle with the EU issues in soap selling.

As Lindy says, all EU soap recipes need to be assessed. You can then only make these recipes, no others (unless you get these checked out, too!)

You need to log each batch made on the EU website portal and the labels must have the batch number etc. Labels are also controlled from what you can put and where, such as life of the product, estimate weight and so on.

Besides that, it then comes down to local laws. So can you use your own kitchen? Depends on the country - Germany no, Austria yes. Can you register as a business? Austria no - I need to be a sole-trader for 6 years or so before I can officially run an actual cosmetics company. These area is where it gets tricky for each person in each country. Not to mention insurances and so on (very important!)

As I said, check out the other link and see if there is also anything there that helps
 
Here are the hoops, run through them naked, blindfolded and on fire while singing a happy song!

What ever happened to encouraging people to stimulate the economy and pay taxes!

I never realized how good I had it here in Canada when it came to setting up shop.

My thoughts go out to all you folks in buried under red tape.
 

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