building up supplies

[Eavan]

Hello everyone,
I want to build a soap business and am not sure about the best way to buy the ingredients for trials. I am a truck driver and don't get a lot of home time. I get home 4 days out of a month. So this makes it hard to practice. Can anyone give me ideas about building up supplies for practice.

I have been studying for about a month. I have ideas about where to get the tools cheap and got lots of them from u all. My problem is with the oils, herbs, colorants, and butters. My plan is to take the 4 days and make 2 different trial batches without a mixture of herbs and fragrances to get the use to making soap but i want to try to blend different fragrances that i can try next time I am home to add to the next soaps. This is going to be a long long long long time before I am ready to sell anything. but good note. I don't have to worry about using the soap to early. I look forward to all your ideas
thanx

 

[Sanctuary]

Hi Eavan,
I'm glad that you are taking the time needed to learn about CP soap making. I too have taken lots of time to study the process. There are many great people on this blog site with a wealth of info for you to use. As far as the oils....many of them can be bought right at your local grocery store. I have been able to purchase all of mine at the local store. Some of the butters such as shea ....you would have to purchase them online of which there are several great places to purchase them. As for fragrance oils....I try to use pure Essential Oils for my CP soap. If you are using fragrance oils.....which are different from Essential oils....you can by them online as well. There are a couple of places you can go to. Brambleberry.com, goplanetearth.com, naturesgardencandles.com, are a few places you could check out. Anyway....keep on studying your info and you will soon be on your way to becoming a great Soaper!
Sanctuary

 

[HutCar92]

There are many, many great suppliers online. As Sanctuary pointed out, many oils can be found at your local store. If your not opposed to it lard is make a nice bar of soap, that is what I used when I was first learning because its rather cheap. Olive oil is also very nice. If you want palm oil, I know i used to find it in the organic section and it was just called shortening on the label, but check the ingredients to make sure its palm. Coconut Oil is also usually found in that area. You can use Crisco as well, and if you can get a mix of lard/shortening at Walmart its their brand of shortening. Most oils found in the grocery store can be used.

For colorants, I use colors from The Conservatorie http://theconservatorie.com/Happy_Hour_ ... 9_199.html
Or TBK trading http://www.tkbtrading.com/

Fragrance Oils can be purchased at a number of places online as well, but you always want to make sure they are safe for use in soap.
BrambleBerry.com
NaturesGardenCandles.com
WholeSalesSuppliesplus.com
There are many more, I use these companies because they provide great information about their FO, like the percentage to use it at, if it accelerates, if it discolors, ect. They also have a lot of other supplies for soaping such as herbs, colorants, clays, ect.

If you would ever want to do bulk oil orders, Soapers Choice has nice prices, and for lye I use The Lye Guy. You will find that everyone has their preferences as to who they order from. I try and order from the places I do because they are closer to me, shipping can be a killer!

Good luck with everything! And don't ever be afraid to ask questions here, there are a lot of super nice and super knowledgeable people here

 

[Eavan]

Thank you hutcar92 and sanctuary that was very helpful! Through out all my study I found this blog that helped put me on the right path. http://blog.worldlabel.com/2010/how-to- ... iness.html gave me plenty of sites to look at along with a plan to get started. I live in Tampa, Fl. so there are no cp classes in the area. but this provided plenty of sites to use. maybe u all know her store. http://www.backporchsoap.com/.
I do plan to keep the soap as natural as I can using Essential Oils.


Is there a place I can get like a sample set or a starter set for Essential oils so i can use my time wisely and blend them to get different smells?

 

[ToniD]

You can get a sample set of EOs at brambleberry. Camden grey is in Florida, which may be a better shipping price for you. they have a wide selection, but no kits that I know of.

 

[Genny]

Brambleberry's EO sampler kit is wonderful

New Directions Aromatics & Mountain Rose Herbs also have EO sampler kits, but you don't get as much for your money with those compared to Brambleberry's.

 

[Eavan]

Thank you all for your help.
I ordered samples from brambleberry.com and they where great! I did get to make my first batch of soap. well it didn't work out so hot, but i know what I did wrong and will do better next time. 8)

 

[Lynnz]

Welcome Eavan I am in Aussie so cannot really point you to your supplies but Oh My how are you going to cope having to wait so long to get home and use of sniff soap LOL I would so be in serious soapy withdrawal I can hardly make it through a shift and I am biting at the bit to get home and cut soap made the evening prior LOL.

 

[dirrdee]

once you get addicted, you will have to figure out a way to bring your soaping ingredients with you...I can see it now, making a soap batch in the restroom while you're fueling up....