Do customers really like stuff in their soap?

[Gramma Judy]

I am new to this and looking at the practical side. We are in the sewer & septic business. We clean lots of drain lines. So I look at when we add leaves and buds and 'stuff' to soap, it is all going down the drain. Small seeds, pumice, baby oatmeal, okay. But what about petals and such? I personally don't even like cleaning Aveeno's colodial (sp) oatmeal bath out of my tub. Do your customer's really like this 'stuff' in their soap.

 

[honor435]

we had a previous post about this, you may want to read, i had the same question.
I do NOT like the look of stuff on the top of my soap, i think lavender looks like worms. I think its a waste on money , then the cust. just has to scrape it off and put in garbage. Just my opinion 8)
I do put oats or strawberry seeds IN my soap for exfoliating.

 

[MikeInPdx]

It's all a matter of personal preference. I personally don't care one way or the other, and rare put a lot of extras in my soap. However, some people like the added decorations, extra bling stuff and all that fun. I soap the way I like to soap.

 

[IrishLass]

They are very pretty to look at, no doubt about it, but I personally hate using soaps with flower petals in them or leaves and buds. They drive me bonkers by getting in the way of a smooth lathering experience. I do, however, like certain soaps with baby oatmeal in them, and also pumice and/or tiny seeds because they serve a practical purpose- namely gentle exfoliation, but if they don't have a practical reason for being in my soap besides the pretty factor, they get nixed.


IrishLass

 

[Guest]

Lavender looks like mouse turds to me ,and I just don't like cleaning them out of the tub etc . Like Irish Lass said they get in the way of the lather .I don't want to have to rinse buds or petals etc off of me after I bathe . I like fine ground oatmeal in a bath bar and coffee , pumice , cornmeal etc for a gardening bar. But that's just me .

 

[oldragbagger]

Lavender looks like mouse turds to me ,and I just don't like cleaning them out of the tub etc . Like Irish Lass said they get in the way of the lather .I don't want to have to rinse buds or petals etc off of me after I bathe . I like fine ground oatmeal in a bath bar and coffee , pumice , cornmeal etc for a gardening bar. But that's just me .

You're right, Kitn. Lavender buds do look like mouse turds if you leave them whole HOWEVER, I grind mine up somewhat fine which makes them look not like mouse turds, they're gently exfoliating that way, and IMHO the scent that you get from real grosso lavender buds just absolutely can't be beat. Everyone I have given my lavender soap to absolutely loved it. No complaints about the "stuff"

 

[kittywings]

I grind mine up somewhat fine which makes them look not like mouse turds, they're gently exfoliating that way, and IMHO the scent that you get from real grosso lavender buds just absolutely can't be beat. Everyone I have given my lavender soap to absolutely loved it. No complaints about the "stuff"

Do you use any lavender eo in addition to the ground buds, or are the buds enough to scent it?

 

[oldragbagger]

I grind mine up somewhat fine which makes them look not like mouse turds, they're gently exfoliating that way, and IMHO the scent that you get from real grosso lavender buds just absolutely can't be beat. Everyone I have given my lavender soap to absolutely loved it. No complaints about the "stuff"

Do you use any lavender eo in addition to the ground buds, or are the buds enough to scent it?

I also used a bit of fine french lavender eo. Not a lot though, it's rather strong on its own and in combination with the ground up buds there was plenty of fragrance.

 

[Guest]

Lavender looks like mouse turds to me ,and I just don't like cleaning them out of the tub etc . Like Irish Lass said they get in the way of the lather .I don't want to have to rinse buds or petals etc off of me after I bathe . I like fine ground oatmeal in a bath bar and coffee , pumice , cornmeal etc for a gardening bar. But that's just me .

You're right, Kitn. Lavender buds do look like mouse turds if you leave them whole HOWEVER, I grind mine up somewhat fine which makes them look not like mouse turds, they're gently exfoliating that way, and IMHO the scent that you get from real grosso lavender buds just absolutely can't be beat. Everyone I have given my lavender soap to absolutely loved it. No complaints about the "stuff"

Good idea ORB , I haven't tried lavender yet , but grinding it sounds like a fantastic idea. Thank you

 

[soapbuddy]

My customers don't want anything "extra" to go down the drain, so I don't put anything on top of my soap bars.

 

[ChrissyB]

I have used poppy seeds for the scrubby effect. I have also used dried rosemary in my lavender/rosemary soap, and with that I sprinkled a little rosemary over the top, not enough for it to fall off every time the soap is handled, just a smatter.
I don't want things in my soap, I agree it affects the lather, and yes to me lavender looks like mouse poo and roses look like cockroaches.

 

[Avalon]

I don't usually like stuff in my soap, but I do make two exfoliating bars. One is my coffee soap that has coffee grounds, the other has finely ground rice, adzuki beans and sea salt.

 

[dagmar88]

Adzuki beans rock!
I'm with everyone else so far; like stuff in soap only when it has a use. Though I did a batch a long time ago with some very roughly ground tea leaf and it was yummy

 

[artisan soaps]

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[oldragbagger]

My thoughts about a lot of stuff in the soap has nothing at all to do with stuff going down the drain. Good grief, with all the stuff we wash off of our dishes that goes down the drain, and emptying our mop water that goes down the drain and a million other things that go down the drain (not to mention what gets flushed (yuk), a tiny bit of lavender buds or corn meal isn't going to grind the sewer system to a halt. (You would probably have to use a whole lot of bars of soap with corn meal in them just to equal what goes down the drain when you wash one pan that you baked corn bread in.)

But, my thinking is, when I see that people put sugar, or honey or many other types of organic stuff in soap....... when I get something sugary on my hands, I go to the sink to wash it off, not smear it on. This can go for dozens of other things I have seen listed as ingredients in soap. (I spill coffee on myself, I wash it off.....) I mean, really, we use soap to clean stuff off of us and with the exception of some emollience to keep our skin nice, and some foo-foo to smell nice, do we really want to be smearing more stuff on than what we're washing off? And in addition, organic material decomposes, fact of life, plant stuffs rot given time. So I would think that organic materials in their natural unchanged state in soap would contribute to spoilage.

Maybe something that I don't understand yet happens to the chemical composition of all this stuff in soap so that what ends up on your skin isn't the same as what came out of the original bottle or bag or whatever, but I guess I have a hard time getting my mind around all this stuff being rubbed on me that I would normally be washing off of me, unless that stuff has been proven to be specifically beneficial to the skin. But if it's just for aesthetics.... maybe it doesn't belong in something that we're going to be smearing all over our bodies.

I started out soapmaking trying all kinds of additives just because it was all so interesting and exciting, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I should just skip all that stuff and make a nice basic bar of soap. (Giving up the ground lavender buds might be hard though!! And the skin benefits of collodial oatmeal and goatsmilk are supposedly well-proven, so I can't say there aren't exceptions.)

But I can't really market my "soap" based on the benefits of any of these additives anyway, as I am determined to stick strictly to making only soap, without alluding to any properties that might have it classified as a cosmetic, so I'm probably wasting my time with it all.

 

[artisan soaps]

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[oldragbagger]

I'm sure you have a lot of valid points there artisan. I imagine there has to be chemical changes to anything that reacts with the lye and so there may not be any validity to my thoughts on that.
But I look on sites like etsy and I see soaps with coffee granules, and fruit slices and flower petals and the like on top and, although they're absolutely gorgeous to look at I can't really figure out what all that stuff is doing in soap. Maybe if you're giving it as a gift and you just want someone to appreciate the creativity of it, or you want it to sit in your guest bath and look beautiful or whatever........ but from a functional standpoint it all seems to be a little out of place to me. But because it looks so extroidinary, and the visual presentation of a product is a huge part of the appeal, I think maybe that makes it harder for those who just want to produce a good cleansing soap to compete with that kind of artistry.
You're right, though, certain ingredients that you would not necessarily associate with the cleansing process apparently do add to the qualities of soap in desireable ways and their inclusion does make sense. (Although I don't think any of them are necessary in order to make a fine soap.)