How to deal with "omg you made this! You should totally sell this" a nube experience

[kryse13]

This is my spin off from the Thread "To reply or not to reply? That is the question".

I am a newbie. I have been interested and casually researching soap making for over a year before I decided to join this forum and actually make my first batch of CP soap. Have now been a member for a few months.

My first batch of soap making ever was a m&p kit from Micheals, I probably made this about 2-3 years ago. I hated it. I wanted to do the whole lye process! So I eventually researched and got over the fear of lye and how it can burn the crap out of you. I wanted to make a laundry bar of soap because I got all swept up in the hype of making your own cheapskate products off of pinterest (which was a detour from my extreme couponing phase). So I researched for a while before I figured out CO was the way to go with a super fat of 1% or 0%. and I did it. Was easy enough.

Then started the addiction...

I wanted to make M O R E!!!

I was too scared to jump in a create my own recipe so I researched and found recipies that were tried and true, also because I had no money to mess up this recipe and no experience to correct it if I did mess it up. Took me a long time to figure out soap calc, it was way too complicated at the begining, now I look at it and think "How did I even think it was complicated?". I asked people on this forum for help (soo thankful I joined this one because of the kind and patient people here. Even when I figured (what I thought) was enough to get more into soaping I had to ask and check if the recipe I formulated was good from the experienced soapers view before I would make it.

Then when I shared with my family and friends "hey look i made soap". The first reaction I get is "you should sell that".

Well I have made 10 batches now (last 2 were messups) and even though that first batch I showed to my friends and family, in my newbie opinion was a really great beginners luck batch which I am planning to do again with minor changes, I still don't believe it was sell worthy. Friends and family still bug me constantly asking me to sell. I even have a co-worker with a shop bugging me to supply her with soap for her shop to sell, I don't even know how regulations work here, nor have I looked into them. I keep telling them I am just not comfortable selling at this time. I need more experience and even when I have more experience I will still need 2-20 years more experience. But consistantly everytime I talk to them about my newer hobby it is the same reaction "so when will you start selling, so and so wants to buy your soaps".

Yes this is a expensive hobbie which I am really starting to love and wish to grow on. And yes I do need the money, not to be greedy and find myself a replacement job or just get more cash, but specifically to fund my hobbie so I can grow. I also get the friends/family telling me "there has to be some way that you can just sell here and there really small time, just to get a little cash". I keep telling them no, to the point where I am telling them to read this forum and sending them links to the threads where the more experienced have voiced their opinions on newbies and selling.

It is very frustraiting.

just a disclaimer: No, I am not selling nor do I have any intentions to sell until I do all my homework then do some more. I really respect the professionals in this forum and the hobby as a whole that I would not want to give it a bad name just from one of my screw ups.

I would like to know everyone elses feelings regarding this and suggestions for the newbie's, like me, to give the people around them when they push us to sell.


PS: when i reask something that has already been posted in another thread its mostly because i cannot find that thread for the life of me, after doing a search and scanning the forum (although the thread may be right in front of me.) i know darn newbies <3

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I hear you on that! I gave my close family soaps or lotion bars (gents got the soap) and the reaction was similar.

In that way I'm blessed by the regulations here in Europe - I may not get to sell for a long time depending on some of the regulations about how and where I actually make soap. But in the mean time I can get the ball rolling while sorting out recipes and getting this soap-making thing to the stage where I can do it very comfortably every time I'm not trying something new.

In your case, just tell them that to sell to the general public means being very secure in what you sell and that it takes time.

Failing that, next time you give someone a soap and they say you should sell it, hold your hand out for the money!

 

[Dennis]

There is so much to learn and understand. When you have made quite a few batches as a newbie and had some success it is seductive when you hear people say they love your (free) soap and you should sell. But consider this - they know NOTHING.

I would compare it to my ability with computers and smartphones compared to a teenager's/young adult's who grew up with them. They're not brilliant but compared to me they are. There is so much to learn. At least with the smartphone and computer I'm not going to harm anyone. I hope.
The more you learn the more you realize you don't know.

 

[boyago]

I think you sound totally reasonable. I get the "you should sell these" and "can I pay you for these" all the time. Often from people who have barely even used my soaps. Before someone sells I think they should know what they are doing, have confidence in their product, and be knowledgeable about soap. Selling soap and making soap are also different birds. It doesn't take excessive experience or limitless knowledge to make a safe soap. You can make a so-so soap and sell it all day long at hemp cons if you put hemp oil in it. I think that most of the people who hang out on forums are here because they have interest (addiction) in the craft. When I hear stories about people selling their soaps and not being able to describe them well or don't even know SF and other characteristics of their soap I shake my head but their soap will probably still bubble and clean my hands. I could go on and on but I have to go now. You sound like you have your head in the right place and enough integrity to make proper decisions so I would feel way better about buying your soap than the farmers market girl who's stoked about her "natural" "chemical free" "no water added" soap.
--
Oh, and how to deal with it is to hand them a new bar of soap and ask them to make sure it won't burn their face off.

 

[clhigh29]

Almost everyone who has gotten their hands on my soap, either through me or my daughters have said they would buy it. But I need to learn and experience more before I take a dollar. For instance, I googled "white vinegar on lye" this morning and it took me straight to a thread from last year on this very forum. It was the best education that I've gotten on the subject, and discovered the bad info I received from books and videos. I can't find the thread on the forum, otherwise, I'd bump it up for us newbies. Hang in tight; you're not alone. When I start taking money from people, I'd like to be able to claim that I'm experienced.

 

[eyeroll]

Unless someone is completely daft, I think saying, "Thanks for the compliment. Maybe one day I'll begin selling," should pretty much be all you need to say. If they persist, I'd wonder why on earth they're so concerned with how *you* choose to pursue *your* hobby.

 

[lenarenee]

One approach to consider is simply repeating the same short phrase every time they ask "when are you going to sell?"

"I don't want to sell them." There's little to argue with that phrase.

"Selling would take the joy out of the hobby."

A phrase that would appeal to the pragmatic aspect in almost anyone is:
"Selling a product incurs liability and would mean buying liability insurance."

Hope you find something that works; enjoy your soap making!

 

[green soap]

Two suggestions. On what to say to the people that pressure you to sell: all soaps need a shelf life test, before I sell I need to make sure they last for a whole year without rancidity, and I also need to check how the scents hold out. This takes about a year.

If you soaps look like they are holding out well, consider trading as a first step before selling. Can you trade soap for other goods that your soap recipients might have abundantly? oranges? goat milk? beer? freshly caught fish or game? anything (not sure where you live)? so this is money you don't have to spend on these items and can buy more soaping supplies. Just a thought.

 

[paillo]

As long as you're producing it, I'd gift it to family, friends and co-workers and ask them for honest feedback for a year. I know I was so proud of my newbie soaps, but in retrospect there was soooo much I didn't know, and selling too soon would have later made me totally cringe at what I'd sold to unsuspecting customers. Seriously, I would have been totally embarrassed and chagrined and regretful.

In the beginning, what I didn't give away I put aside and tested every month or so. Sure enough, some of it developed DOS. Ugh!!! My first goat milk soaps I scorched. I learned what lye-heavy was. Some morphed into disgusting colors over months. Botanical bits developed mold. Man oh man, and I had thought I knew what I was doing.

So back to the drawing board. More research, more tweaking, more experience, more mistakes, more learning, more experience. I can honestly say now, that after soaping for a year, and selling after a year, I should not have been selling. I know it's hard to wait, but be flattered by the sincere compliments you're getting, and Dennis is so right, people who don't really know soap will praise you and encourage you to sell. If you can find any experienced soapers, give them some and ask for their honest feedback.

Ya know, there's an idea. Maybe we could put together a 'testers panel' of very experienced soapers from the forum, who could critique others' products and provide suggestions and honest feedback. Any interest in exploring that?

And I think lenarenee's advice is excellent. "Selling a product incurs liability and would mean buying liability insurance." You don't want to even think about selling without liability insurance!

 

[dixiedragon]

"Maybe some day!" They're just excited for you. No correct them.

I may be in a minority here, but I do see a big difference between selling 5 bars to somebody who says, "Hey, I love your soap and I'd like to buy some!" and setting up a booth at a craft fair. I gave soap to my co-workers as Christmas presents and a few came up and asked to buy some to give as presents themselves. I charged them about $3 a bar.

 

[Susie]

I just realized I am not the only one that gets that reaction. Thank you for that!

I have just decided that I am going to print out a questionnaire that I can hand to them and say, "You can pay me by answering these questions honestly. I seriously need to know how you like each of these qualities of the soap, and get ideas of scents you would like in your soap."

So far, only members of my immediate family have used my soaps. I personally test each soap before handing it to anyone else. Each batch has passed the zap test(my own mouth) before I will even try it in the shower. I would never, ever endanger anyone without personally testing it for safety.

 

[ilovesoap2]

I think the first thing you may have to do is answer the question yourself. Do you plan on selling? or will it just be a hobby for you? Even being a hobby you can still sell (the IRS recognizes this). If you never plan to sell, it's a simple "I will never sell" or something close. You may offer to make soap for them always, because of course you love to soap. If you do plan to sell, then figure out how long it should take you to get to selling point and let them know.

Selling soap should not be any different from selling other goods or even services in your jurisdiction. You can find your local business office, and they can guide you as to how to set up your business, registration etc.

All that being said, many crafters/hobbyists start their businesses, without registering, selling to friends and family. Some jurisdictions will give you a business license for a day to sell at farmers markets, craft shows and what not. What you are doing is testing the market, finding out if once you've sold to friends and family if you have what it takes to market to total strangers because that is the challenging part. It also gives you a chance to find out if you really like soaping even when you don't feel up to it. Also, will this be profitable for you? Again only if you are business minded about it.

I grew up with homemade soap and resented it. Stopped using bar soap quite a while back. It makes no sense but it feels like my life has come full circle to soap. I have learnt so much over the past several weeks. I take notes even as I watch videos. I have not made bar one as yet, but I'm confident it will be a good bar. You understand the soap calc. and that is awesome, always just check and double check your recipes.

And this is truly just me being super paranoid. The idea of giving soap away this early in the game has me thinking twice. As I understand it, the reason for giving away instead of selling is? Will I feel better if my soap hurt somebody because I gave it away instead of selling it? No. So the only ones who will use my practice soaps are members of my household. They'll watch me make them for sure. My practice batches will be small.
My thinking is, if they're not good enough to sell, they're certainly not good enough to give away.

So think about how you view homemade soap. Do you wanna just make for family and friends as long as the soaping bug is biting or do you wanna be the Donald Trump of soap? :think:

 

[dixiedragon]

I grew up with homemade soap and resented it. Stopped using bar soap quite a while back.

Out of curiousity, why did you resent it?

And this is truly just me being super paranoid. The idea of giving soap away this early in the game has me thinking twice. As I understand it, the reason for giving away instead of selling is? Will I feel better if my soap hurt somebody because I gave it away instead of selling it? No.

IMO, giving away is different than selling. I am not worried about my soap hurting someone (barring some sort of reaction). My thought is, if they don't like it or if it's not a great batch (maybe it's a new recipe and it's not very bubbly), then they haven't wasted any money.

 

[ilovesoap2]

@dixiedragon
As far as not liking homemade soap, all psychology. We were poor, I thought only poor people made their own soaps. Friday evenings we spent getting the fats from a local butcher, flies and blood in the area where he butchered hogs and cows. (I guess no one taught him about blood sausages.) Then when we got home we as kids helped in cleaning the fat removing most of the pink...our place always smelled, meaty/
oily. We also helped with scraping coconut lots of them, by hand. I'm grown now and know better and instead of buying a box of
coconut milk at the store I look for a dried coconut. Life. :?

 

[kryse13]

Thanks for all the replys! Everyone got likes I really appreciate every little bit of feed back I get.

I would feel way better about buying your soap than the farmers market girl who's stoked about her "natural" "chemical free" "no water added" soap.
--
Oh, and how to deal with it is to hand them a new bar of soap and ask them to make sure it won't burn their face off.

aww thanks . I really want to use that line... I think that would solve my problem... LMAO

I can't find the thread on the forum, otherwise, I'd bump it up for us newbies. Hang in tight; you're not alone. When I start taking money from people, I'd like to be able to claim that I'm experienced.

I know which thread your talking about (well the most recent one about the vinegar anyway). I also want to be confident in my product before selling.

Unless someone is completely daft, I think saying, "Thanks for the compliment. Maybe one day I'll begin selling," should pretty much be all you need to say. If they persist, I'd wonder why on earth they're so concerned with how *you* choose to pursue *your* hobby.

I have told them the first line and they are persistant so now that you said that I am really starting to wonder :shifty:

A phrase that would appeal to the pragmatic aspect in almost anyone is:
"Selling a product incurs liability and would mean buying liability insurance."

I have actually used this line and they reply, "your not selling THAT much of it, why would you need to buy insurance" I just roll my eyes...

Two suggestions. On what to say to the people that pressure you to sell: all soaps need a shelf life test, before I sell I need to make sure they last for a whole year without rancidity, and I also need to check how the scents hold out. This takes about a year.

If you soaps look like they are holding out well, consider trading as a first step before selling. Can you trade soap for other goods that your soap recipients might have abundantly? oranges? goat milk? beer? freshly caught fish or game? anything (not sure where you live)? so this is money you don't have to spend on these items and can buy more soaping supplies. Just a thought.

I really like the trading idea. And I right now that is my phraise "I need to wait to see what the shelf life is like first, once I find the recipe I like".

Maybe we could put together a 'testers panel' of very experienced soapers from the forum, who could critique others' products and provide suggestions and honest feedback. Any interest in exploring that?

I really would like to take part in that. I"m a scaredy cat but it would be good for me. If I can't take constructive critizism I am not going to do very good selling.

I may be in a minority here, but I do see a big difference between selling 5 bars to somebody who says, "Hey, I love your soap and I'd like to buy some!" and setting up a booth at a craft fair. I gave soap to my co-workers as Christmas presents and a few came up and asked to buy some to give as presents themselves. I charged them about $3 a bar.

I agree but I would like to know how others feel about this.

I just realized I am not the only one that gets that reaction. Thank you for that!

I have just decided that I am going to print out a questionnaire that I can hand to them and say, "You can pay me by answering these questions honestly. I seriously need to know how you like each of these qualities of the soap, and get ideas of scents you would like in your soap."

So far, only members of my immediate family have used my soaps. I personally test each soap before handing it to anyone else. Each batch has passed the zap test(my own mouth) before I will even try it in the shower. I would never, ever endanger anyone without personally testing it for safety.

your welcome. I love the idea of the questionnaire and was thinking about giving one to my testers (family) to that if they want to keep bugging me I can retaliate with "did you finish your questionnaire?". I also test all my soap first before gifting.

 

[kryse13]

I think the first thing you may have to do is answer the question yourself. Do you plan on selling?... If you do plan to sell, then figure out how long it should take you to get to selling point and let them know.
...
And this is truly just me being super paranoid. The idea of giving soap away this early in the game has me thinking twice. As I understand it, the reason for giving away instead of selling is? Will I feel better if my soap hurt somebody because I gave it away instead of selling it? No. So the only ones who will use my practice soaps are members of my household. They'll watch me make them for sure. My practice batches will be small.
My thinking is, if they're not good enough to sell, they're certainly not good enough to give away.

So think about how you view homemade soap. Do you wanna just make for family and friends as long as the soaping bug is biting or do you wanna be the Donald Trump of soap? :think:

I would like to sell, but nothing big. Just small time. Every batch is tested by me for about a month prior before I gifted anything to anyone, and then it was close friends and family and has not gone further. All my batches are small (under 3 lbs). I have had luck with nothing going wrong (till recently) but if anything did go wrong in the process I would not give it to anyone to use. The giving instead of selling is due to the law part of selling soap, from my understanding.

So no, I don't want to be the Donald Trump of soap, but maybe do a craft show one day *dreams* lol

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

..................My thinking is, if they're not good enough to sell, they're certainly not good enough to give away.............

I'm with the others who have said that getting an okay product for free is better than paying for it! It's not about dangerous soaps, but rather just "meh" soaps that we can get feedback on.

Like someone who wants to be a chef testing out a new idea on family and friends. It might not work at all well, so you'd want to test it out before selling. It's not going to kill anyone, but it still might not be something that people are happy about paying for.

 

[ilovesoap2]

I really just want to stay on the right side of caution.
I remember reading a post about having insurance before
having anyone try our soaps. Not a bad idea but I have
no insurance right now.

 

[Lin]

I have actually used this line and they reply, "your not selling THAT much of it, why would you need to buy insurance" I just roll my eyes...

Tell them there are idiots out there who sued mcdonalds over the coffee being hot. All it takes is one idiot with an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients (even if you had them listed and it was a known allergy...) to sue you.

 

[new12soap]

Tell them there are idiots out there who sued mcdonalds over the coffee being hot. All it takes is one idiot with an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients (even if you had them listed and it was a known allergy...) to sue you.

There are idiots out there, granted, but the woman that sued McDonald's wasn't one of them. They were serving coffee so scalding hot that it caused the woman third degree burns in a matter of seconds. They had been cited for it by the health department before as a safety hazard. Here is the whole story, not just the very misleading headline, but I warn you at around the 5:00 it gets a bit graphic.

http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-a...n-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions