You're assuming that they are adding xx amount of EO to xx amount of oil and/or they are only making xx pounds of that soap and/or they are only buying it in xx quantities.
You're also not considering how much they are paying for their soap ingredients. My main ingredients are Olive, Coconut, Palm and Castor Oils, and Cocoa and Shea Butters. My costs in the beginning, purchasing in small quantities (seven lbs for the first three, one pounds for the last) was $4.61 per pound or 10 4 oz bars for $0.92; my costs today is $0.68 (I could get it $0.60 if I had more storage room in my garage) and lower yet if I went to 3.5 oz bars. This of course, doesn't include the cost of Sodium Hydroxide, Distilled Water, Sodium Lactate, Kaolin Clay and shipping...and my time and overhead.
So...your Ylang-Ylang at $6.00 per oz at .32 oz PPO (medium scent) would add $1.92 to a 4 oz bar. So $1.00 for ingredients, $2.00 for time and overhead, $2.00 for fragrance...that's $5.00; sell for $7.00 (profit would be higher if I went with a 3.5 or 3.0 bar).
I do too buy my ingredients in bulk, and like you I would get cheaper if I had more storage space. My final $$/PPO is $5.06 (counting NaOH, and I do not use palm oil), so I would get 1.26 for a 4oz bar. But to get the Ylang-ylang that cheap, I would need to buy at least 25 pounds of EO. I use my EOs ratio at 3%/PPO, so it would be $3.
Adding the price of ingredients and EO, my total price would be $4.26.
Regardless, the percentage for overhead costs plus profit is too low. I guess I need to keep myself away from Ylang-Ylang.
I keep my precious EOs for myself, I first mix them with 0.5 gr of silicon oxide (for 10gr of EO), hoping that this will lengthen the CP period. I am reading whatever I find on micro or nano encapsulation. So far, my pure lavendula angustifolio essential oil from southern france dissapeared within 8 weeks
, in CP experiment, meanwhile, the one imbibed with the silicon dioxide still reserves some scent. But CP is not the way to use EOs, may be cheaper FOs are better for CP soaps. IMHO.
Lucky me that some of my peeps prefer unscented soap. I use young living EO for personal use, and I tried to make a soap using “stress away” with no results. Have you tried mixing your EOs with Diatomaceous Earth? I read that it hold the EO well; however I have not used yet in soaps. I used in my deodorant, and the scent is holding well.
The biggest problem is a lot of soap sellers especially new sellers do not calculate their costs properly and actually lose money. The other issue is the fact they flat out do not tell the truth, who is going to prove whether they use organic or not. Also by the time lye is done organic does not make much difference in soap since nothing bad is going to survive the caustic properties of the lye. Organic is always going to cost more.
This person sells soap for years, and it was interesting to see him making soap on Utube. He doesn’t disclose the EOs he uses as he disclosed it as “proprietary blend.”
But you are right, I still in the production phase of my soap business, and I just finished a marketing/sales course. I would calculate my price wrong if I didn’t take that course.
And thanks for the reminder that nothing survives the causticity of the NoOH.
