I bought a National Shrinkwrap system and use biolefin which they promote as degrading faster in a landfill. It is petroleum based. I’m still not great at shrinkwrapping, but learning. For the farmer’s market I have been going to I have a sample in a small waxed paper bag that people can smell. It’s awkward in the time of Covid, people aren’t sure if they can pull their masks down or not, but it at least lets them smell the bars. For my one wholesale account, there aren’t any samples, all the bars are shrink wrapped, but people seem to be buying it anyway.
For three special orders I did I used floral tissue paper to wrap the soap. Floral tissue is waxed so it is a little stronger but very translucent, and you can smell the soap through it. Of course, the wax is petroleum based too, but for the clients who chose it they didn’t like the aesthetics of the shrink wrap. I cut the floral tissue to size on a large cutting mat with a straight edge, several sheets at a time. Then each bar gets wrapped like a little present. It sounds time consuming but wasn’t that bad. Here is a photo of one of the orders with its floral tissue wrapper. I bought the floral tissue from Papermart and from Nashville Wraps, I like the Nashville Wraps paper slightly better, it seems a little stronger and actually more translucent.
This is the papermart paper.
I could envision ramping up this system. The floral tissue will get loose over time as the soap shrinks, so that is a consideration.
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