How do you package and where do you sell?

[Dirtmaven]

Hello: I find packaging soaps particularly difficult because of the odd shapes and the soft texture of the product. What do you all use to wrap and protect your soaps and where do you sell? This is just information gathering for me. I’m a beginner. Thanks!

 

[Rsapienza]

Hello: I find packaging soaps particularly difficult because of the odd shapes and the soft texture of the product. What do you all use to wrap and protect your soaps and where do you sell? This is just information gathering for me. I’m a beginner. Thanks!

I do cigar bands on mine. I usually use kraft cardstock, however, I've been playing with the idea of cardstock in different colors. I sell online and at local markets. Your soap shouldn't bee too soft after a proper cure. Do odd shapes, I make little boxes out of cardstock.

 

[atiz]

I don't sell, but if I gift my soap (or sometimes even for myself ) I also use the cigar bands I cut out of kraft paper. I print my ingredients etc. on a label which holds the band together.
I also have some little kraft paper cardstock boxes for the odd shapes -- you can either make them or buy them pretty cheap and you just have to fold it together.
Your soap should be hard enough to wrap!

We have a good number of soap makers at the farmers market in town [well, in happier times when we had one], and I always like looking at how they do things, good or bad. The things I don't like when it comes to packaging:

1) no packaging whatsoever. I like to see the ingredients, and think that that should be on the package somewhere. Plus, although this is probably just psychological, a soap that's packaged seems cleaner to me (less people touching it).
2) too much plastic. I know some people like plastic shrink wraps and I can see the advantages; but I try not to buy things packaged in plastic if I have a choice.
Much less important, but I also don't like "too much talking" on the packaging (about the soul of the maker or how beautiful life is going to be with this soap). Yeah, it's soap, and it's great, but I have to read too much crap in my job to appreciate the verbal effort of the maker even if I know they mean it really well. (I guess this last one may sound mean/cynical but I don't mean it that way, and it wouldn't deter me from buying the soap, unlike (1) and (2) above.)