marketing your soap- Please help

[dirrdee]

I can remember the first time I made some real CP soap, I was so giddy and excited and I remember thinking "this isnt that hard, I could sell this stuff"...bahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

That was years ago and I am just now getting ready to sell. I said I made CP soap, I didnt say I made "GOOD" CP soap, or "GREAT" soap.

I am so thankful that I didnt do it, looking back I would have been ashamed to put a product out there like that and I would have destroyed any reputation I hoped to have.

There are so many things to know and learn about formulating a good product, that only time and experience will give you.

This forum has been so valuable to me, and helped me tweak my recipes to make a superb product, one that I am very proud of.

Give yourself time to learn, I promise you will not regret waiting!

 

[soaptrotter]

Thanks AndreaMakesSoap, yes I also will definitely use an ingredient label, and just what you said, "copy and paste" is easy enough!

 

[soaptrotter]

Thank so much dirrdee!!! you made me smile when I read your post and you give me great renewed encouragement!!! I loved reading your post because I can totally relate to how you were when you first started!!! Thanks for sharing your experiences, knowing others made some of the same mistakes I am making as a newbie gives encouragement to just push forward and keep learning.......
I also, have found so much information on this forum, and in every post I read there is something new to learn!

 

[Lindy]

Thanks AndreaMakesSoap, yes I also will definitely use an ingredient label, and just what you said, "copy and paste" is easy enough!

I'm glad to hear you are going to use an ingredient label since it is required by law up here. Rather than doing a copy and paste, please take the time to learn how to do it correctly. The excitement of starting something new and fabulous like this amazing hobby sometimes makes us forget that we do have regulations we need to follow. Please remember that what is required by us here in Canada is not the same as the regulations in the US.

Soaptrotter it is so not my intention to pull you down, it is my intention to help you stay legal here in Canada because we do have consequences for not following the guidelines and regulations set out in the Cosmetic Regs.

Cheers

 

[Dennis]

2 yrs and I'm going to start making labels and packaging. Not because I want to sell anything but because I can't figure out what is where. Gave away a ton of soap at family reunion over the weekend. Well, maybe 50lbs.

Hey Soaptrotter, Hazel yells at me just for fun. Unfortunately she's usually (always?) right. (sigh)

 

[soaptrotter]

Dennis!

 

[Alphaslambet44]

Lindy,

Your posts are so valuable to somebody like me who just got interested in soapmaking less than a month ago. When I told my sister (who is sooo impatient), she kept on pushing me to just do it. She thinks I am being flaky for reading too much and no action.

With Canadian regulations to meet, there is truly much I need to learn from the business side. Thank goodness for your postings. It makes me feel better that I am taking my time to gather all the information I need before I even get started with making.

Thank you !!!

 

[Lindy]

I am very glad to help.... :wink:

 

[Soapsugoii]

Yar, I've been making for a year and a half and am gearing up to sell, but I understand your enthusiasm. This is a really fun endeavor! I think once you start to actually make the soap everything you've read in this thread will make sense, and your feet will be on the ground. I love my current recipe, but I burned and couldn't even use my first batch. It'll take time, but you'll get there if you want to. Most important is believing in what you make, because if you don't you'll feel like a fool when you try to get others to buy it. If you have any sort of conscience that is.

Anywho. Just my two cents. Best of luck!

 

[Cosmo]

Please forgive me if I missed some details. I did not read the entire thread, but think I got the gist of it.

I made soap for 10 years before I felt comfortable selling. A business plan and large customer base will not mean much if you do not have a good product. There is so much that can go wrong with soap and you could hurt somebody. Soap can be lye heavy, go rancid (DOS), or at the very least be terribly drying to the skin.

While a business plan is a worthy effort, it is just a small facet in running a business and being successful. Instead of putting your time into a business plan at this point, put it into making the kind of soap you'd be proud to sell.

Knowing every detail of your soap, from it's properties to how it treats the skin to how it holds up over time is very important, and you will be more confident in your product, too.

One bad thing about people thinking they can make soap and sell right away is it can indirectly ruin the efforts of those who worked SO hard to have an excellent product. Those that try handmade soap that burns or is rancid will think ALL handmade soap is that way. It gives the rest of us a bad name.

 

[Lindy]

Cosmo I commend your studiousness in wanting to make sure you were ready to sell however lye heavy soap is so rare and so easily discovered even by first timers. If DOS is going to happen it is going to happen within the first few months so I just can't agree with you that you must make soap for years before you're ready to sell. You're not ready to sell when you've only made a few batches and personally I believe you should be making soap for at least 6 months, but if you've been making a lot of soap during those 6 months you can be ready to sell. We need to remember that each person is different and although soap making is chemistry it is not rocket science and it would be silly of us to pretend it is.

 

[2lilboots]

Cosmo I your studiousness in wanting to make sure you were ready to sell however lye heavy soap is so rare and so easily discovered even by first timers. If DOS is going to happen it is going to happen within the first few months so I just can't agree with you that you must make soap for years before you're ready to sell. You're not ready to sell when you've only made a few batches and personally I believe you should be making soap for at least 6 months, but if you've been making a lot of soap during those 6 months you can be ready to sell. We need to remember that each person is different and although soap making is chemistry it is not rocket science and it would be silly of us to pretend it is.

I have only been making soap for 2 months now. I am not going to sell my soap. I am making it for me and to give as gifts. I am still playing with soapcal to get a recipe that I really really like. My ex-mother-in-law used to have a bar of lye soap that she would scrub her hubbies jeans with when they were really dirty. She wouldn't wear gloves and her hands were beet red by the time she was done. That was one nasty bar of soap. So far none of my bars have failed a zap test, and I have had a batch fail a FO and color test. People are going to do what they are going to do. But I do believe that it is difficult to make a zap filled bar of soap if you are using the soapcalc site correctly. Human err is where the zap test will fail. But if you only make soap for 1 day, 1 month, 6 months how will you know how your soap will stand the test of time. Will it get DOS, will it lose it's smell, will it ever harden into the soap that other soapers only dream of. I dunno, and personally I am not too worried about it. I found a new hobby that is keeping my butt busy. I get to experiment and if I screw up i can rebatch or start over. And when I get to Canada I am going to take Hausfra and Lindy out on the town so we can drink all the wine and forget about soap that doesn't want to trace, or scents that stink. And if you cut the cupcake soaps in half from top to bottom it is easier to use in the shower as I did that and used one today. Wow do I love pomegranite wine. I am not going to make soap with it either.

 

[Lindy]

2lilboots someone who is only making a batch a month will need many years before being ready to sell. My comment was poorly worded. IF you are making soap at least once a week then in 6 months you will be ready to sell. The only time I've had DOS it showed up within the first couple of months and it was storage condition problems with the exception of one batch made with Certified Organic Oils - it had DOS within 3 weeks!!!! I will never do that again, crap it was nasty. I think it was the olive oil that actually caused the problem.

You're right if you are only making soap once a month you are not going to be ready for a very long time.

So many people think they are ready to sell after their first batch or 5 - not.

 

[Cosmo]

I've had soap that took a year to develop DOS. I know that's not typical, but it has happened to me.

I don't think everyone should wait ten years to sell. The point I was trying to make was you should really know your product and what you're doing before you sell. How it will behave over time, etc.

 

[Hazel]

I had some soap that also developed DOS and it was well over a year. It was the last bar so at least it gave me an idea of shelf life. :wink:

 

[robtr31]

does soap need to have a expire date or does any one do this . I now soaps can last for years . 1 year as best before should be long enough I would think any thoughts

I not selling just asking

thanks rob

 

[Stakie]

I personally list everything in my soaps. I even keep a little binder with me with everything in the products to go into further detail with the customer if they ask about a specific bar.

 

[innerdiva73]

I list ingredients so that if anyone has an allergy, it would be clearly stated on the label what they are "If" an allergic reaction were to happen. In this business that is the last thing you want someone to say is that they caught an allergic reaction and possibly start legal proceedings. It is better to be safe than sorry.

If you are worried about using different names for different soaps, create 1 template and then just go in and change the name for the soaps. I put the ingredients on the back with a universal template for the front and just change the names for each soap in the template.

 

[hlee]

All I have to say is practice, practice, practice. It is the only way you will ever get to your goal of selling soap.
What if you have all your customers lined up and you discover you don't even like making soap?
I have been making soap for about 7 months. I make about a 2 lb batch a week on avg and I loved my soap and loved making it from the first batch but.... man my soap is so much nicer now than even a couple months ago.
It takes awhile to figure out what oils do what to your soap especially if you go nuts at first like I did and try every oil all in the same batch..
My friends , relatives, neighbors are all well stocked in soap and all encourage me to sell but truly I don't even know what my soap is going to look like at 1 yr yet.
I already feel a bit too much pressure from some of them hinting that they used the last Honey Almond etc.roblem:.
I'm still wanting to make what I want to make and although I'm thrilled that they enjoy it I don't want to stop enjoying it because I need to make more Honey Almond instead of that new fragrance I'm wanting to try this weekend.
Just encouraging to take your time with selling and makes lots of soap before you do. Give lots away and make sure you like making it at much as everyone else enjoys using it.
Good luck!

 

[jean1C]

Even though it took me some time to read through the pages, I am glad someone revived it. It is full of some good information.

I think some sort of label is important even if you are not selling. For example, I took some soap into my hairdresser a few months back. She said, "Oh...I'll have to share with the manicurist...she would love this". To make a long story short, I had to say, it contains "shea and coconut and some have allergies"..Well, manicurist son has a deathly allergy to nuts. I am not sure how this would have affected him, but at least the manicurist was aware of this and thought she would put it in a secure place so he would not use it.

I had my daughter make up some labels...nothing fancy to add to the soap I have. You never know who the soap is going to end up with, even if you give it away.