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Hi everyone

This is my first post in the forum. It's been great and such an encouragement to read here with my fellow soap people.
I'm waiting to unmold my first of two facial bars that I'd like to include in my summer market adventure. I'll be trying a few different markets to debut my creations. ❤ Today I've been all over looking for table props at second hand and discount shops and I'm about to clean of the table and do a mock set up. I finished my label making this morning! I'm so excited to see them. They should arrive next week. So far I have 15 different soaps. A Deoderant. Hair powder. 2 Lotion bars. And a lip scrub. This has been has been such a fun 2months. Soaping is a joy!
 
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Catherine. How long have you been making soap and other products for ?
 
Thank you for the warm welcome. Its been about two months since i first dived in and soaped up and boy I dived in head first. My first cp loaf was a success and I've not stopped since. Making two loafs a week! I get all giddy inside just thinking about it lol is that normal? Gave a great day!
 
Welcome Catherine. Cmzaha is right, there's a lot to learn about soapmaking, especially when you are liable to buyers. There's a lot of science behind it, so your mix of oils can affect the soap and user, as can fragrances, colorants, and other additives. So you're best off experimenting on yourself - and learning from others -- before you start selling. You'll be much more reputable in the end.
 
LMAO! Cmzaha! Welcome Catherine - Yes it can be exciting and addicting and you get the urge to Jump when you should crawl. As the other's have said, it takes a lot of soap and learning and mistakes and bad soap before the magic happens. And then it still happens. I have made thousands of soap bars and formulated hundreds of recipes until I decided on my 10 best. And I still venture off from there. But I have enough experience under my belt to feel confident but it came with a lot of trial and error. 2 months is just not enough time to be selling anything even if your doing it all day every day.

Please reconsider and take the real time to learn the science behind the soap. The selling market is saturated with mediocre product and I'm being kind in saying that. You don't just want to make soap to compete. You want to make great soap! And that comes with a lot of time and struggle and patience.

There is a lot of information here to digest and many different opinions from experienced soaper's. But you need to find your own answer utilizing all of this material and try a lot of different formulations.

It hurts all of us in the handmade market when people rush to sell their products. Then consumers think that "all handmade" soap is the same when they are disappointed. My soap is all over town always being tried by testers. You need to do the same. It not only helps you but it also protects us. Longtime soap maker's who have lots of time and money invested to keep the market credible. After many many years I come here and I still learn something almost every single day.

I hope you accept this as constructive and not to criticize you.
 
I appreciate the honesty! I really do. No offence taken at all. That's great advice. At first I didn't understand an active comment and didn't knowwhat to make of it but this was great. Thank you for taking the time to guide me. I suppose i assumed that since im using a lye calculator that nothing could go wrong. Is that a bad assumption? :) Im such a newbie. I've only tried a few of the loafs and so far so good. Im only using essential oils and herbs and clays. No complicated fragrances or anything. But yes, back to what your saying. I do want a great soap. Nothing mediocre. I will consider giving it more time. God bless you all fot your input. Just out of curiosity how many months of good soap should I produce before setting out to the market? I have volunteer testers at the ready. Lol more like chomping at the bit to try the soap. For fun I uploaded my mock set up. That's just half of my bars. I like the way it came out. And i have no problem waiting. This set up stores real nice in the room. This had been great fun and even though I haven't yet or even if I never sell my soap, It's been awesome and such a joy.
Good night all❤
 

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I suppose i assumed that since im using a lye calculator that nothing could go wrong. Is that a bad assumption? :) Im such a newbie.


There is a LOT that can go wrong. Even if you are an experience soaper, sometimes things can go wrong. After you have been soaping for at least a year, then you will understand what redhead said. Patience grasshopper!
 
Just like my several batches I made last month and tweaked an oil 2% (there is a thread about it) that I now will have to let them cure 3-4 months because they are not a quality I will sell or I might even have to let them cure longer to become soaps I approve of. But someone just starting to make soap would not know the difference and a simple 2% change could cost you customers.

It also takes a lot of money to setup booths, acquire the necessary insurance and you will not see any profit until you can build up a clientele, which can easily take 2-3 years depending on where you live and how many soapmakers are selling. I regularly see new soapmakers come and disappear after a couple of months of trying to sell.
 
I appreciate the honesty! I really do. No offence taken at all. That's great advice. At first I didn't understand an active comment and didn't knowwhat to make of it but this was great. Thank you for taking the time to guide me. I suppose i assumed that since im using a lye calculator that nothing could go wrong. Is that a bad assumption? :) Im such a newbie. I've only tried a few of the loafs and so far so good. Im only using essential oils and herbs and clays. No complicated fragrances or anything. But yes, back to what your saying. I do want a great soap. Nothing mediocre. I will consider giving it more time. God bless you all fot your input. Just out of curiosity how many months of good soap should I produce before setting out to the market? I have volunteer testers at the ready. Lol more like chomping at the bit to try the soap. For fun I uploaded my mock set up. That's just half of my bars. I like the way it came out. And i have no problem waiting. This set up stores real nice in the room. This had been great fun and even though I haven't yet or even if I never sell my soap, It's been awesome and such a joy.
Good night all❤

I felt I needed to say that. And I'm glad you took it as intended. That told me a lot. Its not an issue of you have a recipe and the lye is calculated properly. That's not the core of making a great soap. The calculator will calculate the lye properly for any recipe you come up with and it will saponify and cure and you will have soap. But that is a tiny portion of the process. It is the formula that is the magic. There are millions of combinations at different percentages and different ingredients and different liquids and they all make a different soap. But which one of those combinations will give you all that your looking for. Do you even know what to look for? Do you even know if you have enough to compare to? Is your best one, really your best one? Does the Superfat at a different % change the soap or is the cure time going to be a year or a month or somewhere in between? It is a beautiful journey and one that requires a fine appreciation for results good and bad. When I say I have 10 recipes I love, that came after hundreds. And it will probably not be my favorite 10 next year as those 10 have changed many times. Why? Because the joy in soap making for me is trying to beat my own best recipe. Getting an idea and going with it out of the blue. My education has never ended and I hope it never does. And lastly the issue of selling. I sell my products so I have $$ to keep making soap and room on the shelf. I have never considered it a business and I have sold a lot of soap and other products. For me it is more of a hobby that many have supported. But unless your willing to spend endless hours networking and doing markets and websites and Etsy sales and getting your products out everywhere your probably not going to make any real money anytime soon. Its an expensive proposition and many do not have the patience to stick it out in a saturated market or the funds. So there is a lot to know to "make it" in this endeavor. Just food for thought.

Im done with my advise lol - Hope to see you here interacting and learning. :)
 
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One thing often overlooked is actually getting the process down to an art. The biggest cost in production is your time, and at the start it's easy to be "wasting" time because you are still finding the best method and so on. The time you need to take to concentrate on things which will become second nature will add a lot of costs per bar.

Also, use the learning period to make sure that the business makes sense. Are you costing correctly? Wholesale is costs X2, retinal is wholesale X2. Is that putting you way above the market pricing? If so, you need to reduce your costs. The business side is where people do tend to overlook a lot of things which come back to bite them down the road
 
Welcome to the forum!

I agree that you should slow down the process of taking your products to market. Take advantage of your testers. I made uncolored and unscented soaps for a year (at the rate of about 1-2 1lb batches a month), until I had a recipe that I liked - and then I started my business (to pay for my hobby) right out of the gate with colors and fragrances. I learned a ton the first year of using color and fragrance that I didn't learn making "just soap", and if I could go back in time, I would tell myself to wait another year before starting the business. Although the learning never really stops, even after 4 years. I learned stuff last week, and I'm pretty sure I'm about to get "spanked" (meant with gentle humor because the gals and gents here are lovely) regarding a troubleshooting question that I have to post.
 

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