Hello All
I'm new here. Just wanted to introduce myself. I've been making soap for a little while now...less than 2 years (LOL). I've learned a lot through the years though. I love making cold process bar soaps. It could also be very relaxing too. How and why did everyone start making soaps here? I started because I was tired of the additives placed in other supermarket soaps. I was getting lots of skin irritation, so I decided to go all natural with my soaps (with the exception of using a strong base for Saponification purposes). How about you? How and why did you get started with soap making?
Hello and welcome!
I came to it sideways.
I started out wanting to learn how to make shaving soap nearly seven years ago. I hated paying what amounts to extorsion, as far as I am concerned, for small bits of metal and plastic, aka cartridge razors. I struggled with razor burn and irritation, big time. I discovered artisan shaving soaps and safety razors and it was
glorious! Except, I encountered a disparity in the marketplace. Some of the shaving soaps were quite good, others enjoyed a great reputation, but in my estimation were not anything to get excited about.
At first, I was just curious. After doing some research, I started to think maybe I should try my hand at making my own and building a business around it. It took some time to convince my skeptical wife that this wasn't some harebrained idea.
Along the way, I found Soapmaking Forum and devoured everything I could find on shaving soap. I spent several months and no small part of my sanity developing my own HP recipe. After a few iterations, I recruited volunteers to try it, including my brother in-law who head shaves. Version #9 was a hit with the testers, but ultimately it was version #14 that became the product I sell today, with only a couple of minor tweaks in six years. My brother in-law, btw, is a loyal customer to this day.
A few weeks after I started selling shaving soap, a customer emailed me and wanted to know if I was planning on offering bar soaps too. I honestly hadn't given it much thought. I was still using body wash and liquid hand soap. I had seen plenty of threads here and elsewhere about CP soap but hadn't really spent any time reading or watching videos about it.
I started experimenting with a basic CP recipe I saw on a youtube video. Before long I started obsessing on CP soap and spent too many late nights pouring over soapcalc. My goal was to have an easy to manage recipe that overlapped ingredients with my shaving soap recipe where possible. That didn't exactly work out, they only have two oils in common. It was several months and a few soap disasters later before I felt like I had a winner.
When I started selling, I had a 3 lb mold and a single bar cutter. Within a year I moved up to a 20 lb slab mold, a log splitter, and a multi-bar cutter to keep up with demand. 18 months later I added another one. A year later I added a pair of 30 lb slab molds. I started pre-batching fats and oils, trying to stage 3 or 4 batches to cut down on prep time and clean up. Now I am master batching fats and oils and soon lye water as well.
These days, my business is split 70-75% shaving soap to 25-30% CP soap. I am certain I can sell much more CP soap if I can get more variants/scents online, which is what has been driving my scaleup into master batching.
I still read about CP soapmaking and watch videos regularly. I don't color my soap, I am focused on the practical mechanics of making soap and recipes, with a minor fixation on sources of equipment and raw materials.
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