# Experienced seller/soap maker question



## tespring (Jan 27, 2011)

In your experience, as you sell your soap, have you found it better to have around a dozen different types of soap fragrances and then one without fragrance or do you just do a bunch of soaps and just hope that they sell?  
TYIA!


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## donniej (Jan 27, 2011)

IMO, you need 2 different categories....  The ones people expect and ones that surprise them.  Everyone wants at least one or two floral scents and some scents like citrus (or similar), mint, etc...  

But then you also need something that people don't see very often.  I don't know what to tell you here but it needs to be something different, a reason-to-buy for people who are bored by all your other "normal" scents.  

An unscented soap is a good idea.  It probably won't sell great but the profit margin is pretty high since you're saving on scent.  

How many scents you should have is a tough call.  In marketing class they say that too few and you may not have something for everyone, too many and people get confused by the variety and walk away.


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## tespring (Jan 27, 2011)

Thank you donniej, that is what I was looking for! I am looking to streamline my soaps by just making say around 10 different fragrance soaps (2-3 of those mens FO's), 3-4 different Essential Oil soaps, a goats milk unscented and a regular unscented, some of the M&P in the fancy molds, then a few different cupcake soaps.   I want to start out at our local farmers market this year and a local craft shop that sells people's homemade items.  I have a few more things to work on but before I do that, I need to know an estimate of what I will make.


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## agriffin (Jan 27, 2011)

I always had my staples... OGH, unscented, lavender, patch, peppermint and something citrus.  And then like Donnie said...the rest were novelty.  I probably had 10 or so.  

My hardest lesson was starting off with the mindset of I'm going to make what I want to make.  After everyweek of people asking for lav and patch (both I couldn't stand at first) I finally caved and those were my top sellers.


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## donniej (Jan 28, 2011)

I can't agree enough about making what people ask for!  This is a very important point which is easy to ignore.  I stayed away from lavender for a long time because it's a little pricey, but *so* many people asked for it that I had to accomodate........ and sure enough, it's a best seller.


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## Dremma (Jan 28, 2011)

I only do herbal soaps with crushed herbs & essential oils so I may have a limited line compared to others.

But I do 8 standard herbal blends/scents (one is unscented but does have a crushed herb blend)...each blend is available in four different soap formulas.  So 32 standard soaps are always in stock.

Then I do a different, unique blend/scent, for each of the four seasons and additionally for December holiday season, Valentines day, etc.

An example is a shea butter lemongrass with EO of lemongrass and crushed lemongrass is the spring soap that I am working on now.  I will do 2 batches of 60 bars only on these.  

The seasonal soaps are usually very simple where as my standard soaps have more complex herb & EO combinations.

It works well for me.


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## Tabitha (Jan 28, 2011)

I keep about a dozen 'house' scents & then 4-8 seasonal that change with my mood.

It is hard to keep up with too many scents if you are doing a good bit of volumn.


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