Advice Please

[skayc1]

I'm a new soap maker, I researched for 4 months & created my own recipe using soapcalc calculator. I then gathered my needed supplies and took the plunge. My Facebook friends (who live far away) seem to like the look of my soaps, & have asked if i sell them. I'm still looking for the best places to get my fragrance oils, colorants, more molds, & oils/butters from. Should I go ahead & place the soaps on etsy, what is your advice?

 

[Susie]

You are going to get a lot of folks who are going to tell you the same thing...NO. "You don't know how that soap is going to be in a year, you have not perfected a handful of recipes that you can make over and over, you don't know how to handle bad batches"...and the list goes on and on.

Most of us have family and friends who encouraged us to sell after the first successful batches. While it is kind of them to say so, it really is a bad idea. They(and you) just don't know enough yet. But you can learn and perfect recipes over the course of time. So, don't give up. Just don't give in to the pressure to sell early. It will be worth the wait for them and you.

Also...go take a good long look at all the plethora of soaps available on Etsy. That market is flooded. You need to figure out a market where you can actually pay for your hobby before trying to sell.

 

[cmzaha]

NOOOOOOO...you are a long way from being ready to sell. Sorry, but you do not even know if your soap is good. Soap needs to age a min of 4 weeks with longer being better. We usually recommend a year of soaping and keep a soap from all batches so you can see how it is at 2 months 3 months etc. Also you need to know if your recipe will go rancid (DOS). Then after all that you need business license, insurance and whatever other requirements are in your city/state. You do not have the experience to even know if it is a nice soap. One batch may turn out well and your next batch could be a disaster, do you even know how to recognize and fix a problem, nope, not after just a couple of batches.
Oops Susie beat me to it!

 

[Dahila]

how many soaps have you made. Year of making a soap is a good starting point. Welcome to the forum
oops you both beat me to it

 

[Cactuslily]

Hi skayc1! Welcome to the forum. Congrats on your newfound love of soaping. My best advice would be to wait @1year before staring to sell. So good to hear you've done so much research, because many don't. That being said, as a newbie myself, it takes awhile to really get your recipes tweaked. Especially given 4-6weeks cure time. in the meantime. Take notes...lots of them, and get feedback on all of your soap. Emphasize the need for critical reviews. It can look beautiful, but how does it perform? Is it drying? Do the colors bleed onto washcloths? Etc... give yourself the time to get a few recipes completely tweeted. Unfortunately only time and experience will give you that. In the meantime, your family and friends are very lucky, and you're lucky to have them as your guiney pigs. Good luck and happy soaping!
ETA: above responses didn't show until after I posted. Didn't mean to be redundant.

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome Skayc1!

I agree with the others. For those that are new to the craft of lye-based soapmaking, I cannot stress highly enough the need to wait a period of at least 1 year from the time one begins making soap in earnest to the time one considers selling. The reason being is because of the nature of lye-based soap- besides the need for the soap to go through a good curing period, problems such as DOS or scent fading and/or morphing that are common to lye-based soap don't usually show up until a few weeks or a few months have gone by after unmolding and cutting.

Giving yourself at least a year is a good amount of time to put your formula to the test to see how it behaves under different conditions over the weeks and months after unmolding, and it will give you ample time to be able to help you tweak your formula to perfection so that you don't ever find yourself in the position of having had sold a bar of soap that ended up going bad on the customer a few weeks after they bought it. Selling soap that goes bad hurts not only the customer, but also the whole community of handmade soap-makers by giving handmade soap a bad name.


IrishLass

 

[Seawolfe]

Friends and family always think you should sell whatever. What they mean is "wow that looks so professional, and I know nothing about that market". You don't have your suppliers lined up, tested and true recipes, and the benefit of experience and trouble shooting skills.

 

[Chefmom]

A soap business isn't about making a way cool batch of soap. It's about making a way cool batch of soap over and over with consistency again and again. Streamlining your system so that you can actually pull a profit from the system and finding suppliers that can supply you with your needs, while still being able to pull more from sales than expenditures.

Many people have a hobby they love, turn it into a business and then hate it because it isn't a fun hobby that you do when you want to anymore...it's work. It keeps you up at night, it makes you want to pull your hair out over the crazy people out there you need to deal with in a polite and business-like way, it stresses you, it keeps you busy when your family is relaxing and having fun and you are wrapping and packaging.

Selling a few bars to help cover costs to friends and family...if you are quiet about it and keep it between yourself no one is really the wiser.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I am with the others on selling - it is far too soon. If a customer has a question, could you answer it? Do you know enough about soaping to know that you are selling a quality product?

Soaping is not a cheap hobby in many cases, but that is never a reason to try to even make a little but if money from it. Either you want to make soap or not - if you can't afford to make soap every week, don't make soap every week. Don't sell soap on the side to friends and family when you should be giving it to them. If you sell in anyway, soap making is then no longer a hobby.

If I loved going to the cinema but couldn't afford to go very often, I shouldn't become a film critic or even charge my friends for my advice on a film to fund my hobby. If I really love films, I'd fund my hobby myself. If I could only go once a month because of cash issues, then I'd only go once a month. I fail to see why people claim that soaping is their hobby (something you do for enjoyment) but then want it to pay for itself. Either do it because you enjoy making soap, or don't.

 

[Dana89]

I have been soaping for a year and have made a lot of batches but I know I am still not ready. I have read so many books, watched so many videos and read so much on forums. I just recently make a successful OMH batch after 3 of them over heated on me.
My family is the same way. They have no idea how much there is to learn and how each batch is a learning experience for me.
They also always say "you know what you should is"-insert here what I should make and where I should sell it. They are great gunie pigs though.
Bottom line is if you have ask someone if you are ready then you,re not.
Welcome to the addiction and enjoy the learning process.

 

[cerelife]

Welcome Skayc1!

Selling soap that goes bad hurts not only the customer, but also the whole community of handmade soap-makers by giving handmade soap a bad name.


IrishLass

This also goes for selling soap that just doesn't feel good on the skin, no matter how pretty or cool it may look.
A little story to bring this very valid point home: One of my friends is a Master Herbalist and I was in her shop one day and she was showing me these very cool looking soaps that she'd made and extolling all the benefits of handmade soap and what herbs she used, etc. Now this lady knows her stuff per herbs/natural healing so I trusted her, but her soap was terrible! Back then I didn't know any better and I thought this was what handmade soap was supposed to feel like, so I NEVER wanted to try it again!!
Fast forward a few years later when I ran into a soapmaker who had a bar of soap that smelled so good that I had to buy it...I didn't care if it felt awful because it smelled so good! Lo and behold, this was a different creature altogether!! It felt amazing on my skin and I was addicted
In a recent conversation with this same friend (who now uses MY soap) I admitted how much I hated the soap she used to make. And she confessed that those were the first and only batches of soap she'd ever made. She said that she did all her research and they LOOKED and SMELLED good, but she ended up throwing most of them away shortly after I bought a bar because they started to stink/go rancid.
I did research for over six months before I made my first batch of soap and the bars from my first few batches of soap are still pretty decent five years later. When I first made them I thought they were amazing and my family and friends did as well and told me I should sell them. But honestly, I would be embarrassed if I HAD sold them as I've fine-tuned my recipes into far superior soaps. After all, that's what it's about, right? Putting your best effort out there for your customers and making something you can truly be proud of and stand behind. But it does take time to learn and perfect your recipes.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share this as a cautionary tale - it's soooo easy to turn people away from an entire community with just one bad bar of soap.

 

[El_Granado_Loco]

Friends and family always think you should sell whatever. What they mean is "wow that looks so professional, and I know nothing about that market".

Hahaha! Exactly that!

skayc1, welcome to the addiction!! You 'll see that if you do wait, you 'll appreciate it. It will let you see the changes in your soap and, if you try new recipies, you' ll be able to compare them with the experience you 'll have gained... Experimenting is part of the fun!

Meanwhile, use as many guinea pigs as you can find and insist on critical reviews, as said above. There are things to which only few are sensitive. Of course it feels good to share your soap with friends, but you don't have to do it for money. They try it and provide you with info, this is a lot more valuable than money, especially at the beginning.

Have a great time soaping!

 

[navigator9]

Sell.....no. Make soap....YES! Make tons of soap. Experiment with recipes. Get comfortable with Soap Calc. Use lots of different ingredients. Learn what each of them brings to the party. Give soap to your family and friends. Get feedback. Keep careful notes. Tweak your recipes. Tweak them some more. Read books. Hang out here. Make more soap and keep refining your recipes. Celebrate your successes and learn from your failures. Failures are wonderful teachers. Make more soap, until you can consistently make one successful batch after another, and know that your recipes produce a mild, wonderful soap that does not get DOS, or is lye heavy, or irritating in any way. That should take you about a year. By that time, you can really call yourself a soapmaker, and you will have made enough soap to know whether or not you want to sell. The answers you have here are the voice of experience. We've been there and done that. Give yourself some time, you'll be glad you did. And enjoy making soap along the way!!! You couldn't have come to a better place to learn.

 

[skayc1]

Maybe I could give the soaps to the people asking me to sell, as a way to test them, only after I've tested them on myself. I have tested the first two batches made about 4 weeks ago, I tweaked the recipe after the first batch. I did have one batch that the fragrance oil morphed on & so far it still stinks after a week and a half.