Cost Per Bar --- Labor

[lizflowers42]

My biggest expense right now is just buying stuff because I think I am going to use it. I keep looking at all these sales and think, YAY, that's a GREAT sale! But I don't sell my soap...and I don't need all the stuff I keep putting into my online shopping carts...lol

 

[Badger]

Liz, I am on a limited budget, but I feel your pain. I have a list of things that I *need* (ie want) to get so I can make the soaps I want to make. I have a soap idea in my mind for a scent that I love, and I can't make it because I don't have the color and some other stuff for it. I keep going back to wanting to make this soap, and then telling myself I have to wait on it. There is also the fact that since I am not selling, I have all this soap and have to figure out what to do with it all I think I will make some of my friends happy soon since the first few batches are coming up on their four week cure time!

 

[Bann51]

I'm real funny about ordering essential oils by bulk on line unless I have sampled them. I just went the ebay route and ordered a small bottle of lavender. I love lavender and use it alot but they vary alot. Also, saw an ebook out on the net about master batching. I'm a new soapmaker, but would like to do things more efficently. I would try the oil batching once I figured out what was my best recipe. Still experimenting!

 

[Kleine Teufel]

I take about 2 hours from start to sales ready for about 40 bars of soap. If I said $8.50/hr, which is the absolute minimum I'd work for at a job, that adds $0.43/bar. I usually do one type of soap that is fancy, then the other four molds get a simple soap, without any fancy designs, just one to two extra additives or simple swirls. I hand wrap every bar of soap in cellophane and taped like they're gift wrapped off of a large roll of it. The labels are all designed and printed at home, and cut at home.

 

[Bicycle808]

Making soap is a process that involves a lot of waiting between steps: waiting for lye/h2o to cool down, waiting for soap to set-up, etc. I try to come up with ideas to maximize efficiency with this; I mix the lye with the water first, start to mix/heat my oils at the same time, then I prepare my molds. If there's any lag-time in between, I'll multi-task with other stuff. Do some laundry or whatever. I tend to wash everything right after I pour, then check on the mold right after, than forget about the whole thing for 24hours. Then, I put the molds in the freezer for a loooong time, and do other stuff in between freezing and de-molding. For me, making soap is a household chore, and I try to integrate it with other household chores/ home-based leisure activities as best I can.

If you're "paying" yourself $2/bar, and your material cost is already $1.80 a bar, you need to improve your cost/efficiency practices. Buying stuff in bulk helps, as does making soap in bulk. At $2/bar, you're spending a lot of time on a relatively small number of bars. Make bigger batches. Stop figuring on a $12/hour pay rate; you're a brand-new soaper who is working at making a product that is readily available for cheap. Sounds more like a minimum-wage job, to me, when you're working as a soaper. No experience, plus your'e not working in an industry that pays its workers very well.
Are you "on the clock" whileyou 're selling? Packaging? Researching on SMF or other internet soaping resources?

My view is, whatever profit I make over my material cost is the wages for my "labor". B/c I have 1.5 "real" jobs, and because I'd be making soap for my personal use anyway, I don't try to work on an hourly rate and bake that into the prices.

That's just me, and maybe I'm in the minority here, but if you're figuring $3.80 as your cost per bar, then you're selling them at $8-$12 per bar? Good luck with that. I try to keep things cheap, so I can keep it moving.

 

[Kleine Teufel]

I agree. $3.80, YOUR cost for soap is way too much. Of course, you're experimenting and just starting, so sales shouldn't be a thought at the moment. 2 hours for 8 bars of soap? I am extremely slow, disorganized and do everything by hand, yet I can still manage five times as much soap.
As for budgets, THAT can be difficult for a small soaper. I want another set of molds to help work around my bi-polar phases, but that's another $100, plus I need some different colorants... another $60ish (minimums and shipping), yet I also need to restock some fragrance oils that are low. Oh, wait, I only have enough OO to do three more batches, so there's another $50, lol.
I tend not to break even, but have been growing my "business" slowly as I make sales. I also have an excellent inventory of gifts when holidays and birthdays come around.

ETA: I apologize for sounding snotty. That wasn't my intention. Just that you should get some soaps under your belt, your technique, etc before selling, and calculate costs then. With experience, you'll make soap much more quickly. As you grow, materials will be less expensive per bar, as you purchase in bulk. I started small (and still am very, very small) and have just been slowly growing as I go. My costs used to be in that $2 range per bar, and I sat back and wondered how on earth people had per bar costs under a dollar. I'm also a sales watcher. I put my recipe together, then slowly started building my stocks for the recipes I use. I would buy whatever I could afford when it was on sale. Slowly, the amount I could buy at a time increased. From 8lb packages of lye to 64lb packages, from 2lb bottles of coconut oil to 35lb buckets. Even one bulk oil can help drop your costs, which then adds more money to the pot for another bulk oil.