Hey, welcome to the forum. In regards to you selling soap on Etsy, I found this to be some really helpful information when I first started making soap and found myself in the same predicament as you! (too much of it!)
"This is a generic thing I've been posting when people are considering selling soap. There's a lot to consider. I suggest soapmakers wait a year at least before selling. It's not meant to be discouraging or anything, but will hopefully give you an idea of all that selling entails.
What are your state & local regs on selling? You'll need a tax ID. Do city zoning laws forbid you from manufacturing in your home? Do you have liability insurance? Some venues require vendors to carry their own liability insurance. You should have it anyway to cover your own assets. Do you need to register as a business with your city, county and or state? Even if you're not required to, you should, in order to protect your personal assets in case of a law suit. Will manufacturing in your home make your homeowner's insurance null & void?
How long have you been making soap & B&B products, & how long have you been testing them? Do you know what your products are like a year down the road? Do you know what the shelf-life is of each of your products? Are you well-educated on INCI labelling & cosmetic regs? If someone's child has an allergic reaction to one of your products & the parents decide to file suit what will you do? Do you have insurance to cover that?
Do you have bookkeeping skills, & can you use accounting software? Will you do your own business taxes or can you afford to have someone else do your business taxes for you?
Consider your responsibility for your products. Consider how many people can come in contact with your products. Your responisibility grows exponentially. It's not just the person who purchased your, say soap. It's everyone who comes in contact with it - the person who purchased, their immediate family, friends of each family member, the extended family members who come to visit. Are you ready for that level of responsibility for what you create?
Many times I have had people buy soap & say it's too pretty to use. People will use your soap in their drawers as sachets, or leave them on the bathroom counter for month & months just to enjoy the scent. Sometimes they stash them away for months to give as gifts. The question then is, "What will your soap be like in 6 months or 8 months or a year? If you haven't waited it out, you don't know.
I purchased a competitor's soap at our local coop. In less than 6 months it smelled rancid, & I tossed it. That angered me:
1. I wasted my money
2. That handcrafted soap was a reflection on the entire handcrafted soapmaking community. Are her customers going to assume that all handcrafted soaps smell funky after a few months?!!
You need to know all the regs. What pushes your soap from soap into the "cosmetic" class & what does that mean as far as cosmetic regs? What pushes your lotion or cream into the drug arena, & what are the regs regarding that?
After you've gotten all that under your belt, what are your state & local regs on selling? You'll need a tax ID. Do city zoning laws forbid you from manufacturing in your home? You'll need liability insurance & that's NOT cheap! Will manufacturing in your make your homeowner's insurance null & void?
These are only a handfull of things to consider. You have a long learning curve ahead of you. You need to learn to formulate & test your formulas. That means researching each ingredient you plan to use - oils, butters, scenting materials (FO's, EO's), & research any additives you plan to use to avoid those that are known sensitisors, or outright harmful to use. While researching, you'll need to figure out which info is reliable & which isn't.
You'll need to learn when to use preservatives & which one you need for each type of product you make. Your lotions & creams should be tested to make sure the preservative you chose is really working.
Then, there's packaging & labelling. You'll need to learn the proper way to label your products using INCI nomenclature.
So, I don't mean to sound discouraging, & as you already know, there's a lot to consider before selling. I just like to put that out there for other new people to see & consider.
Lots of people rush into selling without having all their ducks in a row, or even caring to try to. I'm just passing along what I've learned & what other soapmakers shared with me in the beginning when I wanted to sell right away.
The added benefit of waiting a year is that when you sell, you'll feel confident talking to your customers about your products, & you'll have good sound info to give them based on all the research & testing you did through that year."
I hope that helps some! Make sure you take your time, go slow with it, and really test your products to make sure you have a safe, quality item that people will want to come back for.
