Lin
Well-Known Member
I hope the title isn't too confusing, trying to explain my question in as few words as possible. I'm a new-er soaper, but have mostly always done my own recipes. I keep notes on my recipes and have bars from them all, but none are a full year old.
I'm going to be doing a fundraiser to help raise money for my next service dog because mine passed away unexpectedly Dec 20th. Due to the nature of training and placing the dogs its going to be anywhere from a year to a few years to get my next dog. My plans would have had me getting the next dog in 2-3 years based on fundraising time and that Tessa would continue to work until that time. So I'm needing to get fundraising going ASAP, as well as looking into other reputable organizations to see if I might be able to get a placement sooner.
May is the awareness month for my genetic disorder. From the elephant soap fundraiser, I came up with the idea to make zebra striped soap. My disorder (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) is rare and considered a medical zebra. I will be mostly targeting others with the disorder and friends/family of those with the disorder to sell the soap during the month of May. In addition to the zebra striped soap I'm thinking about including a card with some education/awareness info about EDS. But as a new-er soaper, should I use one of my own recipes? Or would it be better for me to use a tried and true recipe from an experienced soaper? And if so, how would I go about getting a tried and true recipe and permission to use it for this? A concern with that is my target market, EDS affects our skin so I at least know my soaps that I've personally tested are gentle enough. And time wise I cannot test a tried and true recipe from another soaper with full cure before making the soap for the fundraiser.
And just another quick opinion question. Due to the nature of soap needing a full cure and wanting to sell as much as possible, I'm thinking about ways to determine how much soap to make. One is to start putting it out there ASAP and taking advance orders. Part if not all of the fundraiser will be going through the parent charity of the service dog advocacy group I'm a member of so that people will receive the tax deduction receipts if wanted. So it would be possible for them to send payments in advance, because I don't know how reliable people would be to say put their name down as interested. I wouldn't want to make loads of soap and then come May have most of the people not actually buy bars, wouldn't be much of a fundraiser if I LOST money on supplies! But I also don't want to miss out on funds by not making enough soap. I may offer some of my body products, I've been working on those much longer than soap. But with May being awareness month and the soap being zebra striped that will be the main attraction so to speak.
I'm going to be doing a fundraiser to help raise money for my next service dog because mine passed away unexpectedly Dec 20th. Due to the nature of training and placing the dogs its going to be anywhere from a year to a few years to get my next dog. My plans would have had me getting the next dog in 2-3 years based on fundraising time and that Tessa would continue to work until that time. So I'm needing to get fundraising going ASAP, as well as looking into other reputable organizations to see if I might be able to get a placement sooner.
May is the awareness month for my genetic disorder. From the elephant soap fundraiser, I came up with the idea to make zebra striped soap. My disorder (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) is rare and considered a medical zebra. I will be mostly targeting others with the disorder and friends/family of those with the disorder to sell the soap during the month of May. In addition to the zebra striped soap I'm thinking about including a card with some education/awareness info about EDS. But as a new-er soaper, should I use one of my own recipes? Or would it be better for me to use a tried and true recipe from an experienced soaper? And if so, how would I go about getting a tried and true recipe and permission to use it for this? A concern with that is my target market, EDS affects our skin so I at least know my soaps that I've personally tested are gentle enough. And time wise I cannot test a tried and true recipe from another soaper with full cure before making the soap for the fundraiser.
And just another quick opinion question. Due to the nature of soap needing a full cure and wanting to sell as much as possible, I'm thinking about ways to determine how much soap to make. One is to start putting it out there ASAP and taking advance orders. Part if not all of the fundraiser will be going through the parent charity of the service dog advocacy group I'm a member of so that people will receive the tax deduction receipts if wanted. So it would be possible for them to send payments in advance, because I don't know how reliable people would be to say put their name down as interested. I wouldn't want to make loads of soap and then come May have most of the people not actually buy bars, wouldn't be much of a fundraiser if I LOST money on supplies! But I also don't want to miss out on funds by not making enough soap. I may offer some of my body products, I've been working on those much longer than soap. But with May being awareness month and the soap being zebra striped that will be the main attraction so to speak.
I'm feeling a bit better about using one of my own recipes now. Its not exactly the same as selling, but taking money for them is a far cry from giving the soap away. And I'd like to sell soap some day, so I also worry what if I screw them up and lose potential future customers. Maybe I should think more like I'm receiving donations, and giving away the soap in return lol. I did that after Tessa's passing, I received a couple donations toward her cremation (couldn't bury her due to the frozen ground, and I refused to have her sent for mass cremation and 'disposal') so I sent them soap as a thank you. 
