Preservative Efficacy Testing

[maimangin12]

Hey everyone, I've been making soap and various body care products, such as body butter, lotion, and bath bombs, for a year and after selling to family and friends and getting good feedback I signed up for a craft fair in February. However, I recently went down a rabbit hole on how to make sure preservatives were working in my products (not growing mold or bacteria) and I read that you should have your products professionally tested in a lab for months before you sell them to the public. The idea of having to wait so long, and probably spend hundreds more dollars is scaring me into thinking I should stop selling or at least only sell things that are anhydrous. Have any of you sent your products to labs before selling, and if so how much did it cost and how much time did it take?

 

[ackosel]

I can't answer your question, but I am interested in answers you might get here. At this point, I am looking into starting to sell a little soap, but not anything else yet. That is partly because of the difference in regulations (cleanser vs cosmetic) and partly because of the issue of preservatives.