Selling your soap after 3 months of soapmaking

[krissy]

i have some soap that when i made it and it was done curing was AMAZING. (to me) the scent was strong, the colors vibrant. fast forward to 9 month later and the bars of that batch i gave to my mom have NO SCENT at all.

the colors were muted and although the bar was still in good shape otherwise, no DOS or anything, i was shocked that the soap had no scent left.

if i had jumped the gun and started selling that batch and someone who "saves soap for someday special" bought it, then i would have possibly lost a client, gotten bad reviews, or they might have discouraged their friends from buying etc. you really need to know what your soap will be doing as time goes by because what is a reasonable time to save soap before you use it to you may not be long enough to some. ( i have soap that i was given as a gift that is 5 years old, and i just keep looking at it and thinking i will use it... just not today )

 

[TessC]

A well made soap most certainly does not need a preservative to last 5+ years. In fact, Castile, which is pretty much the simplest soap one can make, not only lasts an incredibly long time with no preservatives but gets better with age.

 

[ToniD]

As a "young" soaper, and a non-seller, I had to think about my opinion of a newbie selling. I don't have enough experience to say what is, or is not, a good idea.

But borrowing experience from other areas of my life--I think it does harm the selling community to have a newbie selling. I have been homeschooling for 23 yrs and do a decent job. My graduates from college have come out with good GPAs, (OK, my wonderful son graduated in the top 5% of the school EVER--I am a proud Mom) our two currently in college are getting straight A's. They tell me that their high school education prepared them well for college. They are fairly representative of the homeschooling community. However, in spite of the many well educated high school homeschoolers, it is an uphill battle to apply to colleges. That is, at least in part, because there are homeschoolers who do a rotten job. I think that is just the way it is in a more "exclusive" (is that the right word?) community--all members are judged by the few. So to make the parallel-- yes, if someone has a bad experience with homemade soap, they will judge the whole community more harshly.

Secondly, discouraging newbies from selling is, in the end, a kindness. I have a young acquaintance who has jumped into a business. (not soap) I have some experience in her product and frankly, she is not any good. I think eventually she could do well, but I think she is shooting herself in the foot by starting too soon. It takes a lot of work to start a business, and all business hopes for word of mouth advertising and repeat customers--by not having a good product, she will probably not have either of those.

I know that was pretty long-winded of me, but I had to sit down and think about my opinion, and once I did I decided to share it.

 

[paillo]

i'm only maybe 14-15 months into soaping. i wish i'd kept my voluminous notes from the beginning, but in a housecleaning frenzy threw a lot of old stuff away.

i started selling about 9 months into it, but only to a very small audience -- my next-door-neighbor's beauty salon, a small local crafts place. i asked for feedback, and got a lot of it. i have many repeat buyers, which gives me some confidence -- and i continue to ask for feedback, and get it. i have product testers who give me their honest opinion, too. a couple of local health food stores have since asked me for soap, and i've happily provided it. and i've done a couple of local craft fairs -- and been amazed and healthily inspired by the competition.

i put up a small website but have not advertised it, and it has gotten almost no traffic -- which is fine with me, i'm happy with the local market until i feel more -- much more -- confident that i can replicate successful recipes (indefatigable experimenter here) in quantity.

did i start selling too early? i don't know. i've kept a bar of each soap i made since the beginning, and have learned a lot from that. will never again make those in which the scent or color faded entirely. or those horribly wrapped, horribly cut, too small, horribly shaped, etc. etc. i never sold my early batches, and i'm really glad i didn't -- dos, horrible shapes and combo colors and fragrances, etc, etc. i'm lucky to have family and friends who were glad to test them out and throw them out if they were inferior -- and tell me why.

at the couple of craft fairs in which i participated, i learned some useful things from swapping soaps. e.g. one vendor who had beautifully packaged glycerin soaps and was bemoaning not making $1,000 per day any more. upon unwrapping her soap, it was obvious that it was made in a house with smokers -- ewwwwww, i threw that one right out. another soaper made really inferior soap but had a great pilgrim costume and a demonstration of how to make old-fashioned lye soap over a campfire. great presentation, but ewwwwww, her soap was horrible, and even worse were the medical promises she made! i sold hardly any soap that day, she sold a ton. go figure.

i spend hours a day researching. i can't imagine not doing that. there is so much to learn. every day i feel humbled. i love this forum, and i love the dish forum. to the experts in both i owe a ton, and then some.

this is a great discussion. i hope it continues ad finitum (or even ad nauseum)

 

[newbie]

Interesting discussion. I also don't sell my soap although I've had people insist on paying me something for a bar. I tell them they're guinea pigs but they don't want to take something for free.

I was thinking more about the business aspects of selling soap. I don't know that jumping in is very wise unless you have a very good business background or someone to mentor you and perhaps back you up. You have to keep your customers happy which means keeping them supplied and keeping records, doing taxes etc...Part of that business savvy is knowing how to keep your inventory which means knowing a lot about your soap.

I get having to know if your soap develops DOS, loses its scent, feels like you want it to, keeps its colors, but how do people find out how their soap fares in all sorts of situations, with different hardnesses of water, different temperature and humidity situations, different storage conditions and all? Your soap could go to an unconditioned trailer in south FLorida, or to ARizona, or to Alaska and from rainwater to the worlds hardest water, from closed in basement closet for 3 years to being stored in the bathroom cabinet next to the shower for 3 years. A lot of people on here say they have been working for many months to years trying to find their ideal recipe from which they'll work, but is it possible to have one recipe work so well in so many situations that you can sell to a wide audience? I know carebear mentioned knowing how your soap will be in such situations, but how do you know? Have the people on the forum who sell managed to get their soaps into so many environments prior to selling? How? I don't ask this to be controversial, but it has been mentioned and I am curious how people gather such information.

I was also considering what I would think if I got a crummy bar of handmade soap somewhere and if it would taint my view of the whole craft. I don't think it would. It would be like trying any handmade product, like bread or cards or wine or knitted goods. I hope I would chalk it up to one bad crafter and still take my chances on another person. I would also feel pretty certain that the bad crafter wouldn't last long, as it should be.

 

[TessC]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've mailed test bars to family in other states to see how it behaves in their climate and water.

 

[newbie]

Do the sellers on the forum find that they discover a recipe that does work well in almost all situations? Makes you wonder if there is one master recipe out there and everyone works closer and closer to it. Are we all moving toward the light? The nirvana of soap?

 

[dubnica]

I don't think you HAVE to soap for 5-6 years before you can sell. Someone is good at making quality soap after 1 year, somone will not be ready after 6 years.

I don't expect bar of soap to stay the same after year or two. I bought some French soap for $8.00 a piece and after some time the scent and color faded some and I I think its to be expected.

 

[Deda]

I will politely refer you to our sticky on trollish behavior.
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=10344

(The post this is in referance to has been removed-ADMIN.)

 

[carebear]

Calling a person a name is decidedly different from calling an action stupid.

 

[Deda]

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=13902

 

[Tabitha]

Posts have been removed from this thread for the following reasons.:

1) Trolling posts have been removed.

2) Posts with information deemed incorrect by an admin/mod majority have been removed.

3) Posts that were in reference to a deleted posts have been removed.