Your Thoughts Please
- Thread starter TheGecko
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Thank you. I have really struggled with marketing...so many different colorants, scents, designs. As I said, I went down the rabbit hole and got stuck. I have a good sixty bottles of FOs sitting in my garage...mostly 'trial' and 1 oz. The original intent was to experiment and build a product line from them, but then the world fell apart and was just making household favorites.
I think it's important to have a product line...something that is always in stock, something that people can count on. You also want to have seasonal items...like Christmas or Spring. And of course, nothing wrong with tossing in something different. I don't know if Katie with Royalty Soaps started the trend, but the whole 'release' idea is fantastic marketing...pretty much guarantees that she sells out her inventory.
ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
@TheGecko Fully d'accord with the critical eye on all that half-baked marketing blah, and a mindset that refuses to constantly question the balancing of one's own position, but also stand up for compromises.
[ETA: With “PR” I wanted to address that potential customers read “Shea? Yes, that's that stuff in lotions that makes my skin feel soft” vs. “Mango butter? I don't want that my hands to smell like fruit salad after washing”. It doesn't matter that this is irrelevant/nonsensical more than anything else, but it's the type of thinking that prevails around our fellow contemporaries.]
Btw, my point with palm oil was more directed into the FA profile direction. Your recipe is probably quite on the palmitic side of the P/S ratio. Adding/replacing shea or mango will lift the stearic acid, and the resultant soap will trace and cure differently, feel differently to the touch, and have different lather properties.
Generally, yes. But shea is indeed special (along with avocado, and to some degree RBO and olive oil), since some of its lipids are not just fats that give fatty acids (soaps), but stay “fatty” even at zero/negative lye discount. I cannot objectively judge if this makes it better than fats without that much of these unsaponifiables, but it is definitely something different, something that palm oil or mango butter just cannot provide.
[ETA: With “PR” I wanted to address that potential customers read “Shea? Yes, that's that stuff in lotions that makes my skin feel soft” vs. “Mango butter? I don't want that my hands to smell like fruit salad after washing”. It doesn't matter that this is irrelevant/nonsensical more than anything else, but it's the type of thinking that prevails around our fellow contemporaries.]
Btw, my point with palm oil was more directed into the FA profile direction. Your recipe is probably quite on the palmitic side of the P/S ratio. Adding/replacing shea or mango will lift the stearic acid, and the resultant soap will trace and cure differently, feel differently to the touch, and have different lather properties.
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Be careful of Evening Primrose, I was severely allergic to it, sending me to urgent care, of course, I used it in lotion so it would not act the same in soap. Remember you only need a small amount added to the high Shea to label it cranberry butter, and it will last a long time in the refrigerator. Raspberry Seed Oil and Green Tea oil are lovely. I found anything with Green Tea sold well.You're killing me! $49.00 for 16 oz.
Now I have this idea (hello rabbit hole) of a series of luxury soaps surrounding a key ingredient. Just looking at BB, they have Mango Butter, Avocado Butter, Coffee Butter, Lavender Butter and Cranberry Butter. oooooooooooo...Raspberry Seed Oil. Coffee Seed Oil, Green Tea Seed Oil, Evening Primrose Oil.
Okay...climbing back out of the rabbit hole.
For my men's soap line I always had Dragon's Blood which was my best seller with extra oatmeal for more scrub and I also had a non-scrubby version, since not all men liked scrubby. I also had a few other men's fragrances including a plumeria hardwood musk mix. You would be surprised how many men liked a floral mix. I had a large men's, in fact, I sold to more men than women, clientele but my husband did my markets with me and I think it made a big difference. Werewolf, Nag champa, and DB/Nag Champa (than you to Steve recommending the mix), were all good men's sellers, offhand I cannot remember the others. I agree with the Mechanics Soap being a hand soap.
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