Soap Making 101

[punkin]

Alot of those sound like most of the fragrances I like. I also checked out Brambleberry's top sellers and asked alot of friends their preferences.

Here are some ideas so far: (if this soap stuff takes off :/ ):

Rose, lavender, sandlewood, cucumber melon, raspberry, citrus (not orange), peach, apple, oatmeal milk & honey, bay rum, blackberry sage, fresh mango

Seasonal:

Christmas-cranberry fig
Thanksgiving-ginger orange
St. Patty's-green tea with jasmine
Valentine's Day-English Rose
July 4th-minty scent
Easter-apricot fresia
Mother's Day-lilac cybilla

I'm still trying to narrow it down to 10-12

 

[punkin]

I sold alot of natural cucumber. puree a whole cuke in the food processor and add it to your water to make for the liquid in your recipe.
I got lots of repeat buys of blackberry sage. it's got a natural scent without being too fruity or too .... earthy.

With the cucumber, did you use any other fragrance or is the puree enough to scent it?

 

[FarmerChick]

raspberry and apple were a no sale here.
very few people liked them

I subbed strawberry vanilla and people love that one.
And gave up on apple all together..LOL

BUT that is my location. You just gotta try your area and it is hit and miss on what sells and what doesn't.....I had many a flop which I thought were great----and I tried some I thought would never sell and DID, alot of it, like almond.

When you get perfected you should contact your local health food stores. the little ones, they would love to sell your soap. I am in many of them around me in NC. Also just leave samples for them to try.....and many call backs come. Be sure to figure your wholesale costs and be ready to sell to stores. Also craft stores that are "kinda" natural.

I have a pottery lady that sells all over in craft fairs. She makes tons of soap dishes. She loves my soap and now orders tons of it to take to the craft fairs and sells right along with her soap dishes.....good combo me and her..LOL

 

[punkin]

Huh, everyone that smells raspberry here, loves it. Go figure.

I don't mind crossing the apple off. Since I already have some fragrance oil, I may try it just to see.

Strawberry vanilla sounds good.

 

[FarmerChick]

when you have a strong scent, mix in vanilla
it calms it down and gives it that "just baked smell" which everyone loves.
strawberry oils are "strong" on the nose as is raspberry, but cutting it a tad with vanilla gives it a more easy go to the nose.

 

[punkin]

when you have a strong scent, mix in vanilla
it calms it down and gives it that "just baked smell" which everyone loves.
strawberry oils are "strong" on the nose as is raspberry, but cutting it a tad with vanilla gives it a more easy go to the nose.

Makes sense. BTW, I just noticed your new title. Sounds good.

 

[FarmerChick]

yea punkin I am downgrading the farm.
getting old and tired and I am "close to done"
but soap sales are huge for me so will keep that end going..LOL
plus I love making and using it..LOL


also you can get the cheaper vanilla oils and it saves money to cut the more expensive oils with the vanilla.
win/win

 

[okiegirl1]

but you have to be careful with vanilla. a good vanilla will go DARK when sponified. I actually like to do a swirl with vanilla so you're not trying to talk people into washing with dark brown soap.

as far as the natural cuke, no I didn't add an FO use usually people wanting something natural like that don't want a fragrance. You could add a cuc/mel FO if you wanted, but I never did. the cuke makes dark specks in the soap.

 

[me&thegals]

This is awesome to get more experienced folks on this thread along with all the others!!

Okie--I have a question about all these veggies. I was on a soaping forum, and people were dumping in everything. Now I'm used to baking and dumping in extras that way. But in soaping, how do you account for the extra moisture? For example, do the pureed cukes count as part of your water?

On the forum I was on, people were dumping 1 cup of pumpkin into a 5-lb batch of soap with no other adjustments that I could tell. Does this sound right?

I would like to try cukes, pumpkin, carrots, mint, sage. The herbs seem drier and more like a trace add-in like cornmeal or oatmeal. But the pureed veggies?

 

[okiegirl1]

yep, I always added my pureed ... whatever... to my pitcher, then added what ever other liquid was called for (milk, water, etc.) till it weighed what the recipe said. Just my opinion, but I'd be careful with added all veggies for the liquid, 'cause I wouldn't want to chance the soap not having enough liquid and it developing ash. I always ran my adjustments thru the lye calculator at thesage.com