Teach Soap

Now that my soap business is keeping me pretty busy and Im buying most of my stuff in bulk. I know how to figure all of the cost pretty much except the shipping. Some things I can get localy but Id say 50% I've got to get trucked here. The cost per bar goes down buying in bulk but how do you figure in shipping? Since I buy stuff as needed I can't say I'll buy everything I need to make 100 bars of soap and go from there. Since you all make soap you know it dosen't work like that.

Well - let's say you just bought 10 pounds of coconut oil, at $40, and shipping was $20. (I'm making up numbers to make the math easier, lol.) So your total cost for that oil was $60, or $6 per pound. Let's say you use a pound of coconut oil in your regular batch that makes 24 bars. That $6 pound, divided by 24, means that you use $0.25 of coconut in each bar.

Now you do the same thing for each oil, and add them all together to get your cost of materials. Don't forget fragrance, colors, mold lining materials, lye, packaging, and overhead, and be sure to add in labor.

It'll add up pretty quickly!

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http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
http://www.magichands.etsy.com
http://www.magichandsworkshop.blogspot.com

I think the hard part for me is trying to figure the cost of shipping (broken down over the whole order) on the stuff from BB. Cause sometimes I just get alot of FOs and sometimes I also get stuff like caster oil and palm oils. My order from them is all diffrent sizes of things and the FOs are all diffrent prices per oz.( and that all depends on what size you buy. So to figure the cost of soap per bar??????? Is like trying to learn chineese from the back of a cereal box. And how much do you figure you pay yourself?

If I get a big box of misc. supplies, I apply the shipping to each item by weight. Again, using made up numbers for ease, let's say I got a ten pound box of stuff for $20 shipping. That's the weight of all the contents. Now say one of those items is a bottle of FO that weighs 8 ounces - and holds 6 oz of FO, because of the weight of the bottle. I know what it holds because that's how I ordered it. I allocate one dollar shipping to that bottle, or $0.166666 cents for every ounce. If I pour three ounces for a batch, the FO costs me the price of the product plus fifty cents for shipping.

Make sense so far?

Now, here's where it gets tricky. Shipping gets a lot cheaper when you do a lot of it at once - for example, one bottle of FO will cost you a lot to ship all by itself, and that cost gets added to your soap. If you had that same bottle shipped alone, USPS would be $4.80, so you'd have to add EIGHTY CENTS for every ounce of FO you were using. That's a big difference to the sixteen cents per ounce above!

That's why it pays you, if you're in business, to order in bulk. It keeps the cost of your product down. My last oil order was a pallet of oils, shipped via freight line - I had 600 pounds of coconut oil alone, plus several hundred pounds of other stuff - and the freight charges were only around $400 bucks. It would have cost me far more to order those buckets one at a time.

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http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
http://www.magichands.etsy.com
http://www.magichandsworkshop.blogspot.com

oh, and how much to pay yourself - what's minimum wage in your area? Soapmaking, and doing it well, is a skilled job. It isn't rocket science, though, so maybe double the minimum wage or so? In this area, that would be around $15 per hour.

Here we get back to the bulk idea again. If I spend an hour and make a dozen bars of soap for my $15 wage, each bar costs $1.25 in labor. If I make a bigger batch - say 60 bars - each bar costs $0.25 in labor, and I'm making a better profit by making a better use of my time.

I know, lots of calculations. Figuring out all this stuff isn't easy, but it's very important to make sure your pricing is correct. A lot of people end up selling at a loss in the beginning, partly because they just don't realize it.

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http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
http://www.magichands.etsy.com
http://www.magichandsworkshop.blogspot.com

I'm just starting to seriously consider selling and discussions like this make me think I should really look into buying that soap maker software that breaks all this down for you.

There is SO MUCH to think about... even for someone like me who wants to start very small.

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- Mickey!

thank you Majic Hands for all that info. I do try to order in bulk . And I've been getting olive oil localy at a really good price to save shipping . I use tallow and get that in trade from a butcher who was throwing it away. That he gives me by the cooler full for a few bars of soap for his wife. The coconut oil I've been getting from Soapers Choice. And my FOs I get from BB in larger sizes every time I order. I make my own lables. If you can think of any other way to cut costs maybe we should start a topic on that.

I guess my question would be appropriate here, since I'm trying to cut costs as well. Does anyone know of an oil vendor (coconut & palm) in the Atlanta area? Shipping from the West Coast is about $40 a bucket, almost as much as the bucket itself.

Peace, Scott

edited to add: looks like Soaper's Choice is a lot closer; shipping is half what it would be from the West Coast. TY Linda Wise.

on this same line of questions, Im burning through lye like crazy. I bought my last 3 orders from The Lye Guy. Much better price than getting it at the hardwear store but now Im thinking I should get it in 35 to 50 lb. pkgs. that might cut the cost in half. How can I find it localy?? I couldn't find it in the yellow pages . And what is the diffrence between food grade and tecnical grade lye in terms of soap?

the primary difference for soaping purposes is going to be the cost. try looking for chemical distributors - i've also heard of people finding it with fertilizer suppliers, or pool chemical suppliers.

50 pounds of lye will just fit in a 5-gallon bucket (either saved from oil deliveries and well cleaned, or you can buy them in the paint section of home depot). those snap-tight lids will keep the lye dry, and are too hard to remove for little fingers.

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http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
http://www.magichands.etsy.com
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is in south carolina...

they carry 25lb and 55lb lye flakes.

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~Shell

I've been saving thoes 2lb. plastic jars the lye comes to me in .So If I can score 40 or 50 lbs. of lye I'll break it up into smaller containers. Easier to handle and not much chance to get moisture in it from opening it all the time to take out small amounts. Now if I can just find someone local to buy lye from.
So you say tecnical grade if fine for soap? I guess the Red Devil lye I started out with was that. Since it was ment to pour down the drain.

I get mine at Boyer corporation ()

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Petra

When my previous supplier of lye quit selling it I thought Oh NO! It has been a blessing. I looked up chemical suppliers in the yellow pages and called them all. Most told me that they would not sell just one 50lb bag but a whole pallet. So I asked "Do you sell to someone in the area who might be interested in selling one to me?" I got a name and a phone # and WOW, of all the soapers who I have talked to I have only found 1 who gets it cheaper than me. Well worth the 1/2 hour invested. Sorry but they are semi local Linda. They do not sell it by you. Good luck finding a good supplier.

Bruce

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www.homebrewsoaps.etsy.com

thanks Bruce, I'll keep checking things out localy.