Teach Soap

I love Beth Bacchini of Santo Sabao's soap blog. If you've ever used Google translate, you know that it tries, but doesn't always deliver, but you can usually get a pretty good idea of what you're reading. (Sometimes the translations are nothing short of hysterical.) Anyway, I just read a short piece that Beth wrote, and it really hit home with me, because I wish I had a dollar for every time someone tried my soap and decided they'd like to make soap too. Then they ask me how it's done, expecting that I'll be able to explain it in a couple of minutes and then they'll be able to go right home and make their own. Because it's simple, right? Or they say, "That bar costs $5!!! You must be making a TON of money!!!" Yes, if you're a soapmaker, I'm sure you've fielded these questions and comments, too.

You know that you can't explain how much research and development goes into making your soap. How long you spent designing, rejecting and redesigning your labels. How many hours you spend searching the internet for the best prices on supplies. How long it takes you to wrap 500 bars of soap.How late you stay up the night before a craft fair. How early you get up the morning of a craft fair. How tired you are at the end of the day.

And yet, we love soapmaking enough to keep going. Sometimes we manage to do it well enough to make it look easy. But easy it's not. Beth's soaps are inspirational, and she does make it look easy. But we know better. It seems that she was having one of those days when she wrote this. If you've ever had one of those days, you may like to read this, too. It's priceless. Scroll down to "day to day here in the studio".

http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... t=&act=url

LOL Love it I think a lot of us get those questions & some days you just want to scream at those people.

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Genny

Absolutely love it! My main clientele are people I work with. I sell more at work (through out my facility) than I do so far at craft fairs. I always get asked when I'm going to quit my job and start selling soap full time. I laugh and laugh.

Yeah, I think all of us have those days when we question why we're in business. It would be easy to understand, if we were getting rich, but I'm guessing there are very few of us in that situation, so it must be something else, like our love of what we do.

In spite of the bad translation, my favorite lines in Beth's post are.....

"It just shows that I do not know delegate. And you do not want to delegate. So I'm somewhat possessive. A beautiful flaw, in the case of a business.
But it was the way I chose."

and

"Get rich? Only if the experience of meeting wonderful people, fragrant soul .... liking what you do, do with passion ..... yeah, not get much richer it all. "

No, it' certainly not because it's easy, or because we're getting rich, that we keep going. It's that something else.

Yes, I believe she is exactly right!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

When people ask me how do you make soap, I start to explain, then I see their eyes glaze over and they really couldn't be bothered to understand!
God forbid if I start to go into the properties of the different oils ! They start to wish they had never asked!

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Diane

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Anna Rose @-}--
blog

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

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Olivia :)

Oh, I can only imagine the things people think!

I know better than to assume I know everything. I give huge props to CP soapers because it honestly is much more work than MP soap. Some people can't be trusted to even make MP soap!

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