Teach Soap

If people mostly use liquid soap in their daily routine, why aren't we all focused on making & selling liquid soaps instead of bars? In 2011, $1.9 billion was spent on liquid soaps, $1.2 billion on bar soap (source: Advertising Age, Soap Cleans Up By Raising the Bar, Oct. 8, 2012).

If I'm not making the most popular soap product out there in terms of segment size/market, then I'm clearly being dumb.

I need to learn to make liquid soap.

Or am I missing something here?

Did the liquid soap category include dish and laundry soap?

Because liquid soap isn't as pretty or fun to make!

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Amber D that'd be me!

I've read a couple different articles about it which all basically say that liquid body wash is more popular these days than bar soap, and has been for a long while now, although recently there has been a slight trend back to bar soap where people are picking natural and/or handmade artisan soaps. There is sales growth expected this year in bar soap, none in the body wash/liquid soap segment. I can't remember which trade magazine had an article this month, maybe GCI or Skin Inc. This is a repeated theme I've seen several times, but never really thought about.

I just never realized that liquid body wash had gotten so popular. I've always had multiple shower gels in my shower, so I'm not sure why I'm so surprised. I've started looking at people's bathrooms - for guy's I'm seeing a ton of Axe and Old Spice liquid body washes. So surprised people really buy Axe. Several cases where there were zero bars of soap.

It makes me wonder how well a liquid body wash line would do.

One thing that occurs to me is that selling liquid soaps would entail relying more on well designed packaging/labeling. With a liquid - you have the color and scent to spice it up, but it lacks the 3D, tactile appeal of a bar of soap. And a bar of soap can evolve as it wears down - at least some do. I find that interesting (but I am easily amused).

I'd be curious as to why a person prefers one over the other. Are they more utilitarian types? It uses more packaging - unless you refill the container. As a former buyer of bar soaps (I make but do not sell) I have been turned off by excess packaging - just a cigar band please. Hmmm.....so I am not a potential customer for liquid soaps. Are they cheaper per ounce?

Handmade liquid soap IMO will never bubble as much as the commercially made body washes. They usually have synthetic surfactants, which handmade soaps do not have.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Speaking only for myself, I want to be as green as I can be....sometimes that means finding alternatives to the trends or what's popular, which is what got me into soapmaking in the first place. I have two special needs/disabled children and I strive to make whatever I can as natural as possible.

Again, only speaking for myself, but I think another thing that draws me into bar soap is that there's no bottle to feel guilty about throwing out. True, these bottles can be recycled but ONLY if the people buying them are actually DOING so. I know a lot of people out there won't even sort their recyclables or even care to so to me, bar soap eliminates a lot of that waste.

And on the artsier, more creative side, bar soap is just more attractive to the eye. I have given family members & friends the soap I have made and they're always in awe of its back-to-basics look & feel, if that makes sense. It also feels more luxurious, like you're pampering yourself...and we can all use a little pampering! :D

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- Stacey -

Anyone's life truly consists of work, sunshine, exercise, soap, plenty of fresh air, and a happy contented spirit. - Lillie Langtry

Even my own liquid soap--made with glycerin and live oil--is more drying to my skin that my bar soaps. So I still prefer the bar to the bottle for showering.

But I do sell liquid soap, and some customers use it even as shampoo!

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

I have been using LS exclusively for years. I find it convenient when I travel or mountain bike race as I use one bottle for shampoo and body. Bar soap for me leaves more of a mess in the shower (I can't leave it in the built in soap dish as the water hits it and it disappears. I had to buy a suction cup holder for the wall, which gets schmegged and needs to be cleaned). I also find bars are too big for my hands.

That said I do enjoy the batch of bars I made. I have also made LS that I use for shampoo. Although I do use it for body sometimes, it doesn't lather as much as I'd like. I do feeling lathers well in my hair just not on my body. But I suppose I'd get used to it!

I need to make at least one more batch of each to get me to winter!

I make both, however I make and sell a TON less liquid soap than bar soap. The bar soap is prettier, can be smelled at the time, and is more fun to make. I only use natural colorants, so my liquid soaps are pretty much just what the oils make them, although I do sometimes use teas and herbal infusions to color. Still, not as fun as bar soap to me. Then there is the ingredient list. I rarely even use a FO, so adding in chemicals to create those big bubbles is not something I want to do, and my clientele are my clientele because of the way I create my products. I do sell some liquid soap and shampoo, but only to those that are interested in being green. The "non-green" types could care less about my liquids because they like the chemical bubbles and texture, they just buy the bar soap because they smell good, and they don't care if I use a FO or not.
Something for everyone, so it really boils down to what you like to do and what you are willing to do.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

Bar soap is a much nicer product to use that liquid soap and I think a lot of people have been suckered into using liquid soap because they have been told it makes cleaning the shower easier. I have a couple of friends who will only use liquid soap for that very reason even though they prefer bar soap. IMO liquid soap is also a trend and as with all trends they change. The same research in a couple of years could give very different results perhaps.