Teach Soap

Hi, all and thank you SO much for allowing me to join your forum. I've been a lurker for years as I made my own butters and hair products for family and friends. Well, recently, I turned my whipped butters into a business. It's going very well thus far, but I have a question that maybe some of you experience ladies can help me out with?

For those of you that sell- do you go buy weight or volume? I sell in 4oz and 8oz increments. I attached an image of one of my 8oz containers and the issue I'm having (a little over 5 ounces in weight).

I don't want to rip people off. Should I just say "sold by volume and not weight" ?

I did a small "experiment" of sorts, wherein I whipped up exactly 4 to 5 ounces of product. Once I whipped it, it couldn't nearly all fit into one 4oz container. it took up about 2.5 of them. Should I be sending people about 2 jars of what they order instead of one?

Thanks in advance for any help, and I hope this wasn't too confusing.

You need to go by the actual weight, not by volume.

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

Body butter is considered a cosmetic product. According to the rules and regs, you need to go by the net weight. Body butter gets air whipped into it. If you want a jar that holds true 4 ozs. net weight, you need to use a bigger container that will hold 4 ozs. of whipped butter.

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

Thanks for the info!

I use to go by weight with the body butters and yes you would need a larger container in order to go by weight. I also read this post on SoapQueen though and the recommendation is to go by volume since it is not a solid product.

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Haven

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

Cosmetics can be sold by weight or volume, it just depends on the type of product. If the product is a liquid (like lotion or shampoo) it should be labeled by volume. If the product is a solid or semi-solid (like a body butter) then it should be measured by weight. Of course, I know with some products it can be hard to determine if it is liquid or solid - if in doubt go by weight - that's always more accurate.

But you need to make it clear to the consumer that when you write 4 oz. on your container - whether you mean weight or volume.

So to help with that the FDA has some rules. If you are selling by weight the term "Net Weight" "net wt" or "net mass" needs to be on the package. If you are selling by volume you can use "net contents" but you don't have to put anything at all.
But when you are listing the quantity, if it's by volume, you need to use fluid ounces or "fl oz" to differentiate it from weight ounces.

And of course you should also put the metric equivalent on there. It's not required by the FDA but it is by the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. So that would be in grams for products by weight or milliliters for products by volume.

You can of course find all of this out at the FDA website here http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/c ... ?fr=701.13
But Marie Gales book on Soap & Cosmetic Labeling is really great at explaining all those Regs in plain english. AND she just updated it! http://www.brambleberry.com/Soap-And-Co ... P3663.aspx

I know this is a super confusing part of selling your own products - so I hope this helps!
~Amber

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Bramble Girl
www.brambleberry.com