Teach Soap

Hi All,

I really do appreciate this forum as a great way of sharing best practices, ideas, successes, and challenges. So, thank you for this opportunity!

My wife and I are in the process of launching a home-based, hand-crafted soap business, Joyful Soaps LLC. As the Director of Business Development and Marketing, I am investigating market research, sales points and customer segmentation, and preparing marketing strategies.

I wanted to know from all of the experiences here, does cold process soap have distinct advantages over melt-and-pour soap as far as customer satisfaction, practical aspects, and sales appeal are concerned? Our soaps have a lot of character and personality--they are fun, after all. So, melt-and-pour can be cheaper and easier sometimes. My wife, who is the soap maker, tends to opt for cold process soaps for approximately 80 percent of her soaps.

Any thoughts as to what seems to sell best and why between these two types of soaps? Also, based on trial and error and customer feedback, what should we mindful of in terms of cold process soap? Is it ideal for wholesale use with major establishments, etc.? Do melt-and-pour soaps have ideal venues?

Thank you very much for your advice and guidance to a newbie in the exciting world of soap making!

Sincerely,


Michael R. Hughes

In my opinion cp and hp soap, are true soaps that are beneficial to human skin. Melt and Pour seems more a medium to create visually beautiful soaps.

Why not do both? Check out www.smellthesoap.com a successful Soap Co up here in Canada. I LOVE all their products.

Alot of nice people I know do both.

I do both as well. It depends what niche market you want to cover.

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

I started with CP , 2 years ago, I am now getting into M&P.

You should do what speaks to you...

I have no interest in M&P but I have a lot of respect for those artists who do it so beautifully.

CP just fascinates me and I find HP useful for certain recipes and also as a way to rebatch my mistakes.

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- Mickey!

Melt and pour are quick to pop'em out of the mold and getting them on the shelf ready to self. Is a bit easier. But for me is a bit more expensive than just getting the ingredients to make a soap from scratch like Cold Process and Hot Process Soaps. In addition to it in M&P you do not have control of what the actual ingredients are in a soap base, I had no clue what were in mind since the people who sold me the base did not bother in telling me what were the ingredients or at least provide me some hints on them. Sure you have a free range of possibilities in making wonderful colorful soaps e.g with neon bright colors, fun shape soaps with interesting colors that get anyones attention even fool people into thinking they are food if you use a food like mold e.g cup cake molds. You have more space for your imagination when it comes to shape, color and you get an actual idea of what the final product can be before you popped out of the mold. Unlike CP you are always in awe with every batch that you make, also one little misstep can alter the end results. I am a newbie with CP and I am loving more than M&P.

CP is therapeutic, also me being a control freak in what actual goes into the things I make is perfect. Is cheaper depending what kinds of oils you are using and most of the ingredients are available in your kitchen pantry if you look closely. I am liking doing the CP soaps. But I am tired of hearing some people telling me that they do not understand why CP is an artisan soap since they do not have those extravagant fool me shapes,I tell them well contrary to M&P I can but if I make them with a ctually tell you what are the ingridients of the soap and you would not feel sorry to use them. Instead you will feel when you know that the ingridients in your kitchen are the ones that help in making that soap you are using.

Both for me are artisans, now it depends who is your market, how fast you want them to be, the time that you have to make them, and what gets your attention.