Teach Soap

I think it depends by what you mean expensive. $6 for a bottle of shampoo is inexpensive to me. $70 (US) on the other hand is a different story. There is a place here in Palm Springs where they sell upscale bath and body products. It is not a chain. I went there once, looked at the ingredients on some of their products, looked at the prices they charge and walked right out! Some of bottles were upscale and pretty, but the ingredients were VERY similar to what the Dollar store offers every day.

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

I've come to the conclusion that most consumer goods are retailed at ten times the cost of ingredients.
I wish I had realised this a long time back . . .
We sell through outlets such as hairdressers and spas. They normally demand at least a 40% discount and often want 50%. This means that CP soap is not a product we can offer through those outlets because the cost of ingredients is high. The retail price would be offputting. For instance, Esenza in DF offers wholesale prices of MX$140/kilo and their product is pretty good. But retail won't support a price of more than about MX$30 per 100g bar. The margin is 53% then, for those who buy wholesale and sell retail.
Consider a shampoo, though. Cost of ingredients about MX$6, bottle and label say MX$4, total MX$10. Retail say MX$70 (eg Caprice). Margin = 86% (wow). Big difference. Not to mention that once you've spent the time perfecting the formula, it is way, way easier to make shampoo!

The "organic" shampoo was basically the exact same as a grocery store brand for 3X the price and was only about 10% organic material. The "natural" shampoos had about 60 ingredients, the second on all 3 was SLS or SLSa; the only thing in there with a higher concentration was water. Neither had any soap ingredients (ie oils or lye). So all of them were just the same junk you get at the grocery store only with a bunch of herbal EOs and a lot of promises. Blarg!!! The liquid soap we carry is actually soap at least! Olive oil, coconut oil, glycerin, and KOH with lavender EO. So we were 1:5 good to crap ratio. Can't wait to get my ingredients and make my own shampoo, that is actually soap and not a bunch of surfactants and thickeners.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

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The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!