Teach Soap

I think it depends on what your goals are for your business. If you want to be self-sustaining (meaning, you want your craft to support itself), then that's pretty easy to do. And really, at that point you're just using your business as a tax write off to support your hobby expenses (for as long as the IRS will let you). There's nothing wrong with that goal. It's being realistic about what time and effort you're willing/able to put into it. Right now that's my goal. I have two small children whom I homeschool, I only have so much time to give to soap making. I earn enough selling soap that I'm able to turn around and buy more supplies to support my habit, and for now, that's good enough for me.

If you want to support yourself fully on your soap business, well, that's a totally different thing altogether. But it sounds like you have a great avenue for sales already, which is really half the battle!

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BrookeLynn

"Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway."

What a great bunch of responses with great thoughts on this topic. Thank you all for your input! Gives me a lot to think about Love hearing about everyone's experiences.

Have a great day!

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BrookeLynn

"Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway."

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Debbie

Glad to hear some of this as my dtr is going to homeschool her 5y/o. Wish I was close enough to be able to help her but I am not.

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

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BrookeLynn

"Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway."

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

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Dawn

minimum wage here is $7.25 per hour!

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

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

So for those of you that live 'across the big pond", how much does a bar of soap cost. Locally I see it at the farmers market for 4.00 to 6.00 per bar that weighs about 4.5oz on average.

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

Which way across the pond? My Way?

Soaps here go from anywhere between $4.00 to $7.00 here. The bigger the name they get, the more the soaps end up costing lol. These are for bars that weigh between 100g - 125g max.

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

100 gr = 3.5 ounces, so the bars are almost an ounce less than what most of mine weigh. I would LOVE to be able to get $6-7 a bar, but that ain't gonna happen around here!

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

I have no idea how well they actually do, but given how populated their websites are with products, one would presume they are making money. They also sell a lot of other products - creams, balms, bombs, etc Maybe they make their money from there? Not sure.

I haven't got a personal comparison as pretty much all my CP soaps go to friends and such still. I'm only just starting to branch out to 'customers', but it's all friends of friends and such. And you can't really compare M&P prices with CP as the soaps are completely different.

I tend to put my 100g soaps around the $3 to $4 mark so I can reclaim my costs. I've just started playing with 1" thick bars which weighed in at 150g last night and was considering asking $5.00 for those due to size. But I've also reformulated my recipe and removed a butter, which then makes it cheaper. So I may still stick to the $4 or maybe $4.50 mark.

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

That makes sense. My base recipes don't use any butters, but I do make some that have shea or cocoa butter in them. I charge the same, but don't scent the ones with butter so the cost to make ends up about the same.

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