amillion3147

I think the plastic is a bit softer on the newer ones.

The easiest way to unmold soap from them has no 'twisting' involved.

Just press your thumbs along the long side of the soap and press, they will roll out. The only time I've ever put them in the freezer is when I used them for an ungelled soap.

Thanks for the tip. I tried this tonight on my new molds. Did a HP soap last week and them and was uncertain on how to get the soap out of them so I just left them in. It worked right away.

How the heck would you get a salt bar out of these? Those set up fast.

I think my biggest fear is my two curious kids. 5 and 7. Husband has ever changing hours and kind of works at one full time job, and an occasional side job when needed. With it being only me and the kids most daylight hours into early evening most times, I'd be nervous if they were underfoot with this lye thing. If I have to leave lye sitting somewhere mixed with water, I'd want to put it in a locked area so they can't go near it. I don't have a safe place set up for this lye water thing to sit yet, so until I'm sure I can avoid them coming across it, I won't feel safe. I'd also want to make soap with them both not home and only one is in school. Son starts next Sept. With both of them gone full day then, I think I'll feel more safe knowing if I had to run out of the house with lye exploding, that they wouldn't be underfoot.

They're really good kids but they're normal kids and they jump around, and play and laugh, and touch things sometimes. I just will be a nervous wreck if they are underfoot with such a scary substance that could react as I've heard it can here. I think it's good I'm doing all this reading now and getting used to the place, because I really want to do candles, and it's safer to make them right now for me. And then later on will want to try soaps too, so getting interested and reading for a while even if I'm not actually doing, will just make me more informed. So I'm holding out on actually being able to make soap till next Sept. Will do my candles until then, and perfect them if I can, and will have a lot to look forward to when I make my first soap.

As slow as I'm going with all this, I'm really having so much fun reading about it and seeing everything people make. It's really interesting and inspiring as well.

Please keep in mind that you want to keep your lye and lye water high and out of the reach of small children and pets. I don't have kids but I have a pitcher that I mix my lye up in and it's labeled and big letters Lye water Do not Drink. Lye water will look just like plain water because it is and it contains lye. Do some research here on safe handling of lye. I have a very healthy fear of it now that I know how to work with it safely. Googles when dealing with this substance and gloves are a must. Some days I have slippery and loose fingers when soaping. Last batch half of a bowl that I measured my fragrance oil in splashed in my soap pot. I ended up getting some soap batter on my googles. If I wasn't wearing them I would have gotten lye in my eye.

I find these days I am doing more and more advertising offline. I did though recently set up a blog that amazingly is getting some traffic and it's only been up a little over a week. I am also on flickr and a couple of blog catalogs. I am sticking with the offline advertising because I think it will ultimatley get me the exposure and brand recognition I am looking for.

Hi,

The best way to figure shipping is to figure out the further zone from where you live (I always figure CA) and set that as shipping. I include a note in the listing that shipping may be less than what is quoted based on the buyer's zip, and I always refund the excess shipping when I print off shipping labels.

Most of my buyers are actually not sellers. It took some time for that to be the case, though. Etsy has gotten a lot of press over the past year from places like the NY Times and other major newspapers so the site itself gets quite a lot of hits.

The thing about etsy is that they won't necessarily bring you that much traffic -- you still have to do your own marketing.

Good Luck!!

~Sue

I so agree with the bolded. Offline I am more apt to give folks my own domain rather than giving them my etsy site. I just wondered what all the hype was over there so I joined. I think that is probably why there are alot of posts there with folks wondering why their items are not selling. You still have to do your own advertising and a lot of it.

I had a love hate relationship with mine for a bit but that has since worn off. I like them for the bars being so even. Yeah I have yet to find a box that these would fit but I use Dan's Bands anyway so it doesn't matter. Yeah it's a pain to clean but its a fair sacrifice for not buying a tank to cut up some log molds.

Pretty swirl. Digging the colors. If I didn't already have two kelseis I might have sprang for one of those molds.

I am buying a new digital as soon as I can figure out which one will meet my needs. My present one is not cutting it. Just stepping up my advertising and product offerings. I was not busy this holiday season simply because the massess did not know I exsisted. Promotion I am realizing is key.

This year has been slow for me. I opened my store in sept.and people still don't know were there. I have done lots of advertising but they tell me it takes time to get a good coustmer base going. I have alot of plans for next year, So I think things will be better. I am hopeing to have my website up and running by the end of january. I am a very stubborn person and will not give up. Good luck all in 2008. May you all have GREAT sales Regina *super banana*

It was slow for me too. Personally I am stepping up product offerings with more selections and branching out into essential oil blends. I want to end up doing only vegan products. I am also planning to promote my azz off in 08 if it kills me. I believe I have excellent products its just going to take some work for consumers to realize that but they don't know I exsist.

Well I finally set up an etsy shop and I have my own domain. I figured more promotion can't hurt. What I didn't realize is that etsy is a lot of work. The only way it seems you get noticed over there is if you list something at least everyday. The shipping is what is throwing me off. How the heck do I know how much shipping is gonna cost when I have no idea where the buyer is from? At least on my site I have real time shipping. I don't know it just seems like its mostly sellers over there who buy items. I mean does the general public even have a clue about etsy? Then there is the woe is me threads that someone starts when noone is buying their items. I guess I will sit around and watch the show and see how it unfolds for me. What I can say is that the soap porn over there is great!

I ordered supplies last week from mms to start trying this. I am anxioulsy awaiting my supplies so I can start.

How well are you advertising and marketing your products? I don't know much about etsy because I have my own domain but you need constant exposure to get your name out there.

Well it seems as you know what you need to do and I thought making cold process soaps were a beast. Hats off to all the candle makers here. I couldn't do it.

Thank you so much for this information. I made a post on the other forum asking for help but this is so much more detailed for me. Thank.

Thanks guys. I hate the words saponified oils so much that I list the sodium hydroxide. I do not believe I am wrong in doing so as I have studied the labeling laws. Not listing it would make me very uncomfortable. I have the same ingredient listing on my site because I hate to see soap sites wtihout ingredient lists. I will go back and resize my custom template. It's easy to do this with a custom template there.

I am in the process of trying a newly designed label for my soap bars. My previous lables were done in word and were quite homely and cheesy looking. I did these in avery design pro. The difference is night and day between what I had before. Any thoughts on how to make these better? Granted the picture is somewhat out of focus and the logo width needs to be adjusted a bit but the general idea is here.

fyi I am not new to making soap hence the low batch numbers. I started selling a year ago.I am new to doing batch numbers lol.

Thanks guys. I still had trouble. Bobbie I sent you an email as well.

I know a lot of folks have used vistaprint for uploading their logos etc. I am having a terrible time getting my uploads to go through. It's like you need some advanced know how on editing and what not. I have a simple card that I designed in avery design pro with my logo that looks great but I hate the paper that it is printed on because it's so thin and cheap looking.

Anyone have any tricks for uploading your own design on vistaprint? I have spent close to two hours fooling around on vistaprint. I may just forget this all together and take it to a local printer and have them do it.

labels by the sheet. They are the best value really.

Well I was a faithful user of Lexmark printers until my three year old one died on me. It was so bad I was feeding one sheet of label paper in a time and praying it would line up correctly. Got sick of wasting ink and paper so I just bought a $200 canon printer and could not be happier. The ink on my clear gloss lables do not smear ink at all. For the price is a really solid printer, fax and scanner, copier.

I like your site. It's bright and energetic to me. Although I do think the pictures on your home page are a bit large. Folks on dial up will not stay long enough to order your great products. I have a nice image resizer that is free download online. It's been working great for me to resize my photos. PM if you want the link.

I wish I could see the pictures of the soaps that you have at the top of the page. They are not clear.

Is it possible you could have your links for navigation to the left of the screen? Perhaps it is but its showing to the right on my screen in IE.

Aside from that it's lovely. I am the last person to be giving advice since I have my own site that I am tweaking but you did ask for honest advice. Best of luck in your business ventures.

Geez who voted and said the site was terrible?

Thanks again everyone. I am printing out the thread to save to work on it this weekend. I had no rough draft of this on paper. I wrote all the text as I was sitting at the comptuer and of course have a ton of spelling, grammatical errors.

Try this one. It was in my favorites on my P.C

http://www.soulgazersundries.com/labels_1.html

Beautiful page! I think it's absolutely great! The others made some good suggestions, but I would personally make a few changes.

I would change committed to dedicated. Dedicated seems stronger to me, and I'd change the wording that follows somehow, just doesn't quite... I don't honestly know, stand out I guess.

This is how I'd rewrite it:

We are dedicated to creating products that are combined with luxurious ingredients to indulge your body, while relaxing (soothing? mesmerizing?) your soul. We extend our warmest invitation to try our selection of pampering bath truffles, handcrafted soaps and more.

Maybe a tweak or two, but seems to be a strong statement, that enforces that vibe I think you are trying to give.

Also, something I've noticed with my own soaps, and you might want to add - this is a totally subjective opinion - but add the type of soap in the description names.

Instead of #9 Coconut & Lime - maybe try Coconut & Lime w/ Shea Butter, or something like that, that shows that pampering Shea Butter in the title.

Great Ideas here. I didn't even think of doing that:)

Believe it or not but I had someone get a hold of my link three weeks ago(they were smart to google it) Low and behold they placed an order. Mind you text was missing, half of the pictures did not exsist and they still ordered.

It makes me wonder if people really do read what is on websites in the first place. Most if anything I feel just look at the pictures.

Thanks for the heads up to everyone who responded. Like I mentioned this site is not complete with pictures, text etc. If stuff is blatantly missing or sounds off is because I have not gone through it with a fine tooth comb myself. It still is a work in progress.