BLSoaps

Crayon, like Food Coloring, isn't approved for skin (cosmetic) products. If you're only using this for yourself and very immediate family (I would qualify this as anyone living IN your home), and you really want to, then feel free. But if you're giving any away, I'd recommend just making an uncolored soap rather than a soap with an unapproved colorant in it. The FDA is very clear about what types of colorants can and cannot be used in cosmetic products. And there are reasons, some we may never be able to fathom, for WHY the colorants are or are not approved. IMO, it's better to make an uncolored soap than one with unapproved colorants, even if it's just for yourself.

Shrinkwrapstore.com Awesome Prices, Excellent Service, Smaller purchasing quantities for the bags and supplies, and Lightening Quick service. My impulse sealer was one of the best investments I've made (Laser Printer was the best!).

I'm guessing that the flavor oils you requested info on are also candy flavor oils. Many of them are oil based and can be used in lip balms. Make sure of that first, as some are alcohol or propylene glycol based, and these will separate out of your lip balm base. That's my guess, at least, regarding what the company told you about the usage rate. And thanks, CowGirl, for posting my instructions. This works for any lip balm flavor oils, but you will need to adjust the percentage to THEIR recommended percentage rate. I've found most tend to run around 2-3%. Our Flavor Oils are specifically formulated FOR lip balms, and are very concentrated. So basically, the instructions CowGirl posted will work for any flavor oils, the percentage rate may just need to be adjusted depending on the supplier.

You should be able to mail this ground without any problems. As long as it is only ONE container, and that container is less than 32 oz. I don't know of any supplier that sells FOs with FPs of less than 100, which is the minimum it can be and still ship. You can only have ONE bottle in there with the lower flash points. Since you don't know what it is, you should definitely send it ground to make sure it's within the laws. Be sure to mark the outside of the box GROUND ONLY. I know there's a code that's supposed to be written. Something like OMD, or ORM. Ask the PO, they'll know. This will ensure it doesn't get tossed on a plane if they happen to have extra room. It will keep your box securely on the ground. Hope all this helps. My brain is more than a little befuddled this morning. I just sucked up probably 12 gallons of water out of our carpet this morning when we had a flood in our bathroom. Found out from the maintenance guys that some lever inside wasn't adjusted right. All I want to do is go back to bed and start my day over.

I've got a customer looking for the open ended malibu tubes or tottles. The ones you fill from the non-dispensing end and then seal. I've never shopped for these, so don't have a good source on them. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

You're getting a lot of awesome feedback, which is wonderful! I know with my labels, I typically have my company name and the scent name in the same, but fancier font. Then the rest of it is something very simple...usually Times New Roman. By doing this, the eye is naturally drawn to these two things, which, IMHO, are the most important things on your label (company name and scent name). It's just a thought. I, too, am working on some label redesigning, and I'm fed up with it as well. Since I print on clear, any graphics need to be dark enough to show up, and it's starting to drive me nuts.

Yeah, I realized after I hit submit that I was totally posting this in the wrong thread. Sorry! :embarasse I just keep reading about all these great FO suppliers, such Peak and Greenleaf. They state whether of not the oils are body safe, but no CP testing results, such as acceleration or discoloration. I unfortunately don't have anything to spare on oils that end up being disastrous for my products. Heck, I barely have any to spare to actually spend on FOs at all! LOL! Business is going well, and everything is being reinvested, but we're making sure that when we reorder things, like fixed oils, we're jumping up into larger sizes to get better prices. So I'm very well stocked there, but no longer in FOs. Anyway, I want to try some of these companies out, but without having posted results for CP, I'm very hesitant.

I love FOs as much as the next person, but having other ingredients taking drastic precedence purchasing wise, I've been putting off getting anything new (or even restocking on some tried and trues). Knowing I'll need to invest in some before too long, I was hoping to ask opinions on what companies to look into. I'm currently not making candles. Too many little boys hanging out in my kitchen. I make CP Soap, and a variety of bath and body products. I'm wanting to try out some new companies, and hoping to find some better pricing (a lot of my current oils are from Tonys ... I love the oils, but they seem to be pricier than a lot of the other companies). If they have testing results, especially for CP Soap, that's that much better. Especially accelerating and discoloring results. I'm in Utah, so I'm also trying to avoid East Coast, but I'll consider them still if the oils are top notch, and the pricing is still good. Thanks!

I just took a look at the soap I believe you are talking about, and I'd bet its synthetic, not a natural soap. It's listed in with their antibacterial collection. I have an empty bottle of their antibacterial foamer (from YEARS AND YEARS ago before I ever started making my own stuff). I keep it for my kids bathroom sink. Otherwise, I end up with soap ALL over the place and a lot of wasted product. Now I just have occasional messes, and when they unscrew it, and dump soap everywhere, since it's diluted for a foamer bottle, it's not much loss. But I digress greatly... So the B&W one is most likely a syndet product. As for your other questions, I can easily see why you're confused. There is whipped bar soap (both CP and MP I believe). There is cream soap. And there is liquid soap. Whipped Bar Soap is solid, basically air has been whipped into, which usually makes it float in water. Made with NaOH. Cream Soap is made with a combo of NaOH and KOH. I've never made it, but it's on my never-ending, ever-growing to do list. My understanding it is cream or lotion like in consistency. Liquid Soap is made with KOH. It is harder to get an all natural liquid soap that is thick. Liquid soap is made by making a paste to start with (kind of like HP bar soap), which is then diluted. Most liquid soaps only have between 20-40% of actual soap in them, with the remainer being water. Once you go below 20% the lather quickly diminishes. Once you go above 40%, the paste starts coagulating (for lack of a better term), and you'll have globs of more solid soap within your liquid soap. You can play with liquid soap recipes, different combos of oils, to get good lather and good thickness, but it's complicated, and time consuming. There are ingredients that can be added to thicken the liquid soap. Some are natural, some are not. I haven't played with any of those. I personally like diluting my liquid soap by quite a bit, and using them in the foamer bottles. It eliminates the thickness issue that way. And you can make even the stingiest soap lather as well! I hope this cleared up a few things. (and just in case ---> NaOH - Sodium Hydroxide ... KOH - Potassium Hydroxide)

You kind jumped all over the place font wise, which to me, made it a little distracting. I think it's an awesome start, but maybe match a few of the fonts instead of having so many. The "true scents natural palm wax" under the company name also came off as a little hard to read. If it's difficult to read on a computer screen, it will probably be that much harder to read on a printed label. At least from my experience, this tends to be true. And since you said you'll be printing on clear labels, and these are going on container candles, you may have some issues being able to clearly read/see everything with a clear label. It definitely can be done, but it usually needs to be bold, nothing light, nothing to detailed, for it to be effective. I know all too well, as I print on clear labels as well. Mine aren't going on candles, but I often struggle when labeling soap. I can definitely see this (minus the scent part) as a round label on your lids. I think that would look awesome. And with the aluminum as your background, you shouldn't have any problems with everything showing up clearly!

Oooh...now that's the sign of a true addiction. Stand up and repeat after me. "Hello, my name is [insert name here]. And I'm a FO addict."

I completely agree! I've been dying to replenish my FO supply for ages now, as we're wanting to mix up our line (it's getting a little stale - IE, I'm getting bored with the same stuff over and over and over again). But other supplies keep taking priority over the new FOs. Then I come home today to a gorgeous smelling box of FOs. Unfortunately they're not mine. They're for pre-scenting a whole slew of lotion bases for a customer. But I get to drool while I make them! Then I'll need to somehow force myself to toss out the yummy smelling empties. But I just plowed through my quarterly reports. On one hand, I was floored by how well we did. Honestly had no idea till I pulled together all the numbers. But two, we spent all of it again on supplies. Luckily my stock room is very full! Just not with new FOs. Boo hoo!

The Emulsified Scrubs will still only work with sugar or salt if NO water is added to the scrub base. If water is added to make it a cream or a lotion, then it ends up an absolute mess. Ask me how I know?

As a person who runs both a supply and the regular retail businesses, and a mother to three boys, I know life can certainly get hectic. Kids get sick, emergencies happen, YOU get sick, etc. Things happen, life happens. HOWEVER, as a business person, I always strive to be absolutely professional when it comes to business dealings, and do everything possible not to let my personal life interfere. Other people, when they order from me (especially from the supply business), they have people depending on them as well. They need my supplies to keep their business moving forward. For me to list tons and tons of excuses, well, it's not something I'll do. Every once in a while, an order will be pushed back a day or two, but I always let my customer know. So far, I haven't had to resort to this, but I have taught my husband how to make lotions, and I plan on teaching my SIL before too long. So I have back up plans in place if ever I were to get seriously ill or injured and couldn't make it myself. However (again!), if it was determined that I couldn't follow through on my end of the business deal, I would ALWAYS immediately refund my customers money. I would never hold onto it and then ignore them. In my opinion, that's equivalent to stealing. I hate that this lady's daughter is sick, but if you're unable to run your business, then you close down for a while. She's still actively selling on e-bay, so she does have internet connection. I hope I'm referring to the right lady. I reread the thread, but did get a little confused, as two different transactions were being discussed through it. One was listed as being with the daughter in the hospital, and thus not having access to the internet. If this is that lady, well, she obviously DOES have access to the internet, as she has current e-bay listings. If you haven't filed with E-bay, I would. I don't do e-bay transactions very often, as I've found it can get more than a little scary, and because of the relative anonymity of user names, people tend to get vicious with the comments and ratings stuff. However (I'm really liking that word this morning!), E-Bay does have a pretty decent system for filing about fraud, and various problems. Heck, I was able to file on a person that I had no intention on ever buying from. (someone advertising soap from the 1800s... they were claiming that lye soap couldn't be made any more...this person was an idiot. EBay made them change their ad before reposting it) Since it's been as long as it has, I very strongly believe this is now fraud. Talk to e-bay, they'll let you know what you can do.

Thank you, Jadryga! I'm very excited about those prices as well! Compared to $10.00 for 25 grams (original pricing I found for the Vit A). Thanks so much! (still wondering why those didn't come up in my searches.....I sometimes think the search engines don't like me)

I know in Failor's book on Liquid Soapmaking, she says it won't blend in if it's not warm. However, I've never had a problem with blending it into room temp diluted soap. I shake it vigorously and it always seems to hold up.

PS..... do a Google search on Perry Tulk, and you'll see he comes up as the owner of a number different businesses. Digital Photography, Printing Services, Woodworking Patterns, Off Shore Oil & Gas. And by the sounds of your e-mail, he's decided to stick his fingers in the internet marketing pie (a HUGE pie, and in my not so humble opinion, one that a lot of people see as a gold mine, and easy money). Someone this widespread, I wouldn't trust them with my advertising.

My opinion (and my DH's) about people soliciting you to help you with "advertising" or marketing your website, is if they're resorting to cold calls (yes, I've even gotten phone calls for these kinds of services), or spamming you with e-mail for it (I consider it spam if it's unsolicited, and it's not an order), then they're not worth it quality wise. If they were any good, they wouldn't need to spam people to get business. Referrals, and normal advertising methods would be effective for them. Also, if they're comfortable spamming people, then they'll probably try to use that tactic as a marketing for you (if you decide to work with them). The last thing you want is your ISP to list you as a spammer. If you're looking for ways to boost your business or your traffic, there are much better ways, most of them free. Just some homework, some time and work, and some testing (to see if your changes are working).

Sugar and Salt will not hold up in a Lotion. The water in the lotion will break down the emulsion, or end up dissolving. You'll need to use something non-soluble. Jojoba beads are perfect (and lots of fun to put colored ones in a white lotion), and some of the new microscrub beads that are coming out now.

Most of the major vitamin chains have them in gel caps or pills, basically, easy to take forms of them. I'm hoping to find someone that offers it in liquid form, like you can buy Vitamin E (I usually buy several pounds at a time). If I have to squeeze it out of gel caps, yikes.... I don't even want to think about it. I did that occasionally with Vitamin E back when I got started, and it was a huge PITA. So I'm hoping to find it in a nice pourable form. But thanks though!

Is it possible to purchase Vitamin D in liquid form (or other forms) like we do vitamin E? I've found Vitamin A, but the pricing is astronomical, so if anyone knows of a decent price on this as well, that'd be awesome. My searches online keep pulling up gel caps (a road I REALLY don't want to take), and tons and tons of info pages.

I know you were most likely joking with this comment, but I wanted to point out a few things. Seeing as you have a website, I'm sure you've come across the headache of working with real-time shipping. Out of curiosity, I placed a candle from your site in a shopping cart, and then proceeded to checkout. No shipping charges ever came up. It listed them as $0.00. My guess is that you then invoice separately for the shipping charges. It's one way to get accurate shipping charges, but I also know that many people won't purchase from a website without knowing in advance what the shipping charges are going to be. Anyway, realtime shipping can be an absolute PITA to get set up to work accurately. And, unfortunately, I'm going to be dealing with setting those up again here very soon. (redesigning all our websites over the next few weeks) With our last web host for our retail site, we could never get it anywhere close to accurate. So we offered flat rate shipping. Granted it wasn't the $1.99 deals, but $5.99. This was our average shipping cost for our average order size at the time. We figured if they ordered more, and the box was heavier, than the larger sale made up the difference. And it DID bump up our average sale. Our normal sale was between $20 and $25. When we added the flat rate shipping, most were well over $30 and $40 per order. The jump in sales made up for the couple of dollars we'd sometimes lose on having to pay for extra shipping. There was nothing illegal about it. It's actually a very solid marketing tactic, and a proven one. The only draw back we came across was we lost a few tiny orders, when people just wanted to try a few small things (like one lotion, or one bar of soap), test us out first. They didn't want to pay the full shipping for that small of an order. Had we been offering the $1.99 shipping, we probably would have gotten those sales, but we'd have lost more on the rest of our sales. It's a balancing act, but we were completely legal. Just because we offered flat rate shipping (and occasionally free shipping incentive sales) doesn't mean we were scamming the system to do it. Most companies, when they offer free shipping or flat rate shipping, they do so for a reason. If they always offer free shipping, most likely, they've absorbed the extra cost already into the product price. Sorry, I just got a little miffed when you basically said that if we're offering free or flat rate shipping, we must be scamming the system. In probably 99% of the cases out there, they're not. There are always going to be those nasty bad seeds out there that do, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are as well. I'm assuming all of it was meant in jest, I just didn't want someone else to come along, read it, and assume that everyone who offers flat rate shipping is scamming people.

Sorry, after I hit send, I thought of a few suggestions. Not actual ideas, but some things to think of while you're creating things. I don't know that much of these will be a concern for you, since you already mentioned you don't want play on words. We original (seems like eons ago) started with Scentual Creations. (yeah, boring, I know!) We changed it, because it was PITA to ALWAYS have to spell it when we were asked for our website. So make it easy to spell, something most people won't have to guess at. Something easy to remember, or at least whatever you use for your website make it easy to remember. You do NOT have to use the entire name for your website. Shorter is usually better. A good example of this is another member on here. Her company is LeoLily's Handmade Luxuries. But the website is simply leolilys.com. The full name would be a pain to fit on business cards, labels, etc. (hope she doesn't mind me using her as an example!) We did the same with our retail company. The website address is not our full company name. I kept thinking there was something else, but I can't remember. I'll probably remember as soon as I hit send!

I'm not going to be much help here, but just wanted to mention that there is a Fragrance Oil company called "Scenter Stage", so there's one more reason to stay away from that one. I have found brainstorming with someone (preferably in person) can really help. Write down everything, and you will probably be surprised at how things can be combined down the road to (hopefully) create the perfect name for you!

I've never been asked for UPC codes, but after hearing what they cost, I honestly hope I never am. You can purchase barcode software, and scanners for these systems, but it's intended for inhouse inventory systems only. For actual UPC, you need to pay for the codes, and it's ridiculously expensive. I don't know the particulars, because I'm nowhere near that kind of level, but its pretty nuts. But those UPC codes are then unique to your specific products, and they cannot be given to anyone else.