BLSoaps

While I'm not a chandler, and I'm not looking at these for making candles right now, I still figured you guys would be the best ones to ask! As I said, I'm not looking to use these for candle-making, but actually for lip balms. I make insane amounts of lip balms, and it's only increasing. I use the filling trays from MMS to fill my tubes, however, they still work best when they're poured directly into the tubes. They're still in the tray, but if you just pour onto the tray, it doesn't always completely "funnel" into the holes. And the tray can overflow. I love the trays, but I've found I still need a fairly precise pouring spout on my container. I've been looking at candle wax melting pots, and as long as they have the right type of pouring spout (more narrow, like a juice pitcher, I think they'll work well. Right now, I'm melting in a larger pot, then using a pyrex measuring cup (with the pouring spout) to actually do the pouring. So I've got twice the clean up. And it's driving me nuts. So first, I guess, I was wondering if anyone else used these for something besides candle-making. Do you think it'd work for these purposes? Question Two (and my main question)... I've always seen these melting pots being used in water baths to melt the wax. Are there any that can be used directly stove top over low heat? I worry about water splashing or dripping into the base somehow, and causing mold growth down the road. So I'm hoping someone offers these sturdy enough to be placed directly on a burner (ours are electric). Does anyone know? Thanks!

If you're a patient person, and don't really need the instant gratification of having usable liquid soap within 24-48 hours or so, you can always make cold process liquid soap. It can be up to a month before it's usable, but the effort expended is significantly less. No worrying about the double-boiler staying hot enough. No constant stirring while it's cooking. It's a thought. I've only made a couple batches of liquid soap, but they've all been cold process. With my young boys, I can't be standing over a double-boiler all day.

I'm looking at the RBO for lotions, so I can't use a blend, it has to be straight RBO. I'll ask someone at the company before I order.

I got an e-mail from Bitter Creek this morning (a general e-mail sent to all on their newsletter list I believe), discussing the USPS shipping regulations. It sounds like they may try to ship the FOs with high enough flash points via USPS down the road, but they're still sorting through all the regulations (they're next to impossible to read and understand). I understand their caution, but they ARE Wokring on making sure of their options. By the sounds of it, they have definitely been following this thread, as they mentioned the specific hardship this places on their Canadian and International customers. So it sounds like we just need to be patient. They promised updates through their newsletter and on their website. Here, however, is a link to the USPS's site regarding these regulations. USPS Combustible Liquid Regulations

A couple tips... 1. Invest in a tripod. I noticed an immediate difference in my photos. I also used the timer feature with this, and I had absolutely crystal clear photos every time. Trust me, no matter how steady you think you're being, you're no where near as steady as a tripod. I took several photography classes back in high school (I miss playing in that dark room!), and learned a lot. 2. Even once you get good photos, you're still going to need a good photo program to clean up the photos. If you're trying to get the "floating white background", you won't be able to get it with just a light box, and camera. You'll need a good photo editing program as well. I personally prefer Corel, but I know many like Adobe Photoshop. I just found Corel to be more user friendly for me. 3. I ended up giving up on trying to take pictures with white backgrounds. Yes, they look awesome. WHEN THEY'RE DONE RIGHT. I'm not saying you won't ever be able to, but you'll probably need to invest in some expensive equipment to really get what you're looking for. I switched over to the "decorative background style". Although I will still be redoing a number of photos. I feel like I got too involved in the background stuff and it took away from the actual product. We're rebuilding our website, but we have a few soap photos up towards the bottom of our home page. You can see them at www.blsoaps.com if you'd like to take a look. Even having a variety of different colored cloths, contrasting to help your soap pop, it still works great, and isn't nearly as difficult to achieve as the elusive white background. 4. If you still want to try for the white background, or even just want tips to improve your photography skills, try googling "DIY light box". It should pull up some websites with tips on building your own light box. Also, check out some basic photography books from the library, especially ones that cover things like composition. The more you can 'absorb' the better your photos and the better your photo eye will become!

Basically, you need enough water to fully dissolve the lye. I know once I use just slightly more water than lye. So if I've got 7 oz of lye, I usually use 8-9 oz of water to dilute it. Then I usually add at least 6-8oz of cucumber puree. But I like a lot of cucumber in it. I have my actual recipe somewhere in my hordes of paper stashed around this house, but unfortunately, my computer decided to play hide-n-seek with nearly all of my work files. We've tried some recovery programs, but it keeps pulling up nonsense. So we're now resigned to simply "re-creating" all my files. But I digress....quite a bit! LOL! So enough water to dissolve your lye, then cuke to make up the water from there. I usually don't do a water discount, which allows me to use more cuke, and instead I give it a longer cure time instead. Speaking of which, I need to make some of this soap again. I'm waiting for my new mold to show up first!

Do you know if their "Rice Bran Oil" and their "Rice Bran Vegetable Oil" are the same thing? I'm guessing they probably are and the price difference is just for the packaging, but I'd want to make sure. I went through a gallon of RBO last month alone. If the Rice Bran "Vegetable Oil" is still 100% RBO, then I'd love to get 35lbs for $19! If it's not, even the 6 gallons is a great price at $35! Either one makes me happy!

You could also make a natural liquid soap with Shea Butter. I highly doubt that's what the body wash you bought was, but it can be done. It basically changes its chemical composition, like it does in bar soap. It's often not used because it's high in unsaponifiables, which will "cloud" your soap, not giving you a clear base.

I know when I make a tough to preserve lotion (like a GM lotion), I usually blend Liquid Germall Plus and Optiphen. They reinforce each other, boosting the preserving power, basically. Also, just to make sure this isn't the confusion. Most preservatives have several ingredients in them, they're blends of different ingredients. Liquid Germall Plus, for example is Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynl Butylcarbamate. It may sound like it's three preservatives, when actually it's one blend. Hope that makes sense!

It depends on how accurate it is. If you can get at least 1/10th of an ounce, or can measure in grams. If you can't, I'd advise waiting until you can order in a scale. I bought mine when I started years ago from Old Will Knot (is that right?) on E-Bay. I know he's still there, cuz I see his name come up all the time. He has the best prices on scales around. Some other places to look...I've been impressed with Jenn at Lotioncrafter. I want one of her microscales for detailed formulating (measures very very tiny amounts. Basically, you need something very accurate, or weird, bad, and potentially dangerous things can happen with your formulations.

I've been getting my Olive Oil at Costco. It's been just less than $23 for 5 liters. For shipping to me, Columbus Foods would be about the same, so I tend to pick it up at Costco, since my husband works next to it, and I can just tell him to one (or two or three!) on his way home.

I have a totally weird suggestion. If you KNOW the Flash Points on the oils you want are high enough to ship legally via USPS, you might want to see if you can find someone local to BCN (or other companies), and see if they might be willing to pick up the FOs and ship to you (using USPS). I'd recommend offering them a little something (like a brokerage fee...is that the right term???) for doing you the favor. Even if you have to pay them 5% above the order cost, it's quite a bit less than the outrageous fees that UPS and FedEx tack onto your deliveries in Canada. I hope you're able to work something out. If I were anywhere near them, I'd volunteer. If we ever start carrying Fragrance Oils (we've just got flavor oils for lip balms right now), I know I'll do whatever I can to accomodate "problems" like this. Customers always come first.

This is basically part of your overhead costs. Along with electricity, storage, water, etc., regular charges like these get factored into my pricing. I admit I always hate it when people say take your costs, then double for wholesale and double again for retail, because that leaves out SOOO many factors that very probably will make or break your business once you start to go big time. I can guarantee you'll definitely need to accept credit cards though. You'll lose a lot of customers if you only accept paypal.

I, too, ought to be claiming the entire house as storage. We did, however, claim a percentage on our tax return. I have severe storage issues. We've got two businesses that we're storing for, and I have nowhere near enough storage. But I have been very careful to take advantage of the space that we do have. We're in an apartment (am I nuts or what! LOL!). DH & I moved OUT of the Master Bedroom, and into the 3rd smaller bedroom. The Master Bedroom is now our main storage area. Our best investment was a set of interchangeable shelves from Costco. These things are insanely sturdy. Each SHELF (not the whole thing altogether) will hold 1500 lbs. Since I'm buying insane amounts of oils, butters and waxes, I needed more than your normal weight limits. The shelves are also incredibly "flexible". There are 5 shelves, you can set them at any heights. And my favorite part, you can actually set it up as two workbenches as well, which is actually how I have mine. As soon as we're able to, we're going to buy several more to set them up as actual shelves. We bought some cabinet with doors from Wal-Mart a couple years ago, but they've been moved into a new apartment, as well as moved around inside the current apartment, and they're not holding together as well as they used to. Basically, I keep expecting them to fall apart on me. My other "creative" storage solution is for my soaps. I inherited a bunch of the cube wire shelves (see a picture here). I assembled most of them, but left out a few extra shelves. I then took zip ties, and used them to make "shelves" within each cube. Each cube now has 3 shelves. Soap stacked on those carboard trays that sodas come on (four 6 packs per tray - me and my parents both buy them this way at Costco, and we all save them), fit on these shelves perfectly. I let my soaps sit on these for about two weeks (sometimes more when I get totally distracted ), then I place them in boxes for long term storage. Then I also have things stashed in other places in my house. I set up a bookshelf near the kitchen. We are planning on clearing out the storage closet off our deck and setting up 2-3 of those metal shelves (the costco ones) in there for storing non-temp sensitive items, like packaging supplies. The linen closet has been all mine since the beginning. And we're honestly looking still at renting a garage unit (the apts rent garages), but we're hoping to get one closer to our apt. There's only one available at the moment, and it's at the opposite end of the complex from us. We're hoping that some people rented for car storage during the winter months, and will "unrent" them soon. Otherwise, I honestly don't know where in the world I'm storing nearly 20,000 lip balm tubes that are coming in next week... Basically, where there's a will there's a way. Or maybe it's "Where there's a need, there's a way". Get creative, and make sure whatever you buy, especially shelves, are very sturdy, and will uphold lots of use. (we still wish we hadn't bothered buying the cabinets)

Unless they're pre-ordering quite a bit, and all risk of selling (or not selling) is on their shoulders, you should NOT be selling to them at retail prices. There are two (IMHO) better options for you, both of which are quite similar to each other. Option One: Treat them like most companies (Avon, Creative Memories) treat their sales reps. Most get roughly a 20-40% commission on the sales they make. There is no risk if the don't sell, and you still make a more than you would if you sold wholesale. But since they're doing the sales for you, the get a sales commission. THEY deliver the products to their customers after the sale. Most they deliver by hand, or the hostess of their parties then delivers the product for them. Option Two: Drop Shipping. Basically, they take the orders, then turn them completely over to you. You get the final customers information, and also deal with the shipping or delivery. Advantages, you get to build your customer database (I'd require e-mail address, and make sure they know they'll be added onto your mailing list). Disadvantages - you have to ship the orders. It'll take more time. Advantages to your sellers, they don't have to mess with it. They wouldn't get nearly as large a cut though, since you're doing more work. I'd say top out at 30%. We originally were planning to do a tier system with drop shipping, but it started getting too complicated, so we ended up just setting a flat rate for them. Basically, you're a warehouse for them. Make sense? I'm WAY behind on stuff right now, thanks to a lovely 24 hour flu thing that laid me up real good yesterday, and I'm catching up on orders to get shipped out. So I may not be able to check in here much anytime soon. If you have more questions about either of these, e-mail me at lindsay@soapersworkshop.com, and I'll be more than happy to share any info or help I can. While it's "wrong" to assume they have no overhead, it is true that they do not have the overhead of most storefronts, website or brick-n-mortar. However, just because they aren't the typical storefront, don't assume they aren't a very ligitimate outlet for your products. Other than storefronts in Taiwan, all of my current wholesale accounts are other websites, not brick-n-mortar storefronts. Some are large enough that they have a warehouse/shipping center, others are smaller businesses who just don't have the interest in making it themselves. But I have overall minimums, and I have lot minimums (they have to order so many of one scent of one product...so they can't order singles of everything). THAT is where the true labor savings adds up. And if it doesn't sell for them (so far no complaints though!), they take the loss, not me. I've found a lot of people have a hard time adjusting mentally to wholesaling. Yes, we're not making tons off of it, but our labor costs are significantly less. I know my time is very precious. And it's something I NEVER have enough of. I love my time on CandleTech, but I use it mostly as winding down time, honestly! Moments to breathe, recenter, and relax for a few moments. Then I'm back to work. But I'd take a nice sized wholesale order over equivalent retail orders any day. On average, it'd probably take 10-20 retail orders to be equivalent of 1 wholesale order. Think of the savings in packing time alone. Making invoices, printing shipping labels. Anyway, if you have questions, just holler. I've researched all selling options very thoroughly.

You may want to contact BCN (or other suppliers) directly and ASK them if they'll still ship you FOs that are 201 degrees and up through USPS still. I've been researching these regulations A LOT the last two months. We're adding Flavor Oils to our line, which will significantly change some of our shipping options. I ended up being lucky in that only one out of the five flavors was less than 201 degrees. The bad news, it's 131, so it can ONLY ship ground. If it had been 141 or above, I could have still shipped air (priority) as long as it was only one bottle less than 32 oz. That one bottle can be combined with anything considered safe by USPS, which the other 201+ oils fall into this category. So assuming you want USPS air service mail (priority or global - nothing "ground"), you should be able to order unlimited quantities of 201+ oils, and ONE bottle with a Flash Point of 141-200, as long as it's ONE bottle, and less than 32 oz. These are the policies for shipping within the states. Some countries add their own policies on top of this, so you will need to investigate those yourself. I know Canada has some pretty strict rules. If BCN realizes they will lose your business all together, rather than allowing this kind of exception occasionally, well, it's definitely their loss. You never know what they'll be willing to do until you ask them though. I know I'd definitely work with you on this to keep you as a customer. I hope they will too.

Thanks everyone! You guys definitely helped, but I knew you would! I went with Coral Crush for the first one. DH came up with that one. I needed to move quickly (delivered the order last night, and it should already be on a plane to Taiwan this morning with one of his colleagues), so I went with Bordeaux for the other one. It hasn't really grabbed me yet, but I couldn't come up with anything that really did. But I told him that, and said the color name may be changing, that I needed to name it something. So I'll probably write everything down that was suggested, and see if anything jumps out at me, or if any blends of words jump out at me. I'm used to playing around with names until something jumps out at me and practically shouts "this is my name!" Thanks again!

My husband has been very inspirational today. He came up with "Coral Crush" for the coral tinted one. We're still working on something for the burgundy. He said "Embrace", but I keep wanting something involving the color in with the name. These are in white tubes, and shrink wrapped, so they won't be able to open the tubes. (their request to sell them this way, not mine. I'd avoid shrink-wrapping in a heart beat if they'd let me LOL!) I've got a color strip on the labels matching the color as best I can, but I still haven't come up with a name that really GRABS me. More help ladies? I've really enjoyed the suggestions so far. It's definitely helped get the juices rolling. We don't need to use the word "burgundy", but I want something to help signify that deep red. Thanks again!

I usually blend Epsom and Sea Salts together for my bath salts. The Epsom are supposed to help relieve muscle aches, but I believe quite a bit needs to be used for these effects (a couple cups worth in a bath, I think). The Sea Salts, as mentioned, have some wonderful minerals in them. Dendritic Salts (to toss out some more) have a different shaped crystal, more facets and thus more surface area, and are supposed to be superior in holding higher levels of scent. Dead Sea Salts are supposed to be the king of salts, including ridiculously high levels of minerals specific to the Dead Sea area. I haven't dabbled with the dead sea salts at all, simply because of their cost. My bath salts don't move very quickly, so the added cost was one I just couldn't justify.

Psst....I have a deep burgundy color coming up next, so if you've got any ideas for that one, toss them out as well! Thanks!

I know, that sounds a little strange! One of my wholesale contracts is having me create tinted lip balm for them. Well, I had nailed a beautiful deep red a few weeks ago (named Ruby Slipper, because that's exactly what it looked like! LOL). Well, they placed an order for them , and I picked up the supplies I needed to fill it. And my supplier accidently gave me Orange instead of Red. So I now have a pot of Reddish Orange Lip Balm. I've played with it some, added a little blue and a touch of red, and now have a very nice coral. My wholesale guy is interested in more colors, so this isn't really as big a problem as we originally thought (imagine my horror when I increased my batch size, and suddenly had a TOTALLY different color than I was supposed to have!). Except after the panic and emotional upheaval I've had this morning, my brain is creatively fried. While I'm waiting for my husband to pick up more of the RIGHT colorant, so I can make the CORRECT batch tonight, I'm creating labels for what I currently have. I'm going to go ahead and pitch them the coral color, but I simply cannot come up with a name for the color. The best I can come up with at the moment is Coral Dreams. I like it, but it's not 100% grabbing me. But after coming up with that one name, my brain totally stalled. So I'm hoping for a creativity jump start from you incredibly helpful souls! (I feel bad...I'm on so many soaping yahoo groups, but I always come to ask my questions here now, because I've found you guys so much more helpful [as well as prompt]).

I already know I'm not the best person to respond to this, but my first thought was would you be able to get these to burn evenly? I think you'd be better off with regular container candles, and funky labels. My mind already is spinning with ideas using animal prints. Jungle Ferns. Depending on your "artistry" capabilities, you may need to hire a designer to create the labels.

I understand about hating real-time shipping set ups. We had the same issue with a previous website. So we, also, switched to flat rate shipping. However, we took our average order size, and went slightly below that order size. We settled on $5.95, which is still a very good flat rate amount. I then put a note in the shopping cart that if they were ordering just one or two items, they could e-mail or call their order in, and I would caculate exact shipping for the smaller order sizes. It worked well. I didn't have too many call orders in, but my average order sizes did go up a little, since they were saving on the shipping. But $1.50, I can't even ship one bar of soap 1st class for that little.

Unfortunately, as a supplier myself, I realize that not many people spend much time, if any, in the policy section of the websites they're purchasing from. It's always been my belief, that in many cases, we wouldn't have nearly as many supplier complaints if everyone did read the policies. I know some of the complaints I see over and over (don't remember what company) has to do with small order costs, or shipping charges being amended once weighed. It's clearly stated in their policy page, which makes it completely legal. Yet people complain that it's deceptive when they see a charge they weren't expecting. Are there cases where it could be more clearly stated? Certainly. Are they not clearly stating hope to fleece they're customers, I highly doubt it. These policy pages are there for a reason. If people don't take the time to read them, it's their own fault, in my not so humble opinion. I don't have anything "sneaky" on my website, but I still encourage everyone to read my policies page BEFORE they order! It's just good practice, a good habit to get into, especially when ordering from a new company you've never ordered from before.

I love shipping USPS, they've always been great with my packages, but I do know my own local USPS guys didn't know anything about the new regulations or exactly what they entailed. I also have heard many other stories from others stating that when they asked at their local post office, they were given photocopies of the OLD regulations. (this was after the new regulations went into effect) When I started tracking down the official regulations, I had to dig through the USPS website. It was hard to find, but I eventually did. It was hard enough to find that I actually haven't been able to refind it. What I eventually did was call their hotline, and I got transferred to my state/local mailing regulation department. Even the rep I talked to had to look it up, and it was even confusing to her. And this is HER JOB, to understand all of the shipping regulations. After about an hour on the phone with her, we were able to decipher the regulations, and figure out exactly what I could ship and how. It's a mess to figure out, but very very important. You CAN ship many FOs through USPS, but there are restrictions, and it's not as simple as anything 140 degrees and up are safe. I believe (not sure since I wasn't shipping this kind of stuff until VERY recently), that those are the old regulations. Now, anything 201 degrees and up is safe regardless of quantity, size and shipping method (air vs ground). If all the suppliers shipping FOs don't know about the new regulations, then they're shipping at their own risk. Anyone shipping FOs in garage sales, and the like, they need to follow these regulations as well. Yes, they're a PITA, but it's kind of like the new laws at the airport. They're tightening up security all over the place to prevent terrorist attacks. It is my understanding that these new regulations came about because of a thwarted terrorist attack using a combustible liquid being shipped air-mail. The cargo holds on planes are not pressurized. It's the pressure changes that will potentially cause these bottles of FOs to explode. I certainly don't want to be held responsible for that. Anyway, off my soap box! I don't know how these other companies are shipping all these FOs via USPS. They may simply only sell FOs that are 201 degrees and up. I know several do that. They may also not know the new regulations. I just hope they're not blatantly ignoring them.