Jeana

I have some questions for those of you who make wine soaps. When you use dark wines do the soaps come out purple or brown? And when you use lighter wines do they go dark or stay light. Besides the scents that claim they smell like wine, what are some good scents to scent wine soap. I think the wine FOs smell like grape, not a big selling scent.

I like those. They are so smooth. So what mold did you used to make these, I haven't seen a heart mold before.

On your bath and body page the links "gift baskets, how to order, and contact" aren't working. And on the contact us page the links "gift basket and how to order aren't working. So you can't add the paypal shopping cart to your site? When you say you tried a buy now and it didn't work for adding multiple lines, were you creating the product button in the paypal cart program? If you are working in the paypal cart program you can list the product in a few different ways. If you need help with that let me know I may be able to help you.

If you call, most places will allow you to buy a sample or will send a sample for free.

Guru? Far from it. I can't tell you what cart to choose. I was looking at some other free ones myself today. I still want to be able to use discount codes, and can't with paypal. I decided personally I don't have the time or energy to put into learning a new cart right now. So in my case, at this time, the invoices are very much worth it. Also the invoices are only if they want to use a cc for payment.

I got to agree with everyone else. It is wonderful you are selling so many but you would really have to charge more than this to survive in the long run. Don't forget in your "cost" of the candle there is electricity, bags, paper towels, website hosting ..... There is much more costs to a successful business than just wax, jar, wick, and labels. And like others said you have to leave room in your price if you want to do wholesale, hire someone, or basically take your business to any kind of next level. It isn't greedy to ask what you need to make a living on your business. You must get a killer price on your glassware to offer your 10oz apothecary jars for $7.00

Around here almost all the big churches have them, and schools. You could go to your local farmers markets and ask other vendors if they know of upcoming events. If you get into doing farmer's markets you'll have people approach you all the time. You get more than you even want. Check with any wineries in your area. Any tourist areas.

Great glad it is working. A little FYI if you don't already know, you can send the locals an invoice where they can still pay with their CC too without going through the shopping cart. But it is about $4 to send the invoice.

Don't you have to know some html for Mals and Zen carts?

I'm enrolled with the free cart. No monthly and you only pay if you make a sale. I feel the rates are very reasonable. I tried to set up a will call payment as well as shipping charges for the non-locals. I don't know if I was doing something wrong but it defaulted to the will call, so it registered free shipping all the time. I gave up and just went back to leaving the charges for the shipping. I figure if it is someone local they can go one of my markets or come into my shop to get what they want. This cart really is limited keep that in mind.

These guys are the cheapest place I've found for real barcodes. http://www.barcodestalk.com/bar-code-numbers?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=barcodes+gs1&utm_campaign=BarcodesJumpFly Look at their FAQ pages to learn how much it would be to go straight to GS1 for your codes.

I use paypal too, at least for now. It takes a while to start getting sales on your site anyway so why waste money on a cart that isn't doing anything. In my opinion paypal is a better merchant account too because you get charged their fee and that's it. No monthly amounts to pay and you don't get hit at the end of the month with additional "reward" card fees. Those things are unbelievable! Nothing rewarding about them just a way for the credit card companies to squeeze more money from the businesses that take them. I quit my regular merchant account and just use paypal now. Tax does get charged automatically on paypal, but you have to set it up on the paypal site. The shipping can be tricky. You have to include the weight of the item in the button when you are creating it. Then you have to consider who you want to use to ship the order. For me USPS is the cheapest. Get your shippers rates and set up your chart in paypal's shipping calculations section. Set up an international shipping too. I got an order from Canada and it didn't charge shipping. This cart is limited but it is the cheapest and easiest to use for me. HTH:smiley2:

I found some biodegradable shrink wraps. Not natural but it helps. And I just saw you want the packaging for containers. I guess you don't need shrink wrap for container, oops http://www.nationalshrinkwrap.com/page/page/4625591.htm http://www.ipack.com/shop/department/oxobiodegradability-6101.cfm

They also only carry the light wood now too. Most people prefer the dark wood. I was bummed they went up too.

I get the ikea wood ones too. People really rave about them. I like them because they aren't flat. I feel like the soap bars stick to the flat ones. I like the idea of the ones you make yourself from trim because some people don't want holes in the dish. They feel like it is messy. So if the homemade dishes are $1.70 ea and the ikea ones are $1.99 ea, how much are you guys charging for them?

Does anyone know how to offer website coupons or promo codes with a paypal cart? Also anyone one use http://www.pointandsave.net/index.php

I knew I could scent the entire batch after neutralizing but I was trying to avoid having to have the entire batch one scent. That seems like a big commitment if people don't like the scent very well. I added glycerin and citric acid to one batch. The next day pulled out some, enough for two bottles with two different scents. The one with tea tree turned to paste but after leaving it for a few days has turned out really nice. My next batch I didn't dilute as much, didn't add glycerin or citirc acid. I scented some with Euc, and Lemongrass, and one with geranium, lav, and ylang. Both of them turned to paste and haven't become smooth yet. It has been about 1 week. I wondering if the higher dilution rate, the glycerin, or citic acid helped the scent to blend better with my first batch. Any thoughts about this? So Adillenal do you throw the ones that don't work out? No way to save them? Sorry Asheebeans - keep trying. I'm sure your LS isn't as bad as you think. I also have another question. How do you guys store your LS until you are ready to package it? I tried plastic bottles but I feel like the soap picks up the plastic smell.

I have a few batches of liquid soap under my belt now, it really is fun to make. Except I'm having trouble when I add certain essential oils to scent it. Some of them turn basically back into the paste and stay that way. Then others get lumpy and pasty but smoothe out fine if I wait a couple days. I took some that was perma paste and tried heating it back up to see if it would smooth out. It got even thicker. Once it has turned back into paste again is there a way to save it? My main goal is to have a master batch and take from it to scent only what I need. I have been doing this cold instead of heating the soap back up cuz when I reheat it, it gets very sudsy. If I heat it up first will the scent blend better? Or is there something to add to make it smooth again? Anyone have any insight on scenting smaller portions instead of the entire batch? I never thought scenting the soap would be the hard part:tongue2:

Thanks for posting that, it was very interesting to see all those single oil soaps. It still doesn't sound like it makes a great soap on its own. mostly because of the lack of lather and bubbles. But at least I know now that it can be done.

That's awful. Have you tried using one of those micro cloths. They pick up hair and other static stuff.

I lost my resource for inexpensive loofahs. Anyone know a good place to get them? oh and l need them less than 3" diameter.

I like Oils By Nature. They have good prices on most oils. Their coconut is $1 per pound when you buy 50lbs. http://www.oilsbynature.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=OilsBN&Category_Code=CoconutOi76

I did know you could use it in your recipe for a nice bar, I've done it many times. just not at 100% These guys press their own avacado oil so expense wouldn't be an issue for them. I was dropping off an order to a new wholesale account today. These avacado guys had given her a gift pack of their products so she will buy from them. Soap freak that I am, I examined soap and the box it came in. On the ingredients it listed only "saponified Avocado oil" and then the essential oils they used. The bar was hard, really hard. But this just didn't make any sense to me. As far as soapcalc numbers, OO looks almost exactly like those numbers and people make pure castile soap all the time. I'm trying to figure out if these guys are stretching the truth or for real. I didn't catch the price of their soap, I didn't want to look too competive.

Is it possible to have just avocado oil as the only oil in soap like olive oil? I ask because there is a local soap maker saying their soap is only avocado oil. I've just never heard of that before. I thought it would be too soft.

The best way to deal with the sticking wickpins is to heatgun the bottom of the pin just enough to losen the votive, then tap the top of the pin on your work table, the votive should just slide off easily. Would be some extra work for 200 + votives but it does work, and your votive stays totally intact instead of cracking.