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I agree with the others. If she hasn't been doing much business in the past 2 years, then it's not like you're paying extra for her wholesale or retail client list... so really you're paying for a bunch of used equipment. And I thought I saw that you weren't really planning on making soap... so seems like a lot of stuff you wouldn't need. Unless her website has been getting a lot of action... without her filling orders?? Which doesn't make sense... then I wouldn't pay even half that for not even getting the kind of company you want. hahahaha. I'm so sorry. My mind is kind of all over the place today... and that reply was perfect evidence.

Looking to see what others have used, and loved when making a product with unrefined shea butter. I did a test batch of sugar scrub with coconut lime (which I love), but you can't smell it at all. I'm thinking it needs to be a scent that compliments the nutty shea smell, and is fairly distinct in order for it to be noticeable, but thought I would see what others had tried and loved.

Do you find that you lose a lot of the scent by letting it sit out? I just spread it out on a sheet pan and am going to let it dry overnight and try the citric acid tomorrow. I almost wouldn't mind clumping, my issue was that it was oozing together it was so moist, it reminded me a little bit of pizza dough. ick.

so frustrating. I'm doing another test batch right now. I mixed up everything except for the citric acid, and I'm going to let it air dry even more until later today, and then will try again with the citric acid. It was pretty humid here, so maybe that was it. Would hate to have to get an air conditioner put in the shop just to take the humidity out of the air.

Ugh!! What am I doing wrong? I put together a slightly modified Bath Salts recipe, but I can't seem to keep it from fizzing prematurely. I mix all the ingredients very well, and add the citric acid last, making sure, again to mix this well. But when I spread it out to let it dry out even further before packaging, I come back and find that it has started to congeal. Recipe 480g Salt (2 types) 240g baking soda 30g liquid glycerin 0.4g FO 120g citric acid I even tried a batch of it without the glycerin, thinking that perhaps it was making the concoction too moist to prevent fizzing, but no such luck... same problem. I have seen some people adding cornstarch to theirs. Does this help?

I've been researching the same sort of stuff. I don't think you need to wait quite that long. The bacterial testing won't take as long as that, and then there are other companies who can do shelf-life testing where they hold your product at increased temps for a 4-8 weeks which would correlate to 6-12 months of room temperature shelf-life. I'm preparing to send some of mine off to have this sort of testing done. For those people who don't want to pay for the testing, I guess they just make a batch and set it on their counter for a year, and check it later... but this is a poorly controlled manner of testing, and a sniff test is not as good as chemical testing and plate counts that the other outsources companies perform. Hope that helps some.

They had some info like that listed for anything below 3%, unfortunately I had a few ingredients that were tricky to place. So I "live chatted" with a rep this morning, and they said it was proprietary info... and I said that I couldn't use their product if I can't label mine correctly. So now I'm going to try to figure out a way to make up some formula of my own... Jen Welch at lotioncrafter.com has been incredibly helpful with that side of it. So frustrating how paranoid everyone seems to be when you start asking questions. I have no desire to make my own melt/pour base... but you would think I was some sort of body care spy the way everyone shuts up when you start asking a few questions.

it would be easy if the quantity of the melt&pour base that I use was less than the amount of my other ingredients. But if I have say 10 ingredients, and in terms of weight the m&p falls at #8, I then have trouble figuring out where my other stand along ingredients #9 and #10 fall in the order, because I have to factor in the ingredient list of the soap. Ugh.

For anyone else who finds themself in the same boat as me... I found a company that does shelf life testing for food products. www.emsl.com I sent them a "Shelf Life Study Proposal Request Form" so I will see what they respond with. They also do some microbial testing, so it would be killing two birds with one stone.

Have full intentions of sending things off to be tested for microorganisms - is that what you mean by "challenge" testing? And I have researched the ingredients I have acquired so far, choosing those which are the most stable at room temperature and have the longest shelf-life which seems to be approximately 1 year max for most carrier oils. Is there a place that does testing to determine appropriate expiration dates?

Most definitely a newbie. Doing some experimenting right now. And as I wait for different supplies to slowly make their way to my doorstep... I research the crap out of every tiny question I come up with. It seems to me that rancidity would be the major motivator behind the expiration dating, but just can't figure out how to determine when this would result, and thus calculate an appropriate disposal date. So I don't have anything that has been packaged up and sitting long enough.

I'm not really sure how the palm wax works, so that might be an avenue to try. I found that with anything I wanted to embellish, I had to do it by pouring the pillar, and then I would add a distinct shape to the top - by heating the top slightly and setting the embed on it. Best of luck!!

I tried a few and had some good and some bad results. I don't use the same type of wax, I use the Ecosoya PB. I found that if I wanted to do a chunky candle it worked okay, but I couldn't expect the chunks to hold their form as the overpour of wax had to be hot enough to loosen the edges of the chunks, otherwise it wouldn't come out smooth. I also found that I couldn't really do embeds of a particular shape. I tried to do a coconut lime one where I was going to put lime shapes in the mold and then overpour with regular wax. I couldn't get the limes adhered well enough to the sides, so everything just kind of blended together. Wasn't crisp enough to see that they were lime wedges. Here's a picture of the pillar I did with the chunks, and you can see that with the hotter wax overpour the chunks softened and sunk a bit to the top of the pillar. I think it still looked good, but more like a blend of colors instead of distinct embeds. http://www.westroadcandles.com/m5_view_item.html?m5:item=PILLAR_PL

Quick question on how to appropriately date products. I am making the products from scratch (no bases) and am keeping careful track of the shelf life of all of my ingredients. So when it comes to choosing an expiration date, how do I do this? Is it based on the shelf life of the oil? But doesn't that all change when it becomes an emulsification combined with antioxidants and a preservative? Side note - the learning process for somethings like this kind of make my head want to explode from overstimulation... yet I keep coming back for more.

This particular body butter is supposed to hit a pH of 7.0 by adding small amount of citric acid at the end to help it reach this. Another thought. Since the EDTA may be used to boost the efficacy of the preservative, what about if I used a different preservative? Like say I swapped the phenonip for some liquid germall plus? I was thinking of doing this anyway.

I would think a premixed product like this would be a good idea since you wouldn't be having to dilute the clorox with possibly contaminated water. Was also wondering whether when you spray items with a product like this or a clorox/water solution, whether it affects your containers in any way. I don't have a problem spraying things and waiting for them to air dry, but don't want to have their finish affected.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this question, but here goes. I am wanting to add a clear Melt&Pour soap base to one of my bath/body recipes. The supplier lists the INCI ingredients, but I can't figure out how those ingredients meld with me (what particular order will things fall in). How can I determine what % or grams of each ingredient were used to create the melt/pour base? Do suppliers ever give this information out?

Has anyone on here used this hard surface sanitizing spray to sanitize your work area and inside of your jars? I have seen that some use alcohol or bleach/water solution... but not sure if this product was available when those posts were written. Thanks!

Thanks for the tips. I'm thinking I will order some of the medium and large flat rate boxes and list these as options on my site. I just have trouble with that as my site determines price costs based upon item weight, not cubic inches. I supposed I could add a note that shipping via USPS may be less if the products can fit in a smaller box, and will be reflected in the final price charged.

What are most of you using for shipping your products? I had been using UPS, but while doing a shipping price check for a customer, I discovered how high the prices had risen. Up just about 5% this year?? $60 to ship one 50 pound box?? Seriously? And that's if I drop it off at a UPS drop location. If I schedule a pick-up (because of our location) it costs another $10+. Are other's using Fedex? Or DHL? I see a lot of people using flat rate boxes, but what about for those items that don't fit in one of those boxes?

Does anyone else send their products off to be tested for bacteria/fungi? I found this place... sagescript.com, but then I got curious as to how many people who are selling their products are having this done, and whether people ask for something like this when buying the products.

If I leave it out, do you think I need to adjust the expiration date? How would I even determine an expiration date? That may be a whole other post.

I picked up the Body Butter Bliss kit from LotionCrafter.com just to see how it turned out. And it was awesome... so then I started thinking about making substitutions, for things like using Mango Butter instead of Shea Butter... etc. The EDTA is throwing me off. Here's the ingredients Water Phase - 581g distilled water 2g zanthan gum 30g glycerin 2g tetrasodium EDTA Oil Phase - 35g Lotionpro 165 (mix of glycerl stearate and PEG 100 stearate) 80g Rice bran oil 40g fractionated coconut oil 120g shea butter, refined 20g cetearyl alcohol 20 benehyl alcohol 7g Covi-ox T-50 Mixed tocopherols 8g Phenonip 20g dimethicone 350 then Lotioncrafter LC8515 (cyclomethicone) at the same time as FO Finally citric acid to adjust pH and Annatto Extract. Sorry, it's a long list for the recipe. The contact at Lotioncrafter said I could just leave it out... but then I was wondering why I add it if it's so easy to just leave it out. ?

Has anyone substituted something when trisodium EDTA was called for in a recipe? It looks as though citric acid also works as a chelating agent, and was widely used prior to the discovery of EDTA, but I can't find information on how I would use citric acid to substitute for the EDTA, or if there was a better option. I have a friend who is allergic to EDTA, and would like to make some stuff for her.

Okay, but are you basing your order on size (volume) or weight? I'm assuming weight, but just wanted to be sure before I started putting that info together.