On the days that I make soap, I admit that I get very excited in anticipation of the day. Because I work full time at a secular job, I don't devote my time entirely to soaping, but have to set aside a time in the week for it. The time I set aside is a real treat for me and I look forward to that day that I have set aside immensely.

So, at this point at least, making soap is not my method of making ends meet, not even close. It IS a desire of mine to make that a goal, however. With that thought in mind, I chose to review what my costs are to make my soap, and how much I am making as profit on my soap...or am I making a profit?

As with most new little start up businesses, and this is a business for me, they don't always make money intitially. In the first few years of opening my little soap business, I showed a loss because of buying equipment and getting enough supply to make it viable. Then, it was drawing customers to my soaps and building a customer base. It all takes time. Now, I am at a point where I am breaking even (whoo hooo!) I am learning to make the most of my soaping methods. Still, I would certainly like to do much better than "break even".

It was time for me to review how much it is costing me to make my soap. Am I charging enough for this amazing stuff? Am I counting in all my cost factors? So, I began to break it all down...the results were just a bit eye-opening for me. I already know basically how much soap I will make this year based on customer purchases and trends from the previous year, so base my cost per estimated bars I will make.

Here is how I broke it down:
I added up the cost of the supplies I use most often in my soap per batch, such as oils, sodium hydroxide; the basic stuff.
I added up the cost of the "extra" supplies that I most often use per batch, accessory stuff like, calendula blossoms, rose petals, fragrance or essential oils, oxides, micas and other fun little additions to the basic soap formula.
I added my basic cost of packaging each bar of soap.
I averaged the yearly cost of supplies that I use regularly, such as soap molds, wax paper, bowls, scales etc and broke it down per bar.
I added basic prep and production time per bar of soap (like paying myself wages for making them)...about 1/2 the amount per hour that I make on my "usual" secular job.
I added Paypal fees, listing fees, fees when the soap is sold, and average per year craft showing fees per bar of soap.

I did not add cost of electricity, sewer, water, phone, internet access, although I should if I were to be more accurate.

The end result?

At my current charges per bar of soap, I only make about $1.62 per average size (4 to 4.5 oz) bar! That is paying myself wages. So, this little extra money would be the stuff I would put in the my savings for my next vacation?

At that rate, it will be years before I get a vacation!

Could I cut more corners and make more $$$? Absolutely! It would take some additional sacrifices of freshness of the oils I purchase and quality of my product to do it though. If I bought more bulk product, it would certainly be much less expensive. The down side is that I don't make enough product right now to ensure freshness of my oils if I bought bulk, so resort to making smaller batches at this time. There are a lot of other small ways I could cut costs and I am still in the process of streamlining and revamping some of the things I do.

Doing this was a great reality check for me even though I already kind of knew it based on keeping decent records that I wasn't making the thousands that I always envision.

BUT...It won't keep me from continuing to make soap. This is wayy too much fun!

You've heard the old saying about folks "getting up on their soap box" or "getting off their soap box". Yet, I doubt there are few of us out there that have ever actually seen a soap box before.

Soap boxes are boxes, typically made out of wood, that people used to mold soap. They could either be specially made just for that purpose or they could be drawers from dilapitated dressers, ready to be tossed away, but the drawers were saved and refurbished to be used as "soap boxes".

Soap makers today can purchase specially made soap boxes for their craft, made from wood, silicon, plastic, all kinds of things. I have a variety of all different kinds of these things, but I admit that my all time favorite is the box I made soap from when I first started making soap. I didn't have a lot of extra money to burn when I first started making soap (and still don't), and I tried to get all of my equipment together without breaking the bank.

We had just moved into an older home and began to clean out some of the old and refurbish with the new. There were some old cabinets stuffed away in the corner that contained some drawers in them. These drawer were in reasonably good condition, and an idea lightbulb popped into my head. I could use one of these to mold some soaps! I took out the one that contained wooden dividers for smaller sections, plus a larger section in the back and inspected it closely, All it needed was a little clean up, so I cleaned and aired it out. There were still some stains from some unknown source on the bottom from years back, but I knew that my soap was not going to actually become in contact with any of the wood anyway since I use waxed paper to line it. It has worked beautifully and I still use it make my soaps. The picture you see is my old, refurbished "soap box" with my latest creations, Pumpkin Pie Spice soap and Earthy Mint Shaving soap.

Both of these soaps will be available for sale within the next 2 weeks from this blog post. Soap made using the cold process method take over a month to cure before they are ready for sale and I make sure that they are well cured before even considering posting them online.

By the way, I am going to be in several different craft fairs and bazaars in the next 2 months, so my inventory will be dropping rapidly (I hope!) Many items here on Silkfair may be taken off temporarily. Don't worry! New items will come up soon.

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Time to make more soap. The question is, what kind should I make? What are people going to want to look at? What are they interested in? What will spark their interest?

In these increasingly tough economic times, these are important questions to ask. I don't want to waste my time making something no one wants or is willing to purchase. Despite the artistic value of my craft, I still have to look at the financial aspect of things. That is what makes good business sense.

That being said, I chose to make this soap that you see in the picture approximately 20 hours ago. It turned out the way I hoped it would, which is a good thing. Sometimes things turn out quite differently than what I hope for and then I have to decide if it is still marketable or a fun little giveaway....or do I just hide it away in my own shower and tell no one? I have a lot of those "tell no one" soaps, by the way. I just don't tell anyone...until now.

This soap is an interesting combination of three different soaping methods. The bottom portion is a method called "cold process" soap making. It is the method that has been used for generations. The ingredients might be a bit different than they were a hundred years ago, but the method is essentially the same.  The top portion (whipped cream look) is a method where the soap is whipped with a beater until it becomes frothy and merengue-looking. The ingredients are a tad different than the lower portion so that it whips better and has that light, whipped coloring. The "lemon shavings" on top are a very simple method of soap making called Melt and Pour, where I've taken an opaque, pre-made soap, then colored and shaped it to whatever I prefer.

All three methods are a blast to make and I enjoy them all. Here is a soap that combines all of them to make a soap that looks like something I would want to serve for dessert. It smells like lemons also. Since lemon fragrance doesn't always hold well in cold process soapmaking, I've cheated a bit by adding other essential oils that tend to mimic the lemon-like fragrance, and I've added real lemon juice to the mix.

Just an FYI, my work area smells like a lemon grove right now...ahhhhhhhhh!

Since these types of soaps take 6-8 weeks to cure enough so that they are gentle and lucious for your skin, they will not show up on Silkfair until the end of July. If you are interested in reserving some now, let me know. I've already pre-sold a large percentage of this batch.

Almost everyone looks forward to summer. There's a lot to look forward to; such as warm days, soaking in the sun, swimming, gardening, hiking, boating, camping and just generally getting out of doors. I love summer. Everyone and everything gets out and gets productive in sense or another. Everything...including bugs.

Most of us don't consider bugs as our favorite thing in the summer, yet they are a part of the summer season, like it or not. We have to put up with them...or do we?
For those of you who aren't fond of the little creatures landing on your body and biting you, there are options, like bug repellent. Most of the commercial bug repellents out there are chemically enhanced to keep bugs away. Most of them work quite well, but there are some drawbacks...the spray-ons getting into your eyes and down your lungs, the less than attractive smells, and all the strange-sounding, unpronounceable chemical words that your are slathering on your body, trusting they won't make you grow a third eye...or will they?

OK,OK, I have a point here. There are more natural options (Drumroll, please).
There are NATURAL oils found in many plants that have repel buggy critters and they can be found in one of my soaps. I'm not the only soapmaker that has this, but I think mine is the prettiest and most fashionable looking. I also have a matching lotion stick available that goes hand in hand with the soap. During summer camping or general outdoor season, you use your Bug Be Gone soap and then enhance that with my lotion stick for natural bug repellent effect. I use only natural plant oils in this soap that are known to repel bugs, including catnip oil, so I guess you'll be real popular with the canine crowd while wearing this stuff.

It certainly smells much nicer than any of those chemically enhanced bug repellent products out there and you are getting a natural product that doesn't make you grow a third eye either.

What a concept!

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 Finally! A sunny day in Vancouver, WA. and I can take a better picture of my newest soap. By now it is cut up into individual bars and curing. Sometimes the colors change a bit from first adding the colors to after the soap has dried and I was hoping that none of colors would fade out or look nasty after drying...they didn't fade or turn colors. If anything, the colors became even brighter. The green in the picture is truly a VERY bright green, the orange stayed orange, the pale lavender swirl still seems more white than lavender, but it shows well against the darker lavender background.

Overall, I am satisfied.

Now, to the actual ingredients. I mentioned before that this soap was made using palm kernel oil instead of coconut oil. It is a formula that I have had laying around for quite awhile but have seldom used...only because coconut oil is such a versatile oil that I've stayed with it, a certain familiarity with how coconut oil responds has kept me using it and I've stayed in my "comfort zone".

Coconut oil contains a variety of fatty acids that give the properties that make it a good "soap oil" like large amounts of lauric acid which contribute to creating a hard bar of soap, great cleansing qualities and creates a wonderful lather. It also contains a fair amount of myristic acid, which have similar qualities to lauric acid. It then contains small amounts of palmitic acid, which stabilizes the lather, oleic acid (conditioning the skin), and stearic acid (lather stabilizer and contributes to hard bar).

Palm Kernel oil has many of the same qualities that coconut oil has, but in different quanities It contains lauric acid in almost the same amount as coconut oil, only about half the amount of stearic acid, almost the same amount of myristic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid. So, probably the biggest difference between the two oils is hardness of the bar and the lather may be a bit less stable.

But here's a good thing with this formula, I increased the amount of olive oil content, which is almost all conditioning. This bar will caress your skin like crazy.
I also added some bentonite clay (a type of kaolin clay) to give a "slipperiness" that makes it an ideal shaving soap. Sometimes, an overabundance of clay can cause your skin to feel a bit dry intially. Clays do have astringent and cleansing properties too, but too much can sometimes cause your skin to feel a little dry. With this smaller batch of soap I added about 2 tablespoons to the soap batch.

Since soap takes over a month to cure, it will not be listed on Silkfair until next month. If you are interested in advance ordering, please let me know. I would be happy to save one for you. I made a very small batch, only nine bars came from this formula, so these may not last long.