# Tester Ideas



## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I am looking for new ideas on how to do my testers. I usually use an 8 oz pump bottle...but with lots of different scents, it gets to be a lot of testers and I do throw those testers out after six months or so. I'm trying to make a wide variety of scents...well, just a few different ones at a time, depending on what I have available...but this does get expensive and eats up my bottles, especially since my store locations want lotions with testers too. Can I wash my lotion bottles out? Seems so messy I've avoided it. Do any of you use a tiny pot with lid that be easily washed, sterilized and reused with fresh lotion? 

I would like to just make 2 scents, but honestly, those lotions give me a lot of income and I hate not having them. Especially when people like to buy a lotion to go with their favorite soap. It's really a good add-on income stream, and easily nearly doubles my weekly income. 

Any other ideas for testers?


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

I'd like to try a larger variety again this year. In the past I just never could predict what people wanted and they'd want what I didn't have. LOL But I want to try again this year now that I'm at a larger market. I like the jar idea. Maybe a 2 oz jar with half size popsickle sticks (that's what I use for my shea butter). I think for testers it would be fine to clean them well, maybe wipe them out with alcohol, and re-use for testers. And then I would still have one full size tester with a pump and label like you sell. I refill my pump testers and keep them going from May - Dec. Then I use them up at home and toss.


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

I streamlined my lotion scents and use 8 oz bottles with pumps. Throw them away when they are empty. I found that if they want lotion they will buy what I have. In my area. no one seems concerned about matching soap and lotion scents. Lucky for me.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

It seems that people who buy matching soaps/lotions are buying the set as a gift, not for themselves. I've always had the 8oz pumps and sold quite a few of them, but now I'm concerned with them going bad after a time, so I've gone to smaller bottles. This week I did 2 oz malibu's and 2 oz jars I already had. I like the idea of a 1 oz tester with a dip stick that I can sterilize every month or so and put in new lotion. I threw away about 15 tester bottles last week..some were here at the house left over from summer, and we won't use them that old. A lot of the lotions I make I don't like using, or we'd recycle them all that way.


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## a4patch (Oct 7, 2009)

Anita, old lotion makes a great no-poo conditioner. Just used up some of mine this way and had so many compliments.
I put it on my scalp, massaged, rinsed with warm water and then sealed the cuticle with cold water. Finger combed, then wide tooth combed, then I "plopped" my hair with an old tee. The result was a bunch of well formed conditioned curls with lots of compliments the next day.

BTW- The lotion was scented and my hair is nappy when combed out or brushed and /finger sized curly when curly.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I have a kind of little store, I have always kept my soap out, one raw bar and several wrapped behind it, lotions made and will simply pump and scent in front of a customer if they want another scent, Lee's pottery, soap savers, tolietries etc. on pretty white bookshelfs against one wall. I am taking all this down and simply putting wrapped soap into pretty box/trays I found, rows of tolietries like a store has. I am going to saturate a cotton ball with scent and put it into a wide mouth labeled amber glass bottle and on a display with all the scents I carry. Like the little essential oil displays but with cotton so it can't be spilled when opened to sniff. So instead of mollesting my soap on the display, or opening lotions!!!! or useing lotions and getting the other bottles greasy/wet/oily ruining labels...they can smell the pretty amber wide mouth bottles on the display. I have always offered my milk and cheese customers access to my dry racks to buy any and as many soaps as they want for $3.50, I will continue this but I am going to have a strict, no kids policy in my soap room, no more kids dropping my soap! I think this is going to also control the scent in the room with not having so much unwrapped soap sitting around. 

I am going to do a spa line as soon as I am in my new space and being in the smallest soap area imagineable now, my new space (roof on, walls framed, floor done) is a mansion  I will finally have room for my wall cabinets to oven process in, and a big 9 foot high cure closet with a dehumidifier in it to cure soap, with a floor drain that is done, so no emptying the dehumidifier. And with 9 foot ceilings I can finally stack stuff up on the top of my commercial racks! I will keep a tester out of one lotion scent, one body butter (and I order the little pink spatulas from a gal who is MS. MaryKay  and yes I do wash them and sterilize them, and pull them out of the trash when customers leave  I have a 40's sideboard I am going to use in the new soap room so I can display the testers, Lee's pottery etc....like you would in your home. Plus it will give me tons more storage in all the drawers.

Share what you end up doing Anita. Vicki


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Wow, Vicki, that sounds awesome! Take a pic once your in your new space.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

Vicki that sounds like a really nice room! We have an old, very old deck off the side of the house with this little enclosed porch area. It's got boards missing and we don't use it but when we go to redo it this summer my plan is to extend this room to the side end of the deck and use it for my soap room. We'll still have an additional 10 square feet or so of deck left to the front of the house. We're going to gravel up to the deck and have a doorway into the soap room. Nobody will have to go through the house and I can put lots of plants and chairs and stuff out there. 

I like the idea of the cotton ball in amber bottles. I'm not so sure about using lotion on my hair but I will give it a whirl and see how it works. I'm envisioning a greasy mess, but who knows?


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## eam (Aug 22, 2010)

I've just come across this thread and wondered if anyone used Vicki's suggestion of putting a scent-soaked cotton ball in an amber bottle for customers to sniff? It seems like a great idea. Has anyone tried it?

Thanks.
Elizabeth


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Other than I found green little bottles, rather than amber ones....they are excellent!


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## a4patch (Oct 7, 2009)

Do you poke a hole in the lid or do they unscrew the lid and sniff and replace the lid?


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Hey, Vicki, where's the pics of your new space?


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## eam (Aug 22, 2010)

Thanks - I think it sounds like a great idea, especially now that I know it works as planned!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

They just unscrew the lid and sniff...I have never had to refresh the scent. Vicki


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