# Soap addict



## Nana (May 12, 2010)

Alright I have been soaping for over 2 years now and am well on my way to being a soap addict. I can see that I will never have enough soap. :biggrin I was wondering if any of you had much success with selling on Etsy? I haven't started scenting my soaps yet just coloring them with natural ingredients. I think I would rather make soap than my day job.


----------



## NPgoats (Mar 18, 2010)

Hi Wendy, I saw that lots have viewed but no one responded...and I got nosey (courious about the addict LOL) and looked but now I can't answer your question either...because I don't know! But liked what you had to say. I haven't been soaping that long but now I know what's ahead...a soap addict! Yeah, I can see that with me. LOL There are soapers on here that use Etsy. I hope they will respond.
FYI-Essential oils are a good place to start if you want to go with natural scents but are more costly ususally than fragance oils.
Linda


----------



## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

There isn't enough business with my customers I have, to sell more than just one bar that is unscented. Everyone leaves your market table, your soap shop, with soap on their nose. Pretty first, which gets them to pick it up, then straight to their nose. I also would not limit myself to either all essential oils or all fragranced oils...something for everyone is your best bet. 

And yes I am addictied also, why I am expanding  Vicki


----------



## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

There is a guy on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/RockyTopSoapShop?ref=pr_faveshops, who sells only unscented soaps and he sells a TON of them! I think the market for them is small though, but once you have a following, and many, many, many people cannot tolerate scent, they will keep coming back. I don't think unscented soaps would do well at a festival type event though. Scent is really what sells the soap. And attractive, professional packaging...labels that have the scent listed so that when they run out, they can run back to you for more  Etsy is a hard sell. I opened a shop there a couple years ago and I've only had about 50+ sales. You have to keep it up consistently. After 3 months your listings expire, which is why my shop has been opened and closed several times.

I opened the shop back up permanently last fall though and have had small but consistent sales since then. I use my shop for my "shop". I have a link on my website to it because I am computer dumb and don't feel like learning anything else to do with it and the Etsy shop is soooo easy to set up and maintain. It's a great place to see what others are doing, and check your prices against theirs, your packaging, your quality...some shops sell quite a lot and have ugly soap...go figure....sometimes it's a puzzle. You can look up the top sellers on Etsy, right now one of them in Anderson's Soap Company with thousands of sales and thousands in revenue.

I too love making soap but I'm also at the point where I can't stand the clutter in my kitchen, I have to leave the farm to make a living trimming horses, and that leaves me tired and not feeling like soaping and dealing with the mess of it. I became so frustrated that I've gone back to school to finish my degree so I can make more money and get my business out of my house and then quit trimming horses. LOL. The worst thing for me is not having a separate place to soap once I got to making so much of it.


----------



## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

I was just talking to my MIL this weekend. She wants me to send her bars of unscented soap. Her brother was making it, but he only wants to make scented soap now, and she doesn't like it. I like it all, but I think plain white unscented soap is my favorite.


----------



## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

I do well with unscented soap. I have two options. My best-selling one is with lard, and then I offer a veggie one. The lard one is actually one of my best-selling soaps! 

As for Etsy, I'm not liking it. Granted, I opened up a shop and then didn't do much afterwards, but I find Facebook and my website to be more to my liking. Etsy, you have to babysit it all the time and that's just not me.


----------



## Nana (May 12, 2010)

Thank you everyone for all your input. I guess I may try Etsy for awhile but haven't decided what I want to do after that. I already have a really good job and can't complain about that but, this is more of a fun hobby and I have too much milk and have to do something with it.


----------



## Angelknitter12 (Feb 16, 2012)

On Ebay they ate selling for about two to three dollars for a large bar. I couldn't afford to do that. Try etsy, though it starts slow. Of course farmers markets are a good bet also.


----------



## todog (Dec 10, 2011)

I do both scented and unscented soaps. Vicki is right about the people and smelling the soaps. my draw is the beer soap. they see the beer soap sign and laugh and then i tell them about all my other products on the table and the whole time they are smelling all the soap.


----------

