# Business questions...new to soaping...



## JumpinIrish4ever (Mar 11, 2010)

Hey ya'll!

Ok I'm extremely new to soaping but I had a couple of questions. I'd like to eventually sell my soap at the local farmers market, on my website, and local craft shows. What procedures do I need to go through to do this? Do I just need a vendor's license? As far as the soap itself goes are their guidelines to what can be in it? Do I have to register with someone?

As you can see, I'm very new to this all. Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

Each state/county may be different. Call your local county office and see what they say. For my area I had to do nothing other than getting a tax number to collect sales tax. Some of my markets & shows require that I have liability insurance, some do not.

As for the soap itself there are some labeling requirements. You are supposed to have the weight and your contact info. Ingredients are not required if I remember correctly, but most people list them. As Vicki often says, there are no label police.


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

In my state I have to have a sales tax permit and a DBA "doing business as" from the county clerk's office for my business name. I also have liability insurance just because I feel it is necessary and I do have shows that ask for a copy. I belong to the handcrafted soapmakers guild (soapmakersguild.org) and have my insurance through them.

I use the FDA guuidelines for labels. I also make lotion so I have to be careful about doing them right so I also do my soap labels with all ingredients and in descending order. 

There are guidelines as to what you can claim about what your soap does but if it is skin safe, I have not seen any restrictions for soap ingredients. In other words you can't calim your soap will alleviate fine lines and wrinkles. Soap cleans.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Soap is not under the cosmetic guidelines, you only have to put your weight and contact info on your bars. Now if you do make cosmetic clamins about your soap, being healing etc...than it does then fall under the cosmetic labeling info.

Most farmers markets or craft shows or stores will tell you up front what licenses you have to have. A DBA from your courthouse going to your bank so you can cash business checks is a must. Vicki


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

My bank has been cashing my checks all along without a DBA. Maybe just because it's a small town bank. I just told them it was our farm name and they didn't bat an eye.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Our town has one signal and a flashing light, nothing smaller town than that  This last year they told me they would not take any more Lonesome Doe Nubian checks unless I opened another account since I already have a DBA for Nubian soaps on my personal account....so, even in small town USA they are going to catch up with you  Vicki


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Well, we don't even have a light of any sort. 1 stop sign in the "town" part of town, and that's it. I just opened up a business checking account. Man, that's gonna be expensive. $4/month maintenance fees (only $1.50 if it's a personal account) plus they only let you have 30 free debits of any sort (ATM withdrawals, checks, debit card transactions) in a month, after that, it's 10 cents per. And I have to have my account open for at least a month before I can get a debit card. I've been spoiled all these years using USAA for all of our banking...free everything (even free checks if you get the really cheap ones!), refund your ATM fees, can deposit checks from home using the scanner on my printer. Very, very military friendly, with all the moving around and long distance eveything that we do. But they don't do business accounts. And they are definitely not even close to local (no branches, the bank is in San Antonio). Oh well.


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## jimandpj (Mar 11, 2008)

Stacey - that's terrible. I don't pay any fees on my business account at all and was irritated that it doesn't earn interest like my personal checking. 

PJ


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Yeah, the only upside I can think of is that for every day that your account balance is over $100, they give you 10 cents. So, if I never go under that and I don't do more than 30 withdrawals in a month, it will almost cover the maintenance fees. Sheesh. (And my personal checking earns interest too, though not very much.)


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