# A couple of questions



## Little Moon (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi I am very new to the soaping thing - only made the Walmart recipe a few times. I know I am hooked, but I have a few questions . . .

Does anyone sell soap made from the Walmart recipe? Or is it just a beginners recipe? Is this a core recipe that you can start with and then change out the different oils & fats - of course running everything thru the lye calculator?? Can anyone recommend a good book on the art of soaping? I am sure I will have more questions so feel free to jump in here and just offer up advice 

Thanks,
Anne


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

The best soaping info is right here, honestly.  You can tweak the Walmart recipe to include different oils and fats if you like, some people do sell the Walmart recipe or things very close to it, as it makes fantastic soap. The only issue for some is that their market (by this, I mean "who you are selling to" not market as in "farmers market") will not go for lard (or tallow). I make soaps with lard and tallow and have no problem selling them, so it depends a lot on where you are and what your market is like.


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

I sell a variation of the walmart recipe. Really honestly DGI is the best place to learn soaping. You can discuss beginner issues without the BS.


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## Little Moon (Dec 29, 2007)

OK - you guys are my "book" can you tell me some "tweaks" I may want to consider?? Things that have worked well or things that you would not recommend for me to try.

Thanks,
Anne


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Better for you to look at different options for oils, fats, and butters you might want to try out and ask us about specific things.


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

That's the fun of soap making and trying other soapers soaps. We all like different things for different reasons. 

Some of the best advice I have gleaned. Even though you are a beginner you may want to have in the back of your mind that this will be a business. You may want to keep your soap recipe simple. Do you really want to be mass producing a soap that has 15 ingredients? Another good tidbit. Try to use ingredients that can be used in other products. This spreads the cost and makes things simpler during reorder time. You may be saying, "but Heather, I'm just doing this for fun". Usually one of two things happens. You REALLY have fun making soap. You now have made soap for months and it's piled up everywhere. Your friends and relatives are drowning in it. What to do? Sell it! OR there comes a time when you have no money for groceries and the electric bill is due. You need more money coming into the household. What to do? You having soaping skills. Whip up a batch and sell it!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I would have purchased stock molds for a good 4 ounce bar from the beginning.

Start with a Bath and Body works and Victoria secret type store and see what is selling, what is new and then start a line of soaps.....everyone with goats has to make some variation of Oatmeal Goatmilk and Honey, but then pick an herbal, male perfume, female perfume, food scents, floral, perhaps an essential oil line or two, vegan.....and try as hard as you can to get your scent through one supplier and I would make it a supplier that discounts over 1 pound purchases (5 and/or 10 pounds). Start with scents that someone else you trusts uses.

Get a .com before you start a soap venture even if you don't use it.

Join the dish and read the archives and look at the photo galleries for ideas. Take with a huge grain of salt some of the info on sites like that, you can tell from some answers that few are actually doing much of anything 

Use thesage.com and print out every recipe change you make, then keep notes in the margins, you will not remember if you used 17 drops of red or 12....or the 1/4tsp or 1/2 of mica etc... and eventually you will have to reproduce what you do.

Oldwillknottscales.com and buy his soaping scale right off the bat.

Move to 50 pound bags of lye quickly.

Read, what is popular....Coconut Oil, Shea, Olive Oil, those are the kinds of products you want on your label for label appeal. Aloe, Acai, Cranberry, and all the other hot button headlines.....


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