Scary things in business

Here's the worst part of starting a business. Will I run us into bankruptcy, or actually make money doing this?

No one goes in knowing the answer to that combined question. We can plan. We can plot. We can do a zillion and one market surveys. But in the end, we really don't know if people will buy our products. We just don't know.

At best, we hope. We pray. We plan. And we worry.

During all the preparing stage, I've had to do so many things. First, I've had to make different types of test batches. I use one pound of oils, which yields about 1.25 pounds of soap. A bar of soap is usually around four ounces. Some make five ounce bars. That's four bars that are over four ounces each. If the bar of soap is a nice hard bar, and if it's kept in a soap dish, one bar of soap will last about two months.

Right now, I have more soap than I can use. The nice part about making soap, there are so many things I can do with it. I can rebatch some of the batches that I'm not pleased with. Or the ones that I made using only one type of oil.

Today I made two batches of soap. One was nothing put a pure experiment. I colored it with cocoa. I wanted to see if the smell stayed in the finished product. It didn't. I wanted to see what would happen if I used a bar of the 100% olive oil soap I'd made a couple weeks ago in that soap. BTW, for those who don't know this, the 100% olive oil soap is castile soap. It's turned into a very nice white bar of soap. I cut it into small pieces. Right before my new batch was ready to pour into the mold, I added the castile soap to the mix. Then I sprinkled the top with ground coconut. Not coconut oil, but real coconut. It's the dried variety.

I was after a rocky road affect. It didn't turn out exactly like I wanted it to, but it's still usable soap. Oh, I also tried to scent it with coconut extract. Another failure. So, right before it went into the mold, I poured a little blood orange into the carrier oil and added it as a scent.

If that had worked, my next step was to make a mocha soap using cocoa and fresh coffee. I don't see me doing that any time soon after today's experiment.

My other experiment was with dried blueberries. I used the coffee grinder to grind up the blueberries. I put them into the water. Then I poured the lye into the water. Oops. At first it was a nice color. Then it turned brown, as in a burnt brown.

In the end, that soap turned out pretty nice. I added bayberry scent to it.

And that's another part of the problem. Bayberry is a nice scent. But it's a fragrence oil. I really like essential oils better. They not only smell nice, they tend to be good for the body. Fragrence oils just make us smell nice. They don't have the added bonus of healing properties like essential oils have.

With that said, there are some blends that are almost impossible to get with essential oils. If that weren't enough, sandalwood essential oil is expensive. Depending on which vendor I look at, it runs about a thousand bucks for 16 ounces. Hello! That's a little rich for my blood. Rose, otto is in the same category...about a thousand bucks for a pound of the stuff.

Those are the things that I worry about. Do I stick with only essential oils? Do I break down and use a few fragrence oils, but make sure it's clear on the label they are fragrence oils? Fragrence oils aren't harmful to most people. It's not like I'm shoving something into the soap tht is bad. But for anyone who has sensitive skin the risk of a reaction runs higher with a fragrence oil.

Some soapers claim that most customers won't know the difference. They might be right. But why not give the customer the best? They might not know the difference, but I do. Isn't it my responsibility to use that knowledge to their benefit?

That's what I've been worrying about today. And when will I have a product ready to sell so I can start paying for some of the supplies I've been ordering?