Fresholi | Melting Pot Café

Last week I had the bright idea (seemed so at the time) to launch my own bath products.

In the last few days gone from joy to sadness to jubilation and depression, and most places in between.

Joy: I came up with a great name, registered a domain name,
Sadness: then found someone had already tm for bath products.

jubilation: Came up with a new name (BathMenu.Com)
Depression: Found out about the legal side and data sheets

Anyway, that's the story so far, keep an eye out for my posts and questions, and Ill keep you updated of my voyage.

Ben

Welcome  :)

Hello Ben, welcome aboard.

The legal and paperwork side can be a bit of a maze - but a good Safety Assessor will help a lot!

Hi Ben, welcome to the forum.  Gosh, those trials and tribulations will be a familiar flavour to most on here.  Don't give up though - keep trudging on  ;)   :buttrf:

Yep, lots of us have been there. Welcome and look forward to hearing about your ongoing journey.  :buttrf:

Welcome Ben. I look forward to hearing about your creations. Don't forget to post some photos.

hello and welcome aboard!
 :buttrf:

Hello and welcome!

We're all here, for better or worse, as you'll find out!  ;)

Yeah, really, a LOT of us have been there!  :mwaha:

Some of the regs are good and sensible and some are insane and pointless, but the good news is many of us sell so we've been there done that got the t-shirt and can help

Hi Ben - welcome to the forum.  Have you been making bath & body products for long? The rule is here is that you have to show pics of what you've made so far!

I think I was about a year making before selling - the time put into research and development and sheer exploration of your medium is utterly invalueable in making a quality product.  

I think I started last Monday/Tuesday.
I ordered a few things that I thought I needed.

My first concoction was some baby bath with some fragrance essential oils,which I tried. No photo yet, in process of doing website now. as soon as I got it up ill take and post some pics. Hopefully by Wednesday.

Thanks for the warm welcome.


Can I join the insane club or there a queue?

Ben

Ben, I don't want to be the voice of doom or negativity or anything but are you sure you're ready to start this as a business? You've only just started making, less than a week ago and whilst your first experiment may have been nice, it takes a huge amount more to sell and run a business. 

There needs to be an understanding of your materials, why your choosing certain ingredients, what effect they'll have on people's skin, what qualities do they bring to your product, etc.  Plus there's a matter of the various techniques that need to be learnt - soap and other bath and body products might look easy to make but to get a really good quality product, it takes work and money and time. 

I have reservations about anyone having only made things for a week selling them to others.  Sorry to appear to be negative but it might be a good idea to take some time to educate yourself on your materials before sale. 

Ben,

You are going to have to get some practicalities sorted,
Safety assessments (we have a very good assessor on here who is a member)
Insurance
Registering with local Ts AND BARR.
Loads of experimenatation(I can see you are doing that with your testers)

Loads of enthuisasm and willingnes to laern and that does include asking questions. It s scary, hairy, but loads of fun too

Hi Ben, welcome :)
Loads of useful info on here, feel free to ask lots of questions, and post lots of pics!

That's good honest advice, thanks.

I've been up since about 6am now 12 midnight reading about the ins and outs. The more I look into this the more I see I need to do/take care of. I think I'm gonna try and have one product out soon, having hopefully covered all the basis. It's just the thought and excitement of having a real product out. I'm the kind of person who likes to learn from their mistakes (minor ones),obviously I'll get a good safety assessor, insurance, legal labelling etc.

I bow to your better judgement and experience and will slow things down a bit.

Could someone explain/point me in the right direction for this?:

Many thanks.

Ben

It's good to slow down, Ben. You will spend an absolute fortune on ingredients and get completely overwhelmed otherwise.
Have a little fun with the learning process, making small batches, changing one ingredient at a time to see the effect it has, until you hit what you think is your final formula. We all have got the over excited urge, purchased loads of different oils, experimented to no end...
Start small, testing yourself, then involve family, then onto friends (those that you think will give honest feedback). Have a reasonable idea how long your products shelf life is, will the fragrance last, or will it go funky, will it grow some ugly things or is it safe, how to package best for that particular product...
There is loads of info on here, Helen gave you some good links, it's lots of testing, reading and researching, over and over and over. If you can't work something out or you're having a spot of bother, you won't be asking a question that none of us haven't asked before.

Eire

Yup, lots of useful info to be had on here Ben. Can't tell you how many days I've lost trawling through old posts ;D Everyone here is fab though, and very VERY helpful.

Welcome Ben  (:hug:)

Welcome Ben :buttrf:

Welcome to the forum Ben

hello Ben & welcome, yes take it slow, it'll be better in the long run, I promise you! :)

Hello  :buttrf:

Hi Ben, welcome to the forum.  You sound really enthusiastic which is great!  I hope we are not damping your enthusiasm, but I agree with the others on not rushing into selling things too quickly.  I think Eire made a couple of good points about shelf life & packaging, which can be easy to overlook initially.  You might think something is good for a year but in fact goes off in 6 months (be careful with bath products containing milk powders for example, suppliers may state that a milk powder has 12-18 months shelf life, but adding other ingredients, fragrance etc will likely change that.)  Or you may find that after a couple of months, your bath salts start to leak/stain through the packaging or lose their fragrance etc etc.  So you will have to find an alternative way of packaging them, then test again to make sure it's ok.   Like most others here who sell their products, I spent at least a year making things before I started selling anything. 

Best of luck with your experiments, look forward to seeing/hearing what you come up with!   :)

Trading Standards and BERR (was Dept. of Trade and Industry - your local Trading Standrds should have the contact address).

You have to inform both when you're starting to sell cosmetics/toiletries.

Hi and welcome.  :buttrf:

Hi, Ben you've come to the best site on the net, lovely people, so helpful and full of knowledge.
 The resourses and all the posts are worth reading you learn so much.  I'd take a look at the business and legal side of the forum and know what to expect though.  Some good advice given here though already.
  I just received my safety assesement for makeing CP soap and Scott was so helpfull, he will help you, it's not a scary as you think, people want to help not hinder you.  Wellcome aboard/

Shell :)

Hi and welcome.
I have been making soap for nearly two years and I dont sell yet as I still have soooo much to learn.
Bit you have come to the right place and you will love it and as said before....you will lose countless hours researching....

Linda

Welcome and lots of luck!!

Welcome and looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

Some more info about me.

My profession is an English Teacher, which I thoroughly enjoy. When I'm not working I enjoy writing both fiction and non fiction. I currently have two educational books out and I'm currently working on my first novel.

I also have a number of websites, which keeps me busy.

I enjoy doing anything that keeps me and my hands busy, whether that be writing, crafting, or jewellery making. I'm not into it for the money, just to keep busy.

Prior to teaching I had a few random jobs, such as hotel fire marshal and quality control.

If you want to know more about me, just ask.

Ben

well, Ben, that's fascinating - really. My best friend is an author as well and spends a lot of time on-line and doing things generally unrelated to writing. I think it clears her head and helps her develop characters she wouldn't otherwise be able to capture if she stayed in her "writer" head all the time. Lovely. I guess you have to try all sorts of things, too, to get more in touch with the human experience. I love that you say you thoroughly enjoy your job, too. How refreshing! not sure how you say it over there but, high school or college?

Ooo - would you care to capture all the stray apostrophes which crop up on here and put them somewhere where they can't get out?

it's like herding cats, Elaine  (says one of the contributors)

Ooo. Don't get me started on apostrophes, I could rant for days. :mwaha:

I'll keep you both busy then. :mwaha:

Eire

 :mwaha: