Hi,
I'm Nia
I have been a member for about a week now but have not had the time to introduce myself properly.
I was recently  re-introduced to homemade cosmetics (we all made face packs when we were little didn't we?) when my friends made shea butter balms as gifts for xmas last year. It made me want to have a go, not to mention give a real personal touch to gifts for friends.
Well it's got a bit more advanced recently I work for a homelessness charity and they wanted idea's for profit making social enterprises (they held a dragon's den event complete with multi millionaires) so as I had been dabbling for the last six months I went to them with the idea of m&p soapmaking and despite not winning ( i came second) seemed to impress them so much that they decided to give me the money anyway......(not millions i might add £500)
So I am now charged with getting a mini business off the ground to raise money for the charity....... before xmas....no pressure huh!
I am sure I will ask lots of silly q's so please bear with me and will prob post in all the wrong places sorry in advance
 but thanks to everyone who has made me feel welcome so far it's nice to have a place to go to talk about this stuff as all at work are soooo bored with me already 

Happy to be here, learning all the time,
Nia 

Hi and welcome!  :buttrf:
Lots of info here.

When you get to the stage of safety assessments you can contact "our inhouse" assessor Scott (member of this forum). LINK HERE. He and his team is doing a fantastic job, have decent prices and are very helpful.

Hi Nia
Welcome aboard. Not all of the boards are visible to you yet, so get posting. The more you post, the more board become visible.
Before xmas, that is tough. Might be worth going back to them with a revised plan. Outlining that there are regs surrounding cosmetics, so a 6-7 week deadline might not be feasible, even though the principle/plan behind it is. It takes practice and testing to get products to the market, I'm sure the organisation would only be happy with their name being associated with quality work, not something rushed to market before it;s ready.

Eire
ETA: Congratulations on the competition, well done.

hi Nia 

Welcome Nia.

Eire's advice is good - however if your "dabbling" has brought you to the stage of saleable MP soaps then it would be possible to obtain a safety assessment in time.

Whether you could bring the other workers in the mini-business up to scratch is debatable - depends how quickly they absorb info.

Thanks to all replies, I have been in contact with Scott already just waiting for him to get back to me with costs etcThey are well aware of regs as am I, to begin with we are just looking to preview 4-5 diff soaps with the idea of developing a wider range further down the line to include lip balm and body butters, we have these recipes pretty much finalised and tested.To begin with it will be just me however a collegue of mine has been making CP for years so is an exellent source of  info and experience .we are not going to produce 1000's of units more likely 5kg to begin with for xmas and then develop further in the new year.
I'm sure that we will have a learning curve steeper than a very steep thing... but it will always be a work in progress and I think I like that... look out for testers wanted in the next few weeks and let me know hpow i'm doing....
best wishes
nia

That's a great way to look at it.  The project sounds fantastic and very beneficial.  Really well done on coming second - that is a real achievement 

Welcome to the forum.  Like Eire said, there's boards you can't see just yet but they will open up the more you post 

I hope you find it useful and enjoyable.  Good luck and I hope you reach your deadline!  :buttrf:

Well done Nia for getting 2nd prize, what a great opportunity.    You'll get lots of good advice and info from this forum, it's great with lot of great people. :buttrf:

Hi and welcome Well done you on getting that money! Looking forward to seeing what you create

Hello Nia – congratulations on getting the prize money for your well deserved project! Welcome 

Hiya 

Hello  :buttrf:

Hello Nia, welcome aboard and congrats on placing 2nd!  That is a true achievement.

Thanks for all your lovely words

Hello & welcome!