I was asked the best question this morning and had to write about it.
“Why make homemade soap?” Because you can make soap better than what you buy off the shelf, for pennies on the dollar.
But that’s just one reason. There are so many answers to this question – and each will differ depending on who asks.
- Most Big Brand “Soap” Is Not Really Soap
- Homemade Soap Helps Pay My Bills!
- Handmade Soap Is Better for Your Skin
- Homemade Soap Is Cheaper
- Soap is Fun to Make
- You Control Quality
- Handmade Soap Makes Great Gifts!
- Soaping Lets You Be Creative
1. Most Big Brand “Soap” is Not Really Soap
Yes! You read that right. Most of those “beauty bars” and “cleansing bars” that you see at the grocery store are not really soap. They are cleansing bars that use chemical detergent to do the cleaning, artificial lathering agents and chemical hardeners.
Homemade soap, on the other hand, uses naturally produced glycerin to clean your skin. Although you can put in additional hardeners; there is no need. Simply using firmer oils and letting your soap bar cure for longer will make a very firm bar.
And finally, there is no need for artificial lathering additives. The natural glycerin will provide all of the rich creamy leather that you need to get clean and feel great!
If you want to read something surprising, visit this webpage for the United States Food and Drug Administration. It outlines what qualifies as true soap in the US. I was absolutely blown away the first time I saw this, years ago.
2. Homemade Soap Helps Pay My Bills!
I really love this one. The first time I heard it, it was from a stay at home mom who left the workforce in order to take care of her young daughter.
She and her husband both had careers, however his health benefits were better. With the cost of daycare, any money she earned would basically be a wash.
The reason I love this so much is because if her husband had been the one to stop with the outside job, he might not have been as tempted to get into making soap.
Now, Marjorie earns about $2.40 in net profit for every 4 ounce bar that she sells. That is after the cost of:
- Ingredients
- Packaging
- Labels
- Marketing Materials
- Advertising
- Website hosting and upkeep
- Payment processing fees
- Rent that she charges herself to ensure she has factored in overhead expenses.
Reality Alert:
Marjorie spends more on advertising and marketing than she does on actually making the soap. Once she gets a more steady stream of regular repeat customers she can expect profits to jump considerably.
By the way, Marjorie makes and sells between 160 and 200 bars of homemade soap per week. In an average week, her net profit is over $430.
She spends about four hours per day between making the soap and running her small business. Her gross sales per week hover between $900 and $1,000 on average. This is for part time work from home.
That, of course, is the good news. It wasn’t always like that.
It took Marjorie nearly 3 years to build up to that level. However, she did say that after her first couple months she shared a booth at a Christmas craft fair and pocketed nearly $400 in one day.
That is when she first realized that this could be a real business opportunity, even if only part-time while raising her daughter.
Many people have turned a part-time soapmaking hobby into a full-time money-making enterprise. Marjorie chooses to continue in a part time capacity and earned more than she did at her old full-time job. That’s nice!
3. “Handmade Soap Is Better for Your Skin“
One thing I refused to do on this website, is make any medical claims. I am not a doctor. I am not qualified to tell you what is best for you. In this case I am merely passing along one of the most popular answers to my question “why do you make your own soap?”
I will however, gladly, share an ingredients list with you tells its own story. On the left side of the table below are the five ingredients that I use in my personal favorite homemade soap. On the right side of the table are the ingredients of the Dove soap bars that my family used to use.
| ID | My Soap | Dove White Beauty Bar |
| 1 | organic coconut oil | Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate |
| 2 | organic olive oil | Stearic Acid |
| 3 | sustainable palm oil | Lauric Acid |
| 4 | water | Sodium Tallowate or Sodium Palmitate |
| 5 | food grade lye | Water |
| 6 | Sodium Isethionate | |
| 7 | Sodium Stearate | |
| 8 | Cocamidopropyl Betaine | |
| 9 | Sodium Cocoate or Sodium Palm Kernelate | |
| 10 | Fragrance | |
| 11 | Sodium Chloride | |
| 12 | Tetrasodium Etidronate | |
| 13 | Tetrasodium EDTA | |
| 14 | Titanium Dioxide |
Again, I am not making any medical claims. Please simply look at the list of ingredients above.
Now ask yourself…
“Which of these ingredients would I like absorbed into the largest organ of my body – my skin?”
You know what my answer was. And without trying to make any claims about cosmetic effects or anything else, I will say that my skin feels so much better since I have been using my very own homemade soap.
That is just a personal observation but one that has literally changed how I feel when I start my day, every single day.
4. Homemade Soap is Cheaper
I make my own luxurious soap from organic coconut oil, organic olive oil, and sustainable palm oil for $0.17 per ounce. That’s AFTER the curing takes place and essentially all water weight is gone.
This is certified organic soap that makes my skin feel amazing! It costs me just $0.68 per full 4 OZ bar – After tax. Here is my exact ingredients list:
- Organic Coconut Oil
- Organic Olive Oil
- Sustainable Palm Oil
- Water
- Food Grade Lye
If you buy a Dove White Beauty Bar (3.17 OZ) at a pharmacy like CVS, you will likely pay $1.99 before tax. That works out to about $0.63 per ounce. Here is their list of ingredients:
- Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate
- Stearic Acid
- Lauric Acid
- Sodium Tallowate or Sodium Palmitate
- Water
- Sodium Isethionate
- Sodium Stearate
- Cocamidopropyl Betaine
- Sodium Cocoate or Sodium Palm Kernelate
- Fragrance
- Sodium Chloride
- Tetrasodium Etidronate
- Tetrasodium EDTA
- Titanium Dioxide
Are you kidding me!?
It’s going to cost me nearly four times as much for that chemical bath? I don’t think so!
My favorite part… Look at that list again and find the “or” ingredients like “Sodium Tallowate or Sodium Palmitate”. “Or” what exactly?… Whatever is cheaper?… Whatever is handy in our warehouse when we make that batch?
I don’t know about you, but I feel more confident when the company making the product knows how they will make it.
You can buy a six pack of “Dove Beauty Bar Sensitive Skin” 3.75 oz Bars for $6.88. That works out to just $0.31 per ounce. That’s a better deal on cost, but the same quality.
You get the same chemical bath for half the cost. Yay… (this is my natural sarcasm showing itself)
Apples to Apples
If you really want a fair comparison of cost savings, consider that you can make homemade soap for about 15% to 20% of what it costs to buy a similar bar of handcrafted soap at Wholefoods or a specialty store.
That’s just fifteen to twenty cents on the dollar for the same quality product. If you have the interest to try soapmaking, it can be extremely rewarding.
5. Soap is Fun to Make
I hear this one a lot. I agree. Making soap is fun. But working with lye can also be scary for first-timers.
How do you enjoy soap making without using lye? Melt and pour!
A lot of people choose to get into soap making by using melt and pour soap base. This is exactly what it sounds like. It is a big block of soap, that looks like wax. If you can heat water in the microwave – you can make melt and pour soap creations.
Here’s how melt and pour soap works:
- Cut a portion of the MP soap block into small pieces
- Melt it in the microwave or on the stovetop in a double boiler
- Once it is melted, you can add fragrances, essential oils, exfoliates, or even botanicals
- When you have everything combined as you like, simply pour it into a mold and let it harden for an hour or two
This is how you can quickly and easily make the exact bar of soap that you want.
It is extremely easy to do. You can even get family members involved as long as they are able to safely work with the hot melted soap, or any other potential hazard.
Making melt and pour soap is how I first got started. Back then I was afraid to work with lye because I didn’t really understand it. You may it was like a dangerous animal just waiting for the chance to bite me. I know better now of course, and work with it several times each week. But I am grateful for melt and pour soap base because it got me into this wonderful passion without it being scary.
Now, I have even more fun making cold process and hot process soaps.
You can do much more complex and artistic swirls and multicolor affects with cold process soap making. This is, as opposed to, working with melt and pour soap which is wonderful but does have a few minor limitations for very complex stylings.
6. You Control the Quality of Your Own Soap
I love Häagen-Dazs ice cream. I know it’s a bit more expensive, but you really cannot beat the quality. The fact that it is more expensive also keeps me from eating as much of it as I want to. That’s a good thing for me 😊
If only I had the same passion for making homemade ice cream as I do soap. But again, it’s probably a blessing that I don’t. You see, a few years ago I started paying more attention to what I was putting in and on my body. I’m sure you have heard the old expression “garbage in; garbage out”. Once I entered my 40s, I knew exactly what that expression really meant.
Quality control, at the most affordable price, is exactly what I needed.
I started making soap because I wanted to find a better alternative than what I could find on grocery store shelves. But I also didn’t want to pay six, seven, or even eight dollars for a bar of soap in a specialty shop. Ironically, that is exactly how I sell some of my product now. Back when I started doing this though, that type of luxury expense was not in my budget.
At this time, I can make the most incredible and luxurious feeling soap from organic oils for about $0.17 per ounce. This works out to just $0.86 for a large 4-ounce bar of organic goodness.
Even if I never sold another bar of soap, I would never stop making it. It just makes sense to set aside an hour every so often to make a month or more worth of soap. Unlike my ice cream example, I can leave it sitting on a shelf and forget about it until I need it.
Now I want ice cream 😉
7. Handmade Soap Makes Great Gifts!
High quality homemade soaps are one of those beautiful yet functional handcrafted gifts that people love. If making soap is something that you enjoy, giving it away as gifts can be an amazing way to provide not only value and luxury but also something that is truly from the heart.
If you are making soap as gifts, be sure you still provide all the information required on the label. This includes the name of the person or company who made the soap, the physical location where it was made, the final net weight of the soap, the name of the soap, and the ingredients.
Regarding “true soap”, you do not need to list any ingredient other than “soap”.
Heads Up!
Before you sell or give away your soap please make sure you are protected from lawsuits. It probably sounds crazy, but I once met a nice woman and talented soap maker who now refuses to make Castile soap because somebody threatened her with a lawsuit. Apparently, some of the unsaponified olive oil made the bottom of the tub slippery and caused a fall.
She was able to settle the matter, but it could have ended in tragedy for her.
If selling or giving away your homemade soap is something you would like to do, here are a few companies that specialize in insurance policies for homemade soap makers.
- Handmade Insurance
- A $1milion policy costs $285 US
- RLI (also known as Lindbergh)
- $300K Policy: $159 per yar
- $500K Policy: $189 per year
- $1M Policy: $219 per year
- This is a small business dream come true. As long as you gross less than $7,500 your first year and under $10,000 each year after – you should be able to quality.
8. Soaping Lets You Be Creative
Soap making is an art form that results in usable, functional masterpieces. The same can be said of food, but that often takes even longer to prepare and disappears within an hour.
Soap is often used as decoration – even if not specifically made to be decorative. It also ends up used as a means to scent a room, similar to potpourri.
In short, creating homemade soap gives you a chance to express yourself and share that expression with others.
And, quite honestly, with how COVID19 is changing the word – soap making might just be the next great appreciated art form.
>>> Get the Inside Edge
We have another post, here on SoapStartup.com, that covers some more in-depth questions about soap making. It explores topics such as the profitability of having a soap company, avoiding pitfalls such as the “dreaded orange spot”, where and how to sell your homemade soap and more. — Handmade Soap Questions – Answered