I’ve learned 5 important things so far about Soap that I’d like to share with you.
# 1 – Not everyone likes to talk about soap. OK, that is just plain crazy isn’t it? I mean you like soap right? Now why in the world wouldn’t everyone like it as much as we do? But sadly I’ve found out when those people say something like ‘Hows the soap going’ and then they cringe when I proceed into a 15 minute story on what soaps I’m making and what is the newest scent.. we’ll you can see where that is going. It only took me about 6 months to realize that these people are just trying to make conversation with me and kinda don’t really care about soap. Weird.
#2 – I have come a long way from the first bars of soap that I made. When I first started with this crazy soap habit I was just so excited to have the soap turn out I really didn’t care if the soap was going to have a superfatting level of 5% or not. I just didn’t want it to turn out like a big glob of junk when it was all done. And now? Well the last batch I made I think I had around 6 different oils in it and 9 different colors. Yea, pretty sweet huh?
# 3 – I have a very long way to go. I am by far not an expert in making soap and have just tons and tons of stuff to learn. Have you ever thought to yourself ‘I’m pretty good at this’ and then step back and wonder if you’ve been living in the twilight zone or something? I think it’s one of those things that you always are learning. And seriously I thought I was probably way too old to learn something new. Boy was I wrong!
# 4 – The soap doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. When I made some of the first batches of soap, if it wasn’t perfect there was no way in the world was anyone going to see it. I would take it and either try to use it up in the shower by leaving it get way too wet and turning into some type of funky liquid soap or I just plain got rid of it. Now? Well if it doesn’t have 4 perfect lines separating the different layers of the soap I’m guessing that it’s not that important and others might think it brings character to the craft.
# 5 – Feel good about the little steps of this whole adventure. Now there are people that are not going to understand that this craft really isn’t the worst thing to do with your time and money (see #1 above) But seriously why should I care about them? Tonight I was so nervous about going to one of the shops that is selling my soap now for a couple of weeks. It was the first time I would visit them since I dropped off my soap and I mean I literally practiced on the drive over how to act not disappointed if they said no one liked my soap. But guess what? People bought my soap and I had to bring in more for them to sell. Yea, I didn’t even have to use my acting skills tonight at all. Score! Now granted it was only a few bars of soap that they sold, but still it was a few bars of soap! I’m sure that there will be times that I won’t sell any, but guess what? I’ve contacted another store and they said they would like me to bring in some and see how the next month or so goes to see if people are interested in buying it. So that brings my distribution up to 3 stores. Man I’m on a roll now!
Now I’m sure that I can go on and on with this post but I said that I would only share the top 5 things that I learned so far. So if you are reading this, the next time you see someone selling soap at a craft show or it’s available at a speciality store, you might just think to yourself if they also had the same 5 things to share. Oh and yea if they practice their acting skills in their car too! Happy Thursday!!!