by: Eve Gray

My niece gave me some bath bombs as a gift. I loved them and decided to learn how to make them. Once I learned how to make them, some people wanted to order them so I decided to open a small home-based business.
This is the process that I used:

1. Find your passion.
I loved the way the bath bombs made my skin feel. I loved the pampering, relaxing, and good for the soul type feeling I got when I experienced my luxury bath.

 
2. Read everything you can.
I went to a lot of bookstores and bought many books on the subject. I visited the library and borrowed books. I read eBooks, browsed websites, looked at online databases, and anything else pertaining to my subject that I could find from authoritative resources.

3. Use the Internet and online databases that are available to you.
I used the Internet not only to learn how to make bath bombs but also studied many companies. I especially learned from soap supply and fragrance oil sites. Many sites list their recipes online for you. I visited other bath bombs sites to see how they operated. I reviewed the credentials of some of the people and realized there are plenty of online folks willing to help.

4. Get yourself a mentor and track your successes.
I was lucky, my niece taught me many things about oils, properties of ingredients, labeling, packaging, reputable companies, and marketing ideas. Many sites have FAQ or a contact us section that you could use if you don’t have a mentor. Keep notes and track your successes so you remember what works for you.

5. Refine your skill and test your product.
My family and friends agreed to use my product. I wanted feedback to know that
I was making a quality product and that no one had any trouble with the ingredients irritating their skin. I tried and adapted many recipes until I perfected a process that worked for me. I used many bath uglies before I finally learned but thank goodness they still worked the same as the pretty ones. I practiced shipping and packaging to distant relatives and friends and made sure that a quality product survived the shipping process.
Even with some breakage, the quality was still there.

6. Local county and State assistance.
I went to the local Chamber of Commerce and had a class there. I studied information
and decided to apply for a Doing Business As (D.B.A.) at our local courthouse. I applied as a Domestic Limited Liability Company through Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth and for a Sales Tax License through the Michigan Department of Treasury.

7. Store and organize your websites.
Backflip is the site that I use to store and organize my websites. I set up categories for companies, ingredients, colorants, mentor tips, practice ideas, recipes, and wiki.

8. Use friends, family, and templates to set up your business keeping records.
Free templates were used to create invoices. I adjusted mine to collect for Michigan taxes and add the shipping costs. My friend helped me set up some spreadsheets for orders, expenses, and charts. I created folders as documents for lists, line fragrances, retired fragrances, fragrances to be considered, labels, etc. My daughter designed packing slips for me and helped me select fragrances and names for the bath bombs. I keep these documents in a 3 ring binder with plastic pocket protectors for collecting invoices and receipts. I printed my own business cards with Avery stock and my computer.

9. Register for a domain name, build a website, and consider a wiki.
I used Yahoo to register for a domain name and make a starter webpage. I used geocities and my email provider to create more elaborate websites. All sites have my email as the way to contact me for orders or inquiries. The template provided for the website worked fine for me. It listed my mission, information, product, news, and related links. Customers order through email, I email them an invoice, they pay with a check (no charge cards), the check clears, and the bath bomb order is shipped using flat rate USPS boxes. I recently created a wiki and am learning how to use that.

10. Enjoy.
I have enjoyed creating BBE. I am still learning but thought I would share the process this far in case someone could benefit with turning their own hobby into a passion. I learned from so many people and wanted to pass it on to others.

About The Author

Eve Gray is a School Library Media Specialist that resides and works in Michigan. She created Bath Bombs by Eve LLC as a home-based business for homemade bath bombs.
http://home.comcast.net/~bathbombsbyeve/BBE.HTML

by: Katherine Durkes

If you think about making your own spa products - such as lotions, body washes, and exfoliating scrubs - you probably think it sounds difficult. It probably brings to mind lots of weird ingredients, chemicals, and slaving away over a hot vat of goo for hours.
After this article, you’ll know that nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, using my method (which I call The Easy Way), making your own bath and body products takes less time than going to the mall, and you get twice the quality of skin care.

The Two Ways Of Making Products - Hard and Easy
There are two ways to make your own bath and body products - The Hard Way, and The Easy Way. The Hard Way means investing a lot of time in books and trial-and-error in your kitchen, and a lot of money in ingredients. Often, you need patience and perseverance as you attempt to make a basic lotion or liquid soap, but it doesn’t come out as well as you’d hoped. Heck, you didn’t even get to the fun part, which adding the scent and color!

The Hard Way Takes Time and Practice
The Hard Way is what is taught in soapmaking classes, websites, and books. It can be fun and rewarding because of the natural ingredients and the high-quality products that result. Shea butter lotions… aloe body washes… If you are prepared to invest the time and money, and you have a lot of patience, The Hard Way does pay off. You get wonderfully moisturizing products in your favorite fragrances - even hard to find ones - that are much better than Bath and Body Works.
The problem is, The Hard Way is often incredibly discouraging to beginners. As they pour their failed body wash down the bathtub drain, most beginners start to wonder if it’s really worth the trouble. Sooner or later, they go back to the mall and pay too much for what is essentially drugstore-quality products in fancy bottles and scents.

Beginners Can Master The Easy Way
The Easy Way of making bath and body products is, well, easy! With The Easy Way, you get all the benefits - the natural ingredients, the high-quality skin care products, and your favorite scents - for only 10% the work. The Hard Way is like baking a fancy Julia Child cake recipe, but The Easy Way is more like making a cake mix.
The Easy Way uses professional unscented product bases (also called "cosmetic bases") that are specially manufactured for this purpose. These bases are made with natural ingredients, such as shea butter, avocado oil, aloe, and goats’ milk, so you still get high quality skin care, the same as if you had made the bases yourself with The Hard Way.

Quickly Make Lotion, Shower Gel, Shampoo, Scrub
You can get unscented bases for almost any liquid product you can think of: body lotion, massage cream, bath oil, shower gel, bubble bath, salon-quality shampoo and conditioner, body scrub, hand soap, and face wash.
Customize High Quality Unscented Products With Your Own Ingredients.
To these basic products, you add your own fragrance, color, and other special ingredients, such as silk proteins and botanical extracts. You can even experiment with natural anti-aging ingredients such as carrot seed oil, green tea extract, and collagen. These ingredients are what makes your products unique!

Just Like The Professionals
If you compare three bottles of shower gel from Bath and Body Works, The Body Shop, and Origins, you will see a lot of similarities in their first few ingredients. That’s because they’re all taking a basic body wash and making their own improvements on it, just like you can with The Easy Way.

About The Author

Katherine Durkes is an experienced teacher of bath and body. She runs a popular website on how to make bath and body products, as well as the Yahoo Group "Home Bath & Body." Her first e-book, "The Fast Guide To Making Bath Bombs (& Fizzies)" has over 10,000 downloads and has been featured on About.com and in Ready Made Magazine.

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• USPS Domestic Calculator - Postage calculator

by: Ololade Franklin

The craft of making soaps, cosmetics, and perfumes can be expensive if you are not careful. However, there are many things you can do to save money while enjoying this great hobby. Here are a few ideas:

1. Save money on containers by recycling the ones you have. To recycle glass or plastic jars and bottles, wash them out with hot, soapy water. Or for a quicker method, run them through your dishwasher.

2. When you finish using the contents of an amber or blue glass round bottle (the type many essential and fragrance oils come in) use it for something else. Use it to store small quantities of essential oils and fragrance oils, or use it to store fragrance blends or small quantities of cosmetic products.

3. For inexpensive cosmetic containers and equipment, visit your local liquidation outlet or dollar store. A liquidation outlet is a store that specializes in reselling the products of a company that has gone out of business and has to get rid of all their merchandise at prices below cost. The liquidation outlet purchases these items and then offers them at greatly reduced prices. Dollar stores sell both liquidated goods and goods produced for the dollar store market. Both liquidation stores and dollar stores are great sources for cheap containers, baskets, ribbon, pots, mixing equipment, and several other items.

4. Save old mayonnaise jars and other large glass jars to use as containers for bath salts. Decorate the lids with acrylic paint or fabric.

5. Inexpensive soap molds can be made from many things around your house. You can use the bottom of cardboard milk cartons, a shoe box (line it with wax paper before using it as a soap mold), empty plastic yogurt containers, muffin pans (if they are aluminum use them for melt and pour soap only), plastic storage containers, and plastic ice trays.

As you can see, there are many ways for soap makers and cosmetic crafters to save money. Just use your imagination and have fun!

About The Author

Ololade Franklin publishes Making Good Scents(TM), the newsletter of handcrafted cosmetics, soaps and perfumes. She also publishes several books on the subject of cosmetic crafting. For information visit http://www.SoapmakingBusiness.com.