Something you should know about me, I enjoy using coarse and salty language almost as much as I love reading it. Hello World, this is me!
If that turns you off, you should leave. NOW. You can pretend I am a sweet as pie shy girl who makes soap and sells it - that's cool, we can stay friends like that.
This will probably piss most soapers off.
It might make some of you soapers laugh - those are the ones I like so, please join in and feel free to call out your soap spirit animal. Or those that you have encountered in your forum travels and Etsy lurking.
If you are far too idealistic, sensitive, trollish, dramatic, and/or easily annoyed shuffle the fuck on outta here.
I need to say some shit about the soap world that's been in my head for quite some time.
I know it, you know it.
There should be a meme with the "types of soapers."
Maybe I should create one.
It would include:
1. The my soap looks like utter decadence from a fine Parisian bakery Soaper. Would you like a laced doily with that bar that you plan to scrub your ass and ranky manky armpits with? Oui? Non?
2. The holier than thou all natural, no fragrance, no colorant, but I'm all up in yo' face about why mine's the best soaper.
3. The quietly all natural one that makes the most wonderful rustic hunks of soap soaper that we all secretly wish we could do as effortlessly. Oh man, was I just gazing longingly into the computer at your Etsy shop and slurping my drool? Possibly.
4. The orchestrated down to the last fraction of a molecule soaper. (Butterfly swirl/Taiwan swirl/Zen Swirl/15 layer soap cake soapers I am looking at Y-O-U.)
5. The ranting palm free soaper (me hahahahaah although I no longer rant about it because some things need only be stated once in your marketing and are then better left to subtlety.)
7. The ranting use palm in truckloads because RSP says it's okay soaper. The aforementioned and this one want to fight TO THE DEATH.
In palm trees.
In the rainforest.
With spears coated with lye.
Just kidding. Kinda....hahahaha.....NEXT!!!
8. The soap it, plop it, drop it soaper. The honeybadger of soapers. This one gives no shits and just makes some goddamn soap. It might peel your knuckles off. It might be made with the pig that was just slaughtered this winter and turned into mostly bacon and chops. It might have an inch of ash and be cut up all janky. But it's soap. Like your ancestors used.
9. The awesome blender soaper. Your scents transcend reality. You make other soapers buy your soap with the utmost of ease. You are probably full of witchcraft and have made a pact with the demons of the otherworld by selling your soul to concoct those blends. We hate you. We love you. Here are our DAY JOB PAYCHECKS.
10. The 1 million questions, ready to take on the soaping world and make all of the above by next week and sell it all right now soaper. You are cute. Your vision is clouded yet pure at heart. You will be awesome if you can make it through the 5MILLION expensive fails that most pro soapers still experience from time to time.
11. The super niche soaper. Etsy branding blogs told you to super niche yourself and now you have. You have cornered the most gothest (also applies to hipsterish/bacon eating/baby having/boho chic/beard bearing) part of the market you can find and are now trapped. FOREVER. in your dark moody broody brand and have to rename every stupid flowery name the supply companies put on their fragrance oil bottles so that it will appeal to your niche. Flower Bomb? HELL FUCKING NO! Let's call this shit GRAVE FLOWERS. kaccchinnnngg$$$$!
12. The soaper who makes everything in every scent. They run on speed, moondust, rainbow rays, cocaine, methamphetamines, coffee spiked with liquor spiked with glitter spiked with unicorn hairs, or maybe are just super alien androids from a planet made of bar soap. They have the market cornered because they offer every imaginable scent you could ever want. This isn't a bad thing, it's just INSANE. (I want to do this, secretly...not so secretly. Maybe it's the Veruca Salts in me I WANT IT ALL!!!) These are also known as fo-hos (fragrance oil horders). Their cabinets are full and they are busting out that scent addiction en masse.
13. The Pro Soaper - you are selling the SHIT outta the soap market. You busted up wholefoods with your kick-ass, wholesome, generic, wide-appeal branding and money-saving, basic recipes that are time tested and loaded with skin loving nutrients. Yet you still subsist on almost nothing so you turn into a supplier, teacher, or business guru (or all three) and recruit everyone with your brilliant success.
14. The soaper who travels through the umpteen layers of soaping hell and is just going to make a ton of soap in whatever way they feel like. The soaping for my spirit soaper. (I am slowly progressing to this level after hording and planning and wanting and lurking and feeling and dreaming and then saying "You know what? Who gives a shit, just make some stuff, use it, sell it, give it away, and then make some more). This spirit animal sometimes takes awhile to meet or come to terms with and be content with. It's a nice place to be. It's why we came to be soapers in the first place. Because we like the process. It soothes us if we let it. And it sometimes sustains us if we let it.
Unless you are Proctor and Gamble or Zum Bar there is little money in soap until you can make a shit ton of it in giant batches and lose all of the personality, zest, zeal, optimism, and personality (wait didn't I just type that?) that is acquired as you travel through the
We all fall into the above categories at some point (well most of them, and few of us actually ever get to the 13th one since we have babies, are broke as fuck, daydream too much, write stupid blog posts like this one, or are too scared).
Soaping is a passion that can and will pay for itself if you just keep plugging away and maybe even give you enough side income that you will pay 25% income tax on it and then wonder how the hell you will ever be able to do this full time and afford to eat anything that doesn't grow in the woods.
(Just kidding about that. I don't wild-harvest my food from the great north woods. I swear I don't eat squirrels and lichens and chicken of the woods just to be able to pay homage to the gods of Sapos....but if you do, well you are probably soaper #8...that is, if we are still stereotyping here).
Soapers sacrifice their sanity, their free time, their personal relationships, their income, and succumb to whatever crazy mind parasite that slips in through your skin and eats your brains out when you start using handmade soap and then think you should start making it.
I know I missed some of you soap lurkers in the corners.
Nothing is wrong with any of these soap spirit animals. I just had to lay it out as I see it, been it, experienced it, smelled it, did it, you name it. Embrace it. Embrace your spirit saponista(o). I travel between each of these with alarming frequency but am happily sitting at 14 currently.
And for making it to the very end here is some soap to look at from my travels through the umpteen layers of soaping hell while you ponder my pontificating on the spirit world of body cleaning products.
Category 1 & 4 soap (Look at all of the care, planning, and charm I have infused into this bar of pie that will wash your stinky body):
Category 8 soap (PLOP.)
Category 11 soap (I AM A WITCH WHO SOLD HER SOUL TO THE DEVIL AND RIDES A MUGWORT GREASED BROOMSTICK NEKKID) **update** according to Jennifer over at Shawnee Botanicals this one is also a category 9 soap. And since I like you here is the blend, but get creative and call it something different or I will spank you: Clary sage 1oz, Bergamot 1.3oz, ylang .5oz, patchouli .2 :
Category 10 soap (aww that's cute, she made soap and she is just starting out):
Category 12 soap(who the fuck wants to smell like a hot buttered pear???! For the record, I still totally make soap like this. Because it's fun. And I can.):
