Soapy Friday - Celebrations

There's much to celebrate this week! First, my trademark approval finally came in and Ravish Soap Company is legally legit from copyright infringement...

This alone has been a journey that has taken well over a year to finalize. I won't bore you with the legal details, but I'm very proud that I did this all on my own and have learned A LOT from it.

Secondly, all of my box designs are finalized and are ready to go to the printers. THIS I am very, very excited about and a bit nervous....it wasn't cheap to do what I did, but go big or go home, right? Some people have kids and spend the money to put them through college at my age...me?...I start a business. LOL! This is my child and I'm investing in its future. :-)

All the single ladies...almost ready for showtime! 

Have a few more tweaks yet...

Thirdly, I've started official production! I've made 50 lbs. of soap this week and put in my first "big soap" supply order. The UPS guy/girl is gonna hate me! Since I wan't to give my soap "at least" 6-8 weeks to cure, I need to start now. Each 25 lb. slab gives me about 80 bars of soap.

2 batches down, 7 more to go!

My "Taste of Honey" soap overheated, but I think it makes it look more authentic, yes?

Is it a real honey comb or soap?

My "original" goal was to launch by May 31st, but I don't see that happening. There's just too much to do graphic-wise yet and my graphic artist is taking sooooooo slooooooow to finish. I'm thinking of hiring a second one to help out in the meantime, but we'll see.

Lastly, I was recertified this week for a professional certification that I worked really hard to get 3 years ago. Something sparkling and alcoholic will be enjoyed tonight!

Soapy Friday: Almost Ready to Party!

After many, many, many tweaks and edits, my graphic designer and I have finalized a baseline template for my soap boxes. I am now shopping printing companies for production. Ultimately, these boxes will have a soft, matte finish with spot glossing...

My BFF Rosie...ready to get printed

This soap, "My BFF Rosie" is just one of NINE baseline soaps that I will launch with Ravish Soap Company later this year. This will also include matching body butters and sugar scrubs. I'm hoping to have shampoo bars too, but you know....test, test, and test.

I'm aiming for a May 31st launch, but it takes SO MUCH TIME to put all these pieces in place....including trademarks, licensing, insurance, A WEBSITE. Ugh...but I just try to think about the old saying that goes, "How do you eat an elephant?"

Soapy Friday: Sealed for Freshness

It seems like little has been going on this month, but there has been a lot. I've been tweaking formulas, buying equipment, and finalizing packaging labels.

I bought an induction heat sealer to give me lovely sealed jars like this:

Sealed for Freshness

Got anything you want me to seal?

It's an interesting machine. Hubby thinks it looks like one of those defibrillator paddles and keeps yelling, "CLEAR!" when I use it.

"CLEAR!"

I'm on a deadline of getting my business up-and-going by May 31st...god willing. I still have to have an e-commerce website built, get all the boring business stuff in place, and actually have a product line to launch other than one bar of soap. If I keep on top of things...and keep on top of the people helping me...it will happen.

In the meantime, I keep experimenting to formulate a solid shampoo bar that will give all the good things healthy hair wants and needs, but also remain hard enough in the shower. I think I stopped counting past batch #7...

What batch # is this?