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: 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?

Soapy Friday: Packaging Concepts - First Revision

So, last Friday night I met with my graphic designer to go over the first packaging concept designs for my soap boxes and other labeling. I could NOT be more thrilled!...

I loved something from all of these!

 I love that she provides 5 mock-up concepts and we go from there. There will be 2-3 more revision cycles from this (I believe) until we narrow it down to the perfect design. I'm liking a little bit of all the boxes, so we'll pull that all in to design the one we want as a final concept.

So much fun!

Once that is done, then we decide how we want these to be printed. Glossy? Flat? Embossed? Foil?

I can't wait!

LOVE!!!

Soapy Friday: Building a Brand

Where have I been?

Oh, you know, the usual…but mostly I’ve been in a holding pattern, and I’ve only made ONE BATCH OF SOAP SINCE OCTOBER 19^TH!!!! It’s the longest I’ve gone not making soap since we moved and since I started on this journey.

I’ve been slowly, oh so slowly, working on building a brand. For the past year, I’ve applied and gone through the trademark publishing process. I’ve hired two graphic artists and fired one. The second one is a true soulmate and can visualize where I want to go.

So far, we have developed my logo and my brand-style, which has a modern, inclusive, pop-art sassiness…

Super Sassy Pop-Art!

And we came up with this...

Next, we are now working on packaging design. I’m in a “chicken-or-the-egg” situation, where I don’t know if I should design the soap to fit a box or design a box to fit my soap. I DO know I want some sort of open pane on my soap boxes for smelling, but I don’t think I want it where it is in this sample. 

Soap Box Template #1

I don't this window pane will work...stuff will fall out

I like it on this soap

I’m meeting with my graphic artist this afternoon to look at her first batch of packaging concepts and we will go from there…I'm so excited to see what she has come-up with!

In the meantime, I’m working on formulating solid shampoo bars. This is my first one and IT WORKS and IT’S pH BALANCED! I have a loooooong way to go though….down the rabbit hole I go.

First solid shampoo bar...it works, but needs tweaking!