FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
by Norma Thomas on 03/27/12
CHINESE PROVERB: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; give a man a fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
That has been my approach to this website. Of course, there is nothing in the Chinese Proverb about "selling a man a fish". I am frequently asked if I sell the soaps shown on the website. The short answer is, "No." A more complete answer might be, "Not at this time." But there are a couple of reasons WHY I don't sell the soaps illustrated on the website which I'd like to address:
1. Many of the Signature Original Designs wouldn't ship well.
Take a look at the soap picture below:
This is one of the soaps featured in the JULY 4TH SOAPS downloadable tutorial. I love this soap. This is an amazing, unexpected, showpiece of a soap. However, melt and pour soap, specifically, becomes more brittle as it continues to air dry. Those lovely tendrils of soap exploding from the star center would break like strands of blown glass in shipping.
However, for the melt and pour soap maker that wants to make and gift or sell this soap, it could be transported for short distances with some measure of confidence.
2. These Soaps Are Not Mass Produced
Not only are they not mass produced, they are not even batch produced. You could reasonably put together two of the July 4th Fireworks soaps at the same time, maybe even a few more, if you had sufficient star-shaped cookie cutters. But these soaps are constructed one at a time. For the more advanced, difficult designs, you might expect to spend three hours putting the various components of the soap together. Well, for a really eye-catching, totally unique soap like the one pictured above, I wouldn't hesitate to charge $10.00 at a craft bizarre for the one soap. The detail and craftsmanship warrants a double-digit price. However, even if the soap could be successfully shipped, shipping charges AND insurance charges (particularly when you know there is a substantial probability of damage) would take the price to an unrealistically high range. I don't see, IN TODAY'S ECONOMY, someone spending $20.00 for a single soap. If the soaps can be batch-produced, such as a loaf soap that can be cut into several individual bars, selling and shipping makes perfect sense and I encourage it. Unfortunately, the majority of the soap designs represented in this website could not be crafted that way.
Like any business, SOAPhisticated LADY will be growing and expanding. I have already been making notes for several new collections I hope to get listed in the online store by the end of the year. One of those collections will address these "road blocks" and will offer a few detours around them. It is still in the development stages.
Until next time . . .
Norma
