Oh yeah that’s definitely a frankensoap lol. It’s cute though! Whether one is better than the other imo kind of depends on personal preference. Cold process is my preference because I have full control over it from start to finish. Melt and pour is using a soap base someone already made and just adding color and fragrance to it. But it can be just as good as cold process if you find a soap base you really like!

I like M&P as a craft for kids though since cold process is a little too dangerous for them with the lye and everything.

Thank you! I call them “forbidden fudge” 😉 lol

That’s so interesting, thank you so much for the detailed response! I’d been a Reddit user since 2011 and logging onto the desktop version of Lemmy makes it look a LOT like old Reddit…back when times were more simple 😭

Oh it can be 100% expensive when the ingredients and fragrance/essential oils come into play, trust me! I’ve seen some essential oils go for close to $75/oz. They also need to be soap stable and skin safe, and not something you pick up at a craft or grocery store.

For the Oatmeal, Milk and Honey soap, I put bubble wrap on top, which is how I get the honeycomb effect!

And that sounds really bizarre with the different colors dissolving at different intervals! My best guess is that it wasn’t cold process and was melt and pour (different soapmaking process where you just cut up a soap base, melt it, and add color/fragrance of your choosing. Good for people who don’t want to deal with lye and fun to do with kiddos!) and the different melt and pour bases reacted differently to the water and some melted faster than others. Like a frankensoap if you will!

Oh I love that! I’m currently working on some more natural soaps (essential oils, natural pigments) because my tagline is soap for everybody and every body and I mean that!

Yeah I’d advise that lol. I’m an aunt to four and dang did they LOVE putting the most random things in their mouths

I ship to all countries (just edited my shipping profile). Thank you!

I do have a video of me making the Vaporwave soap (bottom middle) on both Instagram and YouTube and want to start making more videos but I want to get a new phone to film on first (I cheaped out on storage for my current one). So that could disprove the dropshipping lol. I don’t even know why someone would dropship soap in the first place. To me it’s very specific and a little niche

Yep, that’s how I found Lemmy because Reddit banned my old roommate years ago and now every time I try to make an account it gets banned too. Reddit is dumb and they keep shooting themselves in the foot with this crap, but hey I got some good sales out of it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well you’re in luck because I got it (and sell it!) in spades! Also I love your username lol

Fun, yes! Easy can depend on lots of factors. Soap making, at least cold process soap (which is what I do) is just as much a science as it is an art. You work with lye which is caustic and can be very dangerous if handled recklessly. Adding the lye to the water (never the other way around or it’ll quite literally explode) causes it to heat up to nearly 200F (close to 100C) so that’s something to be cautious about, as well as the soap batter (created by blending the lye water with oils) can irritate and even burn the skin.

I see it like cooking. You can make your own recipes, but like baking the measurements must be precise. As long as you take proper safety precautions it can be very easy and fun! If working with lye is a little too intimidating, melt and pour soap may be more your thing. Hope that helps!

Ugh I know, shipping is ridiculous in general, even within the US! Thank you though, your support still means a lot to me 😊

Sure is! Can’t make actual soap without lye, which is why Dove calls their “soaps” beauty bars

Thank you! I had to look up what the fediverse was, and now that I know I may need to make some socials on some “fed” accounts! I found Lemmy because Reddit keeps banning any account I make for some reason, so I came here. I’d love to expand more into the Fediverse and I definitely won’t stop sharing what I make!

Oh trust me I’m not some dropshipper! I make all these soaps myself, design the labels myself, take pictures of them myself, I’m a one-woman army! But for Etsy alternatives I’ve seen people use sites like Shopify or Redbubble. There are smaller sites too but I’m not 100% what they are. I’d like to have my own website someday but I need a following first and Etsy makes it a bit easier for me to get exposure

Older buildings are so beautiful but living in them if not maintained is a literal nightmare. My old apartment building was 100+ years old with pipes that banged like crazy against the walls and the waterlines were so badly corroded they shut the hot water off for a week to fix them (which got them a complaint from the health department because they didn’t offer us alternate lodging).