How Package Homemade Soap for Selling at Markets

If you have ever been behind a folding table at a Saturday market, you know the truth pretty quickly: People read a few words before buying soap. Only half of the time does the bar get a look. It is the wrap, the label, the little twine bow, whatever is on top of the soap, that is talking for it. If you mess it up, it's a really nice bar of soap that's just sitting there all day.

It's not about fancy packaging or spending a ton of money before you have sold a bar. It's more about a few decisions that are more important than they appear in the beginning and most soap makers would discover them the hard way after a sluggish market or two.

Start With What The Soap Actually Needs

Cold process soap continues to dry for weeks after it is cut, and even after curing it still loses some moisture during the curing process when it is put up for sale. When it's wrapped too tightly in a material that isn't breathable, you might experience sweating, or even worse, a bar that turns mushy when it's in the packaging on a hot day at an outdoor market.

Shrink wrap is used often because it is clean and keeps the bar dust-free, however it must be vented or moisture is trapped on the soap. Many makers will make a couple of small holes in the back, where no one will notice, but enough so that the bar can breathe without being obviously perforated. Paper bands, wax paper wraps and unbleached kraft sleeves can do this more naturally, without you having to think about it.

Figure Out The Labeling Rules Before You Print Anything

This is where people get stung most of the time, primarily because the rules are not always easily understood and vary according to the country, type of claim and label information you are using. Generally, a soap label that sells at the market requires the product name, net weight, the list of ingredients, and your business name and location somewhere on the label. When used as a cosmetic soap (not a soap as defined under regulations), it tends to attract more ingredient disclosure and claims about the product.

The best bet is always to research the cottage food or handmade soap laws in your state first, before you assume that these are the same laws that work for any Etsy shop. It is an extra bit of work, but not as annoying as printing three hundred labels, after noticing something by a market organiser.

Pick A Format That Matches How You Actually Sell

All soaps don't necessarily require the same wrap. One bar is enough to pick up and smell and purchase at the moment; a simple paper band or half band around the bar which leaves the soap visible and touchable would be suitable because many customers want to smell the soap before they buy it. Gift sets or bundled soaps work well in a small box because the box helps keep them together and provides a larger area to which you can communicate your story.

• All single bars will be sized to the bar with paper bands, kraft wrap or shrink wrap with ventilation so that they do not look loose.
• Presentation boxes: small boxes with dividers or tissue that provide a presentation that looks planned, not bagged together
• The mini wrap or small pouch is reasonably priced and won't make a dent in the margin if you give them away.

Let The Label Do What The Bar Can't

The bar of soap on a table is similar to all the other bars of soap on all the other tables, at least from some distance. This one is a label telling someone before they pick it up, why this one's different. Whether it's goat milk or charcoal or it's a seasonal ingredient, all of that needs to be easily seen, not on the back in small print.

Here, handwritten-style fonts and kraft paper work well as it conveys hand-made without the words being explicitly stated. However, the label must be legible at a normal viewing distance; a gorgeous design that can't be seen from the table is really no good in a crowded restaurant.

Think About What Happens After The Sale

Many soap producers concentrate only on the table display and disregard the packaging that will be carried away by the buyer, placed in their car, and unwrapped a week after he or she goes home. But if the wrap rips as soon as it is taken off, or if the label smears the first time you get it a little wet near the sink, that's the last thing your soap leaves after it is opened, and it isn't a positive one.

Sturdier, standard gift wrapping boxes for gift sets, wax coated papers for single bars or a printed sleeve over a plain paper wrapped bar, are far more likely to see the journey from the night before the market, right through to the next day's end.

Where To Go From Here

None of this has to be complicated and most soap makers get pretty much it right after a few markets with a clear idea of what works and what doesn't when it comes to the soap. When you're thinking of moving beyond hand cut packaging for paper wraps and are ready to use custom boxes, printed labels or wholesale packaging that is around your soap sizes for specific sizes, you'll want to get the services of The Packaging Tree, doing this is their day to day job. Share your bar size and your brand with us, and we will help you create packaging that does the selling for you, before anyone has even picked up the bar.