Soap Molds:
Since at this point you aren't sure how much soap you will need to be making, we can start with one of our Stock Soap Molds. Even as your business grows, these Soap Molds
can still be used for "specialty" batches or for test batches so nothing is wasted. We are suggesting either our
Single Loaf Mold
or our Triple Loaf Mold.
The Single Loaf Mold
has one cell and makes a loaf of soap about 3 lbs. If you were to slice the loaf into 1" thick bars, you would have
15 bars of soap that were 3.25" x 2" x 1" thick. The
Triple Loaf Mold has 3 cells so it would make 3 loafs of soap totaling 9 lbs and would
yield 45 bars of soap if slicing the same 1" thickness.
Soap Cutters:
Depending upon your
budget, you have two ways to go here.
1.The most basic, is our
Single Bar Soap Box with either a
Smooth Blade or
Krinkle Blade (or both). This
setup would slice one bar of soap at a time.
2. Our
Loaf Soap Cutter which
allows you to cut the entire loaf of soap into bars all at once.
Our Loaf Soap Cutter
can be traded in for full value at a
later date as your business grows and upgrade to our
Manual Soap Cutter or
Air Soap Cutter
ProMold System.
Thermometers:
We would definitely invest in
a high quality Thermometer because so much depends upon it. We
recommend is the "Just Point Infrared Thermometer". If budget is
an issue, check out the other thermometers on our
Thermometers page.
Scales:
We suggest investing in a good quality scale - again because everything
depends upon it. The Soapers Scale is one that you will always
use. Even when you are making large batches, you can still use
it to weigh your essential oils. You want accuracy at low
weights and this one will do the job.
Check out our variety of
scales here.
Power Wands (Mixers):
For small batches,
this is the way to go. You don't want to hand stir for an hour
when you can bring it all to trace in 3-4 minutes. We recommend
the
Light Commercial Power Wand
- PB08 Model.
Safety Equipment:
It is definitely
important to protect your lungs, your face and your hands. We consider these items essential: Half-mask Respirator, Face
Shield Headgear, Disposable SoapMakers Powdered Gloves (not the
same as Rubber Gloves).
Check out our
Safety Equipment page here.
Mixing Equipment:
See our
Mixing
Accessories Page
for a number of items that you may wish to include: Some
suggestions are: Spatulas, Measuring Cups, 2 Quart Stainless
Steel Pitcher (great for essential oils, or mixing your lye or
for pouring lip balm solutions and lotions later on -many
different uses - has a fine pouring spout).
Soap Drying Trays:
After you make your soap, you will need trays to air dry the
bars. These trays are stackable and vented which means they
take up less room and the vents help speed up the curing time. Check
Out our Soap Drying Trays Here.
Books:
We carry several books
on Soap Making and the
HandCrafted Body Care Business. A few that would be good
to start
with are; "The Soap Book: Simple Herbal
Recipes" "Marketing Your Handmade Products" or "Creating An
Herbal Body Care Business". Later on, you may
wish to add other books to your collection.
Check Out All of Our Books
Here.
SoapMaker Software:
This Software
enables you to take any recipe you like and resize it instantly
to fit the batch you wish to make. It also will calculate
exactly the amount of lye and water you need, etc. If you go
with the Pro Version, it will even keep your Inventory of all of
your soap oils, your lye, your scents, your boxes, packaging,
etc so you know exactly how much that bar of soap "costs" you to
make. You can take a
guided tour of it by visiting Here.
There, - now you have the “bare” essentials. Later on, when your batches increase in size, we can add other
equipment such as an Oil Heater,
Pot Tipper, one or more of the
larger ProMolds and a
ProCutter to go with it. In other words,
we have the equipment for you to go from making a few bars of
soap a week to thousands of bars a week without you having to
discard any of the equipment listed above. We believe one
should be careful when they make an investment in their
business. Why purchase equipment that will be useless as your
business grows? It makes no sense to waste money which is the
reason we offer what we do. It is better to have "quality"
equipment that will last than to foolishly invest in equipment
that will not withstand the test of time.
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