sockmonkey

Ebay has some. Pier 1 has some that might work for you, but then again, I don't know what you consider a good price.

Glycerin adds sheen to the crystals. I wouldn't use it with epsom salt. It's might be fine for larger grain salts, but I think it's unnecessary for what you're using. I would like to use essential oils in my products, but frankly, I just don't care for the way they smell, plus most of them are quite costly compared to fragrance oils. There are some good blends--part synthetic fragrance and part essential oil that have nice fragrance and are not as pricey. By the way, Walgreens just happens to have epsom salt on sale this week.

I don't have any advice as far as pricing goes, since I'm new to salts myself, but I can tell you that I experimented with a variety of salts--Epsom, dead sea (medium and fine grains), solar salt, and some others, and all but the Epsom were hard to dissolve, so I'm simply using Epsom salts. Nothing could be more simple than making salts. Do you mind me asking where you bought your salt?

I basically just asked a similar question in another thread.

This is a joke, right?

I would just be careful about how I approached it with them. I think I would start out by asking how your candles were selling. If they said "good," then ask if it's time to re-order. If they say "not well," then I would mention their placement as a possible concern, and also ask them if they are promoting them to customers as locally made, because your experience is that people are more likely to buy a candle, even if the brand is not be well known, if they know it's made locally.

You are on the right track. Good luck with it. I've tried to narrow it down, and I simply can't--it's a difficult task! I've tried to fill in categories, and all I ever do is buy more and more FO's trying to find suitable ones for the "categories." I basically try to offer a "green" scent--herbal, woody, outdoorsy scents (I have lemon/eucalyptus , bayberry, fresh cut grass, juniper breeze, nag champa, and heather in this category) I offer floral a traditional floral scent--lilac, honeysuckle, or rose (gag). I offer a spicy scent--cinnamon, apple jack & peel. I offer a fruit or food scent--lemon meringue, apple, bermuda triangle, chestnuts & brown sugar, maple sugar, oatmeal, milk & honey (yuck), and creme brulee. I offer a citrus scent--pineapple. Then I also offer knockoffs (but give them different names--pink sugar, green irish tweed, chanel chance, cool water, and philosophy's baby grace. Some of the items can cross over under different categories. I don't know if that helps you any. But if you're making candles, all I can say is you HAVE to have a good cinnamon, and I would suggest a good vanilla as well (some companies are combining both, so you might want to think about that). I think the "clean" types would also be a good option--think clean cotton, fresh linen.

My small town newspaper did an article and it generated some business--not tons of business, but every little bit helps. I would give you this bit of advice, if they ask a question that you don't feel comfortable answering, then don't. Make it clear if you don't want something written about. Also, prepare a list of things you specifically would like to see mentioned in the article before you meet with the reporter. If they don't ask a question related to the thing you would like to have mentioned, bring it up and say you would like it written about. I was naive when I was interviewed. The reporter basically took a conversational tone, asking questions about some things really not relevant to the story, that I thought she was just asking for the sake of keeping a conversation rolling--I never dreamed some of that information would be worthy or appropriate for a story concerning my store. Wrong. There it was in the paper. As I read the article I thought of plenty of things I could have talked about, but I was not prepared. I would definitely take advantage again, if given the opportunity, and so should you--especially now that you know you can have more control in the situation!

Thanks for the support. Jenny, that's important news to know about the lids. I saw some gorgeous tubes with the those lids and loved the way they looked. I guess fate kept me from making a mistake in purchasing them, because the price was too high, or otherwise I would have. Candlelady, I am making bundles of three different scents. I haven't decided yet if I will make each tube tri-color or not. I hope people think the way you do, and would be willing to pay $5. When I read Pamperme's post it made me consider doing the bags, because it's such a better value for the customer. In the tubes, they will basically only be getting 9 oz of salt. But, like with all bath/beauty products, the majority of the cost is in the packaging, not the product. So, I hope to glam up the tubes enough with ribbons, a silk flower and a tag to make them appealing.

I think the handmade crafters lose out in a situation like that--unless they're selling "red neck windchimes" or something tacky like that.

It wasn't just the price of salts that concerned me, but more so, the container! I do appreciate your feedback.

I don't know what you read that Tweek didn't read that gave you assurance that this wasn't a scam. I understand her viewpoint. We all read posts about the infamous emails asking for free candles for the writer to review. How does anyone know that a large portion of donations aren't being used personally by the site owner, or for that matter, that packages are being delivered at all. It could be possible that in order to keep a ruse up, the owners send in an occasional order to give the appearance that the "marketing" is working. Every week it seems someone makes a post about an lame email making the rounds. Why would she think this is any different? I really think people took this much too personally. Perhaps if this little cube is how you earn your bread and butter it would make you a bit sensitive. But honestly, I think a simple "I can vouch for them" comment would have sufficed. If someone here didn't have a personal involvement with them, everyone would have probably jumped on the bandwagon and criticized them too.

Wow! I see how I rate around here...:embarasse With all of the questions people had in the past about bath salts, and only one person piped up with a comment. D A N G!

I think Tweek has made excellent points.

I don't believe I've ever heard of them until now. I'm not calling them scammers, but I can understand why Tweek would feel the way she does. How do those folks distribute their cubes, other than on the internet? It seems as though every single item in the cube is a donated item, for which they pay zilch, yet they sell a single cube for a minimum of $23, and also sell ad space on their site. Not a bad gig..they maintain the site, scour the web asking for freebies and package the cubes. It seems their customer base would be donors who are curious about other's products included in the cube. For anyone who has participated with them, perhaps you can share with us how your sales increased after you gave samples to them. Hopefully, you did see an increase in sales, because that seems to be the purpose of the website--to market your goods.

At this point, the official language here is still English. The way things are going, you might want to brush up on your Spanish. I can see that all coming down the pike.

For those of you who sell bath salts, do you find that they sell better in tubes or jars? I'm about to hit the road again, this time including bath salts at the next show. But, I'm not sure of the best container I should use to sell them. In my head I'm envisioning a gift set of three tubes (1" x 6")--nothing fancy, just tied together with autumn colored ribbons (maybe some will have tri-color salts in them). My total cost will be about $.44 per tube, and my thought was to sell them 3/$5 (retail). I'm just using simple epsom salts a couple of drops of dye and FO. Never having sold salts at shows before, don't have a strong grasp on what a standard price range might be, although I know it can vary from region to region. This is not going to be any kind of upscale show--it's a church festival and craft fair, but it usually has a very high attendance. I want to price my items so that if people want it, they just buy it and don't have to really think about whether they "should" buy it, ya know what I mean? If any of you folks have any advice, I would certainly appreciate it!

Have you gotten quotes on the silver labels yet? If you're having them done professionally, metallics/foils will usually be substantially higher. Perhaps a soft grey is the solution.

Maybe it's another candle maker. Why not email the person back and ask for more details, such as what company this person works for, and what is their name, so you will know what to expect when they contact you.

When you own your own business, it ends up coming out of your own pocket no matter what.

You're the best, Candle Man.

Promo items are a good thing, but a necessity in a dentist's office--no. Who knows when he plans on handing them out. Since they got them during Christmas last year, maybe he thinks it would be nice to hand out to patients this year at Christmas time. Typically, professional offices might hand out inkpens, or calendars during the holiday, for which they have paid $.25 or less. A $1 item might be extravagant for his purposes. You never know. Another factor in pricing as I stated before, is the market you're in. I see Mystical is in NY. I don't know where SueH is, but if she's somewhere like AL, or OK, it simply might not be practical to expect such "high dollar" items as giveaways. These handcrafted items are indeed different from the mass produced items. They are not lab tested, there is no oversight during production, and chances are, there is no lavish packaging, and who knows if she even carries product liability insurance. So, when you want to talk about perceived value, maybe you should consider that as well. No matter how our opinions may differ, I'm sure we are all just providing them as support for Sue's ventures, and hopefully they will be helpful to her. I would certainly like to hear from her and what her thoughts are now, and especially, how much it costs her to make a tube of lip balm! That's the one missing ingredient in this whole equation.

Just to set the record straight, I believe she said the dentist is GIVING them away, not selling them. When people are looking for giveaways, they general don't expect to pay too much for things. Here's the thing... they came to her, she didn't hit them up looking for a sale. If she's already selling them at $1 ea, and is comfortable with the profit she's making, why would you suggest she raise her price to a potential client who has already tried it and loved it? I doubt the dentist will look at her product as cheap and inferior, since they know what they are getting. They will probably be plesantly surprised by the price and might will go with the 2,000 qty instead of 1,000. If she was already selling them at $3.50 a piece, then I would agree with everyone she shouldn't slash her price down to a buck. But the fact is, she isn't. The other thing to consider is that this is an EXCELLENT marketing tool for her. The people who will be receiving her lip balms are right there, in her own community, which means 1,000 - 2,000 potential clients for her products in the future! You never know, this dentist might even be willing to sell them for her in his office if this goes over well. There's no need to get hung up on perceived value at this point. Yes, making that many lip balms would be time consuming and labor intensive, but this is an opportunity that should be taken advantage of.

I don't know how much it costs to copyright something, but in order to enforce a copyright enfringement violation, you're going to have to find out who's doing it. How much time do you have to patrol the internet looking for violators?

People charge what the market will bear. That is a lesson that everyone learns at some point. In the world of lip balms, even Avon sells them for less than $1 sometimes. I can make a lip balm for $.30 per tube--including the tube, ingredients, and label. Maybe she can too. If she normally sells them for $1 each, then she obviously has room to play with the numbers too. Would I drop my price to $.75 if necessary to get the job. You betcha! When you've only got $.30 invested, you're still more than doubling your profit at $.75. It would be worth my trouble to make $450 in profit.