3 Common Mistakes Made When Making Bath Products To Sell

If you are beginning your own small business making bath and body products, then remember that making products to sell is a different endeavor than making products to use at home. The products you make must not only be great, but they must be sanitary and placed in proper packaging. Avoid these three common mistakes made when making and packaging beauty products at home to sell, then you can look forward to a prosperous business with many return customers. 

1. Using Label Ink That Runs When Wet

Bath and body product packages are exposed to more water than most other products. Your products will likely be stored in the bathroom and even right on the edge of the bathtub or shower. Your customers will also handle your products with wet, soapy hands often.

Label ink that runs when wet not only makes your product look unprofessional, but it can even stain hands, sinks and bathtubs. This cannot only lead to people not re-purchasing your products, but it can even lead to them requesting compensation from you for a permanently stained bathtub or sink. 

Even water-resistant printer ink is not water-proof. Water-resistant labels are no match for the conditions a label will face in a bathroom. The best option is to purchase your labels from a professional label manufacturing company and to choose the "water-proof" coating option. Companies have access to special water-proof face coatings that would be too difficult to use at home. These face coatings are actually made with tiny particles of vinyl, polyester, or eco-friendly polylactic acid. 

2. Choosing Packaging That Creates a Breeding-ground for Bacteria

Your products will be used on customers' bodies, faces, and even around or on their eyes. The last thing you want to do is put your products in containers that lead to more bacteria being introduced into them than has to. Although some health-conscious customers will take extra steps to keep a product stored in a wide-mouthed jar free from bacteria, others won't bother and will just choose another product in better packaging. 

Packaging that requires a customer to touch more product than what they need to for one use should be avoided. The worst culprit is the already mentioned wide-mouthed jar. A jar requires the customer to "scoop" product out with a potentially germ-covered hand, and what is not immediately used is then a virtual petri-dish of breeding bacteria. 

The best types of packages that can keep a product bacteria-free include bottles and squeeze tubes with flip-top closures. If the consistency of your product does not make those options possible, then include a small spatula with your product with instructions to only scoop the product out with it before using. 

3. Not Adding Product Preservatives

It is extremely important to always add preservatives to the bath and body products you make. You may be tempted to leave them out to entice customers who prefer "all-natural" products, but even large-scale producers of all-natural beauty products know that they have to include preservatives to extend the shelf-lives of their products. 

A product that includes absolutely no preservatives needs to be refrigerated and used within a week, at the longest. This is why people making their own beauty concoctions at home that they use right away can get away without using them. You, on the other hand, are selling your products, and you need them to last longer than a week. 

You can choose a natural preservative, such as vitamin E or grapefruit seed extract, to extend the shelf-life of your products to about six months. However, gentle chemical preservatives, such as benzylalcohol and phenoxyethanol can extend shelf-life to up to 2 years. Choose either, but be sure to label your product with an expiration date to reflect the type of preservative you use. 

Remember that making and selling bath and body products is different from making a batch of a homemade beauty recipe to use on yourself at home. You must be sure to choose the right packaging, purchase labels that don't bleed and deteriorate when exposed to water, and add preservatives to extend product shelf-life.