I don't have to know what I am doing...I just have to know that it works.
And that there are those who want to buy it.
But thx for your dumbass advice. It sure is nice to know that there are folks like you who are discouraging people who you come into contact with.
Discouraging regular guys and gals who you know into believing that their ideas will never work.
I have been a successful professional craftsperson for over 50 years. I have made a living with one line for nearly 30 years. I do not have long-lasting competitors due to closely-held production processes. I have lurked on forums in my medium where very talented artists brainstorm how to reproduce my line. I have had workers hired away specifically to re-create the product and for that reason have always kept several steps secret. I have had buyers for chain stores threaten me with Asian production when I turned down orders that involved 500 drop ships/month.
Handmade soap is ubiquitous and has been a market niche for over 25 years. It is one of those items everyone tries to customize to their own medium and add as an extra Point of Purchase impulse buy. For example: fiber artists add felted soaps, which are hand-made soaps encased in felted wool.
A local woman began a soap line in her 70s, based on her own need for a sensitive skin product. Her marketing was good and she built it into a living, but at the end, she needed younger people to do the real work, because it is hot, involves heavy lifting and needs to be done in a rural area or a specifically-fitted industrial space with excellent ventilation. It also is the sort of product that requires single long time intensive production periods. You can’t stop and start.
Not a VC candidate, IMO.
However, a liquid handcrafted soap that utilized strong natural scents (lavender being the most popular) and highly esthetic containers (preferably hand crafted and not suitable to mass production so as to deter Asian copycats), along with an organic formula and coloration might find a niche within the soap category.
Go to craft shows and see what the market is like at the moment. Or search Etsy. However, unless you own an ingredient or a process today, you will find that any item sold online will be ripped off by Asian mass marketers. Right now I have an item I know would sell. It is not a wholesale item, however, and it would be immediately appropriated by the Asian workshop cooperatives that are run by wealthy Western women looking for a do-gooder enterprise that includes write-off exotic vacations. These enterprises utilize near-slave labor, usually homebound women, and are often initiated with international development grants.
Market is the least of your concerns. Supplies, production processes and labor are the main considerations. Once you teach a worker your process, there is no guarantee they won’t either go to work for a competitor or compete with you on their own. Non-compete contracts have been standard in handcrafted designer clothing for over 25 years due to many conflicts between designers and seamstresses. You need something unique to differentiate your soap.
If you really think you want to continue with this sort of venture, feel free to FReepmail me for more specific crit/analysis.