Whether you are a seasoned soap maker or just starting out, I thought I would share some great websites and ideas about where to get your soaping ingredients.


First, do not go to Michael's. Michael's is great for a lot of things... a wonderful crafting store, but they are VERY expensive when it comes to soap making. A 2lb container of melt & pour soap is almost $13.00CA, but if you look around you will find more reasonable prices like $8.50 or $6.00. Michael's is fine if you want to just experiment with one or two melt & pour recipes, but not for a business supplier! Also, I find their soap making products to be few and of poorer quality.

Second, I always will recommend buying ingredients locally. If you buy online you will usually have to pay for shipping. This means that if you are planing to sell your soap you will need to incorporate the shipping cost into your product. This results in an inflated price passed onto the customer, or you don't make as big a profit on your product. If you are making cold process soap, one of your ingredients is lye. Now, if the lye is shipped across borders, for example from the U.S. to Canada, your package might have some trouble crossing the border because lye is a corrosive alkaline substance. The guys at the border might wonder what your doing shipping it across the border! Try to buy locally, and as for lye, you can find it at most hardware stores.

So, above I mentioned about the U.S.-Canada border. Yes, I am a proud Canadian soap maker! If you are too, you might already know about trying to find great Canadian soap making supply websites: There aren't very many and if there are, they're hiding. Buying from Canada should reduce your shipping costs and then you can advertise your soap as MADE IN CANADA! Ha ha! Here are some great Canadian soap maker websites:

Aquarius - Great products & excellent service
 http://www.aquariusaroma-soap.com/ 

Cranberry Lane - great all natural products
http://www.cranberrylane.com/

Lynden House
http://www.lyndenhouse.net/

New Directions Aromatics - Excellent for essential and fragrance oil
http://www.newdirectionsaromatics.ca/

Tub O'Soap - Excellent prices
http://www.tubosoap.com/merchant.ihtml

If you are not from Canada, here are some more great links where you can purchase high quality, inexpensive ingredients:

Bramble Berry - By far the best online soap making supplier I've come accross.
http://www.brambleberry.com/

The Soap Goat
- This is a great website with prices in U.S. dollars, but they have locations in Canada and the US.
http://www.thesoapgoat.com/

Wholesale Supplies Plus - Excellent pakaging options

http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/

Sweet Cakes - Great source for fragrance oil
http://www.sweetcakes.com/

These are just some of the amazing online soap making suppliers out there. If you know of any other great soap making sites, I invite you to leave the link in the 'comments' section.  Thanks for reading!