The discussion came up with a customer: The question was, “Why is this soap so much more expensive than this other soap?”
That’s a fair question, certainly. Soap A (the less expensive one) requires a one-time pour with mica accents finger-brushed on top. Soap B (the soap in question) COULD just take a one-time pour of a single color of soap, but this customer was expecting it to be colorful, and “colorful” meant several individual pours of different colored soap. This took time, and since I’m a professional, time = money. And I had to craft each soap individually.
And as I make slabs of soaps, the types I can whip up in one glorious pour, I think of what it takes to make various soaps. I’ve made soaps before that are a simple scent and no color, or a scent and just one color. Those are quick and simple to make. Then there are the soaps with elaborate swirls and multiple colors, or soaps that contain interesting botanicals and custom created fragrance blends. Truth is, I could whip out batch after batch of no-color scented soap, but that would be so boring! We LOVE color! And design and fun, unique fragrances, and everything else we bring to our soaps! But creativity, again, takes time, and time is money, even when you enjoy what you do.
I tripped across this great video today that takes a look at the relationship between time and creativity.
https://www.facebook.com/binishkumarks/videos/10150455838601609/
Sure, creativity takes more time to achieve, but we are infinitely more pleased with our results. We’ll continue to take the time to be creative, because it’s just so much more fun.