What to Do With Soap Ends & Trimmings

Wondering what to do with those bits of soap from the end of the loaf that don’t make full sized bars but are still completely usable soap? You have options!

Sell Pre-Packaged Soap Ends

Contrary to some of the things I’ve read online, you can sell packages of random soap ends and trimmings. They just need to be correctly packaged and labeled.

• Front: The product identity (what it is — “soap”)¹
• Front: The net weight in ounces and grams²

TIP: Create a preprinted label with a specific weight and then fill the bag or package with enough pieces to meet or exceed that weight. That way you don’t have to write the weight on each label.

• Front or Back: Business name and address. See Street Address – Your Choices for options for the street address.

• Front or Back: Ingredient Declaration.

If you want to include an ingredient declaration, it would typically go on the back.

Since it is an “assorted package of similar items” you have some options for the ingredient declaration. You can do an ingredient declaration for each different soap, OR (and much easier) you can do a combined ingredient declaration.³

The combined list is based on the amount of each ingredient across ALL of the products. So before you start, you need to figure that out. The combined ingredient declaration goes in this order:

• FIRST, All ingredient present in all the soaps at more than 1% listed in descending order of predominance, based on the cumulative amount (percentage) in all the soaps.
• SECOND, All ingredients, except color additives, present in ALL products at 1% or less, listed in any order (that makes it easier to figure out the additives)
• THIRD, Ingredients present in only some of the soaps, with the soap identified. This would be any specialty oils additives that are used in some of the soaps, such as herbs, salt, clay, etc. Include any ingredients used as “natural colorants” that are not approved for use in cosmetics.
• FOURTH, Color additives, regardless of amount.

The color additives used, such as iron oxides, ultramarines, mica, and/or dyes. Don’t include “natural colorants” or ingredients in your color additive (i.e. colored micas) that are not approved for use in cosmetics – those get listed with the regular ingredients.

Example

As an example, this would be the ingredient declaration for a package of three different types of soap ends (lavender, rose, and blue) where all the soaps were made with olive, coconut, and palm oil, the lavender soap contained shea butter and was colored with Orchid Mica, the rose soap used mango butter and was colored with Rose Clay and Merlot Sparkle Mica, and the blue soap contained rice bran oil and was colored with Mermaid Mica.⁴

Free Samples

You can give out odds and ends of soaps as free samples without any labeling.

HOWEVER, if you only give them out with purchase, then they are considered a consumer product and require the necessary labeling.

Give to Friends & Family

If you provide soap to friends and family on a regular basis, consider giving them the unsaleable ends for their use, rather than full size bars that you could sell.

Rebatch or Reuse

Soap ends (along with other bits) can be melted down and rebatched into new bars.

They can also be cut up and used as colorful chunks in white or clear soap.

Use Them Yourself!

If you use your own soap (which I can only assume is true), then consider using the soap ends in your own bath or shower rather than using full size bars. You get an ever-changing assortment of soaps to use so you can enjoy all the different soaps you make!

1. 21 CFR 701.11 ↩︎
2. 21 CFR 701.13 ↩︎
3. 21 CFR 701.3(a) and (o) ↩︎
4. Color additives used in this example are all from Brambleberry.com. Tin oxide contained in the Orchid and Mermaid Mica but is not an approved color additive for use in cosmetics. As such, it is placed in the ingredient declaration with the regular ingredients, not with the color additives. ↩︎