How to sell soap legally
How to legally run a soap making business in the UK: CPSR's, SCPN (was CPNP), Insurance, PIF's & GMP
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[Music]
hey everyone and from the sussex
handmade soap company here
back with some more tips helps and hints
on how to run a saint making business
within the uk
and today's video may end up being quite
long because we are actually going to
try and cover
the legal requirements for selling soap
within the uk
and there are quite a lot of legal
requirements that you have to fulfill
before you can even sell
that very first bar of soap the rules in
the uk
are fairly strict in fact i'd say
they're verging on being very strict
which is a good thing because it does
prevent
a lot of soap that could potentially be
harmful from being placed onto the
market so it is good
that we have these restrictions um they
can be a little bit annoying when you
have to comply with every little thing
and you know
sometimes you know a product's safe but
the paperwork doesn't quite
tell you how it should and you have to
change things around so it can feel like
a bit of a pain at times but it is worth
it and it does mean that
those of us who have followed the law
and registered our products correctly
have the confidence in knowing
that we are releasing safe products and
that has got to be the main thing at the
end of the day hasn't it
so within the uk there are a
number of rules you have to follow and
please take what i'm saying today
as guidance but please don't take it as
absolute
fact all you need to do because i may
miss some things out
my interpretation of something maybe
slightly off i am purely telling you
how i do it how i interpret it and i'm
trying to give you guidance but please
by all means do your own research as
well
read up yourself because it also helps
to have your own understanding of how
things work rather than just
going on everything i'm saying because
the more you understand the easier it's
going to be for you guys
as well so where shall we begin today
um let's start with an easy one
insurance
insurance is crucial if you are selling
handmade products like this um
although you may be able to get away
doing small fares and things without
having insurance
it's not a risk that is worth taking
because if anything goes wrong and
you're not insured
you could be in a lot of trouble so
insurance i would say
first thing i would get and there are a
lot of markets and bigger craft events
now that do check up on this and they do
want to see copies of your insurance so
if you don't have it it's probably going
to be harder for you guys to get into
markets and sell things anyway
um we have chosen to go with ian wallace
crafters insurance which is about 11
pounds a month and it's always been
really good for us it's exactly what we
need it's a small business
crafting insurance company that will
cover us for what we need
there's different options on what kind
of level of insurance you can request
we have requested 5 million public
liability insurance as a minimum
the reason for that is that a lot of
these fares that we do
do stipulate that we must have a minimum
of 5 million
public liability um to be able to trade
with them so
although they do offer lower coverage
say sort of a million or two million
there's no point for us to take that out
because then that would discount us from
being able to do the large affairs that
we want to do so i would recommend again
this is just my personal recommendation
but i would recommend if you want to
trade at those big events
go for five million public liability
there are
lots of other insurance companies out
there that will ensure small
craft businesses it is purely going to
be a case of having a look around and
working out which one
fits best for your business but i do
recommend ian wallace we have used them
ever since we started our craft business
and we have had
no problems whatsoever with them so far
so
just a recommendation other insurance
companies are available
oh god right okay next okay
so if you are selling in the uk you
also need trade approved scales
that is so when you are weighing
everything it is all
correct um measurements are all exact
and perfect uh trader approved scales
are not cheap but they are legally
required for selling within the uk
so it's an expense that can be kind of
you know you turn up your base when you
have to buy it and spend the money but
it has to be done
so you've got to have trader proof
scales there's
loads on the market um so
i don't even know which ones to
recommend there's so many to choose from
so and they go from you know a smaller
budget up to a huge budget so you guys
just research trader proof scales
and see which ones work best for you
there we go that's scales covered that
was nice and quick and easy
um next so now the big one a cosmetic
product safety report and if you've even
looked into selling the tiniest bit you
have probably found out that in order to
legally sell in the uk
you need a cosmetic product safety
report
and this is basically a report that has
been compiled by a
chartered chemist who's looked over your
recipes
um who's looked at your formulations and
who has you know double checked that
everything is safe
um worked out any kind of
warning labels and things that need to
be applied to your products
they've worked out the formulation and
percentages if you haven't already
and they've basically checked everything
over to make sure that what you are
selling
is safe and to just give you a few other
bits of information on your
um soaps we're gonna we'll say so it's
because we are
basing this on a safe business um they
as i say they are a legal requirement
for selling in the uk you cannot sell
your products legally without them
um they're not the cheapest things to
get i'm going to be honest with you
um you'll see often that they say
cosmetic product safety reports and
it'll be
eight variations for probably around
about
200 pounds and you might get confused
and be like what does eight variations
mean
uh that's fair enough it's really easy
at first when you're not sure what's
happening
to be like what does eight variations
mean what is this what is that
what that means is that you can take one
base recipe and for us our base recipe
would be our main six oils and our water
and our sodium hydroxide that go into
making what would essentially be
an unscented uncolored bar of soap that
is the base recipe
when it says you can add eight
variations what that means is that you
need to keep
those same oils and butters and water
and lie all in the exact same quantities
but then you can add colors and scent as
a variation
so for example we do a lemongrass soap
so we've got our base recipe
variation number one is our lemongrass
so we add the lemongrass essential oil
into that
and then perhaps variation number two
would be our lavender soap so we've got
the same base recipe
then we've got lavender essential oil
and some lavender buds
and again variation number three perhaps
it's our rose geranium so we've got same
base recipe
then we've got rose geranium essential
oil rose petals and some alconet
root for colouring that is what that
means so you get one
recipe with your oils and butters and
then you can add colors and scents and
perhaps clays or botanicals as a
variation
you will often find that the cosmetic
companies that offer these reports will
allow you
10 basic ingredients for your base
recipe
and they will allow you generally around
about 5 additional agree ingredients
per variant you could add more but they
will charge you more
to do that and it's really important
before you actually apply
for your cosmetic product safety reports
that you have got your recipes a hundred
percent how you want them to be
because once you've got these reports
you cannot change them you cannot
deviate from them
because that will invalidate the report
which in turn will invalidate your
insurance and so on so on so on
so say our lemongrass soap
is using 10 grams of lemongrass oil
it doesn't that's just a figure that
i've plucked out in there but
if we say that our lemongrass is using
10 grams on our safety report
we cannot then change that amount so we
can't then go oh we haven't got enough
left we're only going to use five grams
today
because that's not as per safety report
so everything
is invalid so once you've got those
recipes certified
you have to stick to them you cannot
change anything about them
and that is um sometimes a little bit
frustrating if you do
do something that you then want to
change very slightly it's like we did a
lavender soap that was purple
and i was like it wouldn't be quite nice
to have it white but we couldn't take
out the purple colorant because we would
have been invalidating our assessments
so
they are quite restrictive but it's just
something we have to live with since
2013 they have become a lot more
restrictive
it's just something we have to live with
as soon make us you know there's nothing
we can do about it
um so when you've got your recipes and
you're like right okay i'm good to go
i'm gonna get
my cosmetic product safety report there
are a lot of companies out there that
will offer to do them for you
off the top of my head there is
naturally barney there is
so posh there is the soap kitchen and
they all offer
fairly similar packages where you'll pay
a certain amount of money
and you can get a certain base recipe
with a certain number of variations
certified and i'm here talking about
comprehensive
safety assessments there are these
things called starter assessments
which are a lot more limited and you're
often often tied into
ingredients and certain recipes and
ways of doing things like that so
they're very much
more restricted they are cheaper but
they are very restrictive
and if you want to be able to create and
do your own things your own way
comprehensive assessments are the way to
go so
you have decided you've got your recipes
ready you're loving them it's all great
you want to get them certified and why
not
why not get them certified and start
selling them so
you find a company that offers these
safety reports
and you will then probably click on
purchase one and then be like
what am i doing now and what you will
generally find
i have printed out basically a form
similar to the kind of form
you will probably be asked to fill out
i'm going to try and hope that this
picks it up
right so it's going to ask you who the
responsible person is
that's you you're the responsible person
so you put your name your business name
if you have one
your address they'll want to know if
you're in the uk or not
um i am doing this based on
a uk video for helping for uk
citizens so you'll pop uk in there
if you're in the eu there's slightly
more um
testing that may need to be done that
may be slightly more expensive then
they'll want your phone number
and email your product type
so that there would be soap or solid
bar soap i tend to put in there this bit
here will say the cpsr reference code
if this is the first time you're filling
in a report there'll be nothing there
this is
purely if you want to add or amend
anything from a previous report you've
had done so if it's your first report
don't worry about this bit here
then you've got the information on your
base recipe so they want the ingredient
name
so that'll be the name you call it by so
let's say we're doing shear butter you
would write shear butter
and there and then they want the inky
name
and that is basically um
the i'm going to tell you what inky
stands for now i can never remember
right right so inky i've got it up on my
computer just here it's the
international
nomenclature probably pronounced that
wrong of cosmetic
ingredients and it is basically a way
of writing the name of an ingredient
without language barriers so
they are standard names for cosmetic
ingredients that can be recognized
anywhere in the world in any language so
it kind of just
helps break down any language barriers
that may otherwise be caused
so there is databases out there that
will tell you
the inky names and i shall try and link
to some good ones in the description
here because
when you first start it's all right
putting sheer butter here and then they
ask for an inky name and it's like
what's thinking name for shea butter
huh it's like again
these are tough words to pronounce for
me it's like but
butthero sperman parky something like
that
i've only ever seen this stuff written
down i very rarely hear it spoken so my
pronunciation of these kind of things is
probably horrific and way off
but anyway so you're right the inky name
just there
ci numbers that is to do with colors if
you are using
micas or oxides you will find
that they have a ci number listed in
their ingredients
and for micas and oxides and colors you
need to
jot down all the ci numbers that are
relevant and you'll probably find there
is more than one
ci number per color then you need the
weights
in grams some safety reports will ask
you to submit in percentages
but art always asks us for grams so you
put
pop it down in grams they won't accept
anything other than grams they won't
take teaspoons or milliliters or
anything like that so weigh it all pop
it in grams
and your supplier and you'll find
that if you are using things like
fragrance oils or colorants you will be
tied
into those suppliers so find a supplier
you like that's reliable
and then when only when when you are
completely happy
jot them down as your supplier and that
is specifically relevant to fragrance
oils
and colorants if you're using i think
anything else
possibly not clays clays may possibly be
tied in as well
i need to check that we always got our
clays from the same place actually so
i've never had cause to check that
but um things like the shear butter and
the base oils you can change supplies no
issue and essential oils also
with our reports we are allowed to
change supplies of essential oils
but fragrance oils and colors because
they're made up
so specifically to the companies that
manufacture them you can't shop and
change
once you've listed on your report who
you're using so make sure you're happy
with your supplier before you list them
on here otherwise
you're going to have to pay a nice admin
charge
to edit any info which you don't want to
do
and then the last page is just
your product variants so basically
this bit here is purely for your base
recipe so remember for us that would be
our six base oils our sodium hydroxide
and our water then you get onto the
variance which is where you list your
fancy colors and smells and things like
that
so variant one you would write the name
so if i was doing a lavender soap it
would be
my lavender soap the description
i just keep it very general i just put
solid bar soap no food imitation because
then that means i've got a little more
wiggle room to play with the actual
design
the reason i put no food imitation is
because
selling soaps that represent food here
in the uk
is illegal and my assessors will not
assess anything that looks like
food so because i'm being so general
with what i write here
of what my soap looks like i do say that
i will not be making anything that looks
like food
so they don't return it and go you might
be making stuff that looks like food we
can't we can't certify it so i put solid
bar soap and no food imitation
and the packaging again i keep that
fairly general
i just write that it's a paper wrap
because then
i can sort of change it a little bit if
i want to the more vague you are
i found kind of helps you a bit and
giving you a little bit more wiggle room
with the design and then here you would
add
your ingredients that have been added to
that base recipe so for
a lavender soap i would add in some
elevens essential oil
and some lavender flowers and some honey
because we put honey in our lavender
soap
and again then you just need to find the
inky name and the ci number for any
colors or colors yep just the colors
waiting grams and your suppliers
so then you fill all that out
you send it off or you email it off to
your assessor
who will check through it if there is
any problems with anything you've
written
they will get back to you for example
when we first registered some soaps we
had
slightly too much lemongrass oil in one
of our soaps so they wrote back to us
and said this needs to be amended are
you happy and we said yeah we're happy
for it to be amended
our assessor amended it for us and they
will only
assess your recipe when they know that
your recipe is going to be
okay so don't worry about paying out the
200 pounds and losing it if there's a
problem
because they will always work with you
to find a solution that works for
everybody
to make sure that your soap is legal to
sell that you're happy with it
and that it can be safely assessed so
you then send it off and then you wait
probably around about four or five weeks
it does take a little while for the
reports to come back to you
and then after four or five weeks they
will send you back a completed safety
report which means that that soap is
part way
to being legal to sell i'm just going to
show you
the very front cover of one of my
product safety reports
um cover my name and address
okay trying to cover my name and address
so that is my cosmetic product safety
report
and that is i say just the front cover
and it shows
the reference what they are
my products my product categories and
you know
my manufacturer and then at the bottom
where i'm covering it is the responsible
person details
and your report will be a lot of pages
long
mine is 18 pages long and it covers
everything that i could need to know
about my soaps all that could be
needed to be known it'll cover the ph
range it'll give me a warning late
warning
statements that have to be put on the
ingredients label
it gives me my recipe in percentages
it's basically broken down into a very
scientific
bunch of texts some of which i
understand some of which even now still
confuses me a little but the main thing
is
a chemist has checked my recipes they're
all good to go
so that in a nutshell is cosmetic
product safety reports
absolutely crucial to have illegal to
sell without and
really good for actually just making
sure your product's safe again this is
all about
safety and that is what the important
thing is so
what should we move on to now so now i
just want to chat a bit about another
legal requirement for selling products
within the uk
and that is registering your products on
the scpn
website which is the submit cosmetic
products
notifications website prior to us
leaving
the eu this was actually the cpnp the
cosmetic products notification portal
but since we have left the eu we can no
longer here in the uk access that portal
so we need to have our own one and that
is the
scpn i will link to that in the
description if you haven't used it
before you will need to sign up for an
account
it's actually pretty easy to sign up for
an account with them which is surprising
considering it's a government website
but i found it pretty easy registering
my details
um one point to note they will ask for
the name and address of the responsible
person if you're wondering what that
means
it's basically you you are the
responsible person you're the
manufacturer you are making the soap so
you put your name and address details
there
there are a couple of circumstances
where you might
put another name or address um
but in general it's gonna be your name
and address there if you are the
manufacturer
so congratulations you're a responsible
person
i'm a responsible person who knows how
that happened
um the scpn i say it's a new website
only went live less than two weeks ago
because it's only the 13th of january
today so i am still getting to grips
with it myself but i am basically
going to go through it i've got my
computer just here and i'm going to go
through it as if i was adding a product
and just talk you guys through it
i wanted to sort of do a screen grab and
show my show me doing it but i'm
genuinely not sure on the legalities of
actually
showing a government website to you guys
through
youtube like this so i'm going to err on
the side of caution and i'm just going
to
talk you through me adding a product and
how i'm doing it and what i'm doing it
because there's certain categories
where you might if you're not familiar
with this you might get a little bit
confused about what you need to add in
where so let's imagine you've registered
your account and you are
ready now to add your first product on
the portal
so at the top of the page you'll see a
green button that says add cosmetic
products and that is the button that you
will need to click
once you've clicked on that it will say
has ceu been notified about these using
the cpnp
remember that old database that they
used to be if you haven't added products
before
and you haven't added this specific
product on before then the answer there
is no so you'll need to click
no and continue then it asks if you're
likely to
notify the eu about them um
i would say no unless you are selling in
the eu
in which case we open up a whole other
can of worms because you'll need a
responsible person based in the eu
to be responsible for your products and
all that and that can be
really difficult we probably won't be
doing it because
we don't really know anyone in the eu
that could act as a responsible person
for us
and there's services i think are
offering to do it for you but they're
expensive so
just click no if you're a basic small
handmade business
and you're not likely to be selling or
notifying in the eu click
no and continue then it asks you what
the product is called
and basically that's just the name of
your product so if you've got a
lavender soap in that box there you
would type lavender soap
and continue then it asks if you want to
add an internal reference
i've been clicking no to this one only
you guys can see that so there's no need
so
unless you want to if you want to then
do now we've got
is the product intended for children
under the age of three
um if your product is you will obviously
click yes but you will have had a very
different
safety report if you are aiming at
children under three none of our
products are aimed at children under
three
um i say the assessments are much more
involved
and we just don't aim any of our stuff
at
kids under three so for me i would click
no
obviously if your product is aimed at a
child number three you'd click yes but
i'm going to click no
then it asks is the product product a
multi-item kit
and by that it means uh something like a
hair dye where you might have the dye
and the mixer
separate bits that need to be combined
and mixed to be able to be used
i'm gonna run you through this as if we
are listing a soap because that's what
i'm most familiar with and that's what i
want to help you guys with it's running
a soap business so we're imagining that
we're selling soap
so no it's not a multi-item kit we click
no to that
then you need to upload an image of the
product label and this is so
your product can be easily identified
again by
anybody that may need to access the
information such as medical staff or
professionals so you upload
an image of the product label that
doesn't have to be an actual photo of
the actual product to the best of my
knowledge i have been uploading
the artwork for the labels that we stick
on the front of our packages
so this is where you would choose a jpeg
image and you would upload
your image there and then it will ask
you if the product is available in
different shades
again this would be more relevant
something like a lipstick where you
might have
different shades of the same color so no
our soap is not available in different
shades so we click no to that one
and we continue onwards then it'll ask
you what is the physical form of the
product and there is a number of options
to choose from and when you are doing
soap
you want to select it as a solid or
pressed powder and this did confuse me
the first time i did it because i
thought it meant a solid powder or a
pressed powder
and i read through the other options and
i couldn't see what i needed to list for
soap
but it's actually it's a solid or a
pressed powder it's not a solid powder
or a pressed powder it's a solid or a
pressed powder so we're going with solid
because it is a solid bar of soap
we click continue then it will ask you
what kind of
um sorry what is the product contained
in
and there's two options and the one
you'll need to select for just a
standard bar of soap is a typical
non-pressurized bottle jar
sachet or other package we click
continue
then it'll ask you on carcinogenic
mutagenic
repro toxic substances go through this
one it's basically asking if it contains
carcinogenic materials mutagenic
materials
we're clicking no because our soaps
don't um
and i don't even think i don't think
our safety company would assess ones
that have those kind of things in them
and again the next page is asking you
does it contain nanomaterials
again none of our soaps contain
nanomaterials
this is just for us if your soaps do
contain nanomaterials which i can't
imagine
why they would need to you'd have to
click yes but for a basic bar of soap
from our recipe it's a no and you'll be
able to find all of this detail out on
your safety report as well once you've
got your cosmetic safety report that's
going to tell you everything that you
need to know all the info you need
to be able to upload onto this scpn will
be contained within your own safety
reports
so then you'll be asked what kind of
category of cosmetic product it is
and you get a few options but for soap
you want to select skin products
and continue and then it will ask you
what category of skin products is it
and there's a lot to choose from but for
bar soap you want to select that it is a
skin cleansing product the main function
of soap is to be
cleansing and in fact it's the only kind
of
descriptive word that you can use for
soap you can't legally say that your
soap is moisturizing
[Music]
you can't claim that it's anti-aging
stuff like that unless you've got the
proof the main function if you is
regular of your soap is to be cleansing
so you select skin cleansing products
then you click continue and then it asks
you what category of skin
cleansing product it is and it says soap
products
so you click soap products that one's
kind of self-explanatory
now the next question is how do you want
to give the formulation of
the product and there is choose a
predefined frame formulation
list ingredients in their exact
concentration or list ingredients and
their concentration range
the easiest way that i was taught to do
this is to select the second option
list ingredients and their exact
concentration
so we click on that one and we go
forward
and then it wants to know about the
exact concentrations of the ingredients
and for this you need to upload a pdf
to this um scpn that shows
your ingredients in your soap and the
exact concentration
so for us we have got a pdf
and it lists every ingredient in our
soap and it is in
percentages from highest down to lowest
and again
we are given this information in our
cosmetic safety product reports
that has been worked out by our chemist
for us and all that information
is in our safety report so we look at
our safety report and we basically
copy it down make a pdf of it and then
that is the pdf
that we upload here and that fulfills
the requirement for
showing the exact concentrations and so
that's a really nice easy way of doing
it
make sure it's a pdf because they won't
allow anything other than a pdf
and then the next question is going to
ask you about the ph range of the
product
and you have to select whether it's
three or higher and the maximum
is 10 or lower or it's lower than 3
higher than 10 or it does not have a ph
for our soap the maximum ph
is higher than 10 so we click higher
than 10 and again
you can find this information on your
safety report it'll then ask you for the
minimum
and maximum ph of your product and on my
safety reports it says my slopes are a
minimum of 9.5
and a maximum of 10.5 so that is just
added on in there we move forwards
and then it'll give you a summary of
your product so it'll tell you the name
it'll give the responsible person
details that's you
um it'll give your contact details and
it is basically
summarizing all of that information that
you have put in
and then at the bottom it will ask you
to accept and submit the cosmetic
product notification
or delete incomplete cosmetic product
notification now obviously if you've
just filled it all in you don't want to
delete it
so make sure you put accept and submit
the cosmetic product notification i'm
not going to press that button now
because i've just basically
run through a product i've already got
on there so i'm going to click the
delete button because i don't want to
duplicate
it but that is in a nutshell
how you fill in on the s c p
n um it's actually
pretty easy it seems to be easier
than the cpnp was for me um
it's relatively straightforward there is
just a few things that i say may
cause some confusion such as you know
what categories to select so that's why
i've kind of run through it with you
so hopefully it'll give you a little bit
of
help and guidance um so yeah that's csc
pn am i saying that right sc yeah scpn
sorry i'm still getting used to what
it's called i want to say cpmp and all
those
letters get confused in my head um again
it is a legal requirement you cannot
sell your soaps until you have got your
notifications up on that site so it's
really important
to register your account and get your
details up on there
so that's the scpn done
what now so now let's talk about good
manufacturing
practices and this is another document
that you need to have for
all of your um soaps and items that you
sell
and it is basically a statement that
says how you do
things and it's just to make sure that
you're following
good well as it states good
manufacturing practices
if you've already got a cosmetic product
safety report sent back to you at this
point it may be
that your assessor has actually also
included details
or a template for you for good
manufacturing practices
i know ours does um there's also
templates online that you can find
and edit and in terms of the difficulty
of filling one of these out
it's really not as hard as some of the
other paperwork you have to go through
i've got mine open on my computer just
in front of me and just running through
it
it basically just confirms that you know
well it says here the sussex handmade
soap company can confirm the products
manufactured at their premises
are produced in accordance with the
guidelines outlined in good
manufacturing practices
and it has got sections on premises and
equipment and cleaning
personnel products processes and
procedures
there's a little checklist that we've
written where we say everything that we
do before we make our soap
information section on documents and
records and how long they're kept for
and how we store them
there's sections on storage of our
products packaging and labeling
it is basically everything
that you could need to know to be
certain that the business is being
run well and that everything's being
done
in correct accordance with you know
uk law um there's templates you can find
that you can kind of edit
for your own business on that so i will
try again and link one of them
down in the bottom of this description
of this video for you
so on to product information files and
you need
one product information file per product
it is not per range it is per product so
we have
one for our lavender soap we have one
for our lemon grass soap we have one for
our citrus soap so on so on so on
and these are basically files that you
put in
everything you could possibly think of
to do with your soap making
um to keep a track of everything in a
nice little file
all together and in our product
information file
we begin by giving details of the
method of manufacture so we basically
give step-by-step instructions right
from when we're starting so we're
cleaning down
checking everything and we go through
step by step
how we create that certain product ours
is pretty detailed
we do go into um a lot of detail
um i don't think you need to probably go
into as much detail
detail as we do but we literally itemize
every single tiny little thing we do
right from starting right to cleaning
down and finally storing and curing the
finished soaps
so just take your practice how you make
your soaps and then itemize it in bullet
points
so you've got a nice long list that
shows how you manufacture
that specific product and then after
that we have a statement on good
manufacturing
practice that just basically states that
we comply with it we understand it
and we give a link to our good
manufacturing practices document as well
where we go into more detail over our
own personal
good manufacturing practices and what we
do
we then go on to give a description of
the product so we state
what the actual bar of soap looks like
when it's unwrapped so what color it is
if it's got any decoration on top
um anything that will help people to
identify that particular product so for
example for our lavender soap we state
that it's a
neutral pale cream color with lavender
buds on top and that is
it is a solid rectangular shape and we
also give details on the packaging so we
state that it is wrapped
in brown paper wrap with a sticker on
the front
and we then for further information
actually take a wrapped photo or
a photo of the wrapped product which we
include there on our product information
file
so that anyone that's looking through it
can quickly see what a wrapped version
of our soap
looks like after that there is a section
on cosmetic product safety reports and
in this section we basically just
confirm
that our soap has gone through the
cosmetic product safety report process
and we actually also provide a link
there to show people
the actual full safety reports i do keep
these online so it's easy to link things
we have hard copies as well
when it's hard copies i just keep
everything kind of together
but obviously the safety report is in a
separate file but it's easy to be
accessed if need be
but i find it easy doing it online
because you can put in links to things
as well so
we have linked on our online version to
our cosmetic product safety report
so everyone who needs to can quickly see
that we have got
the correct assessment for this product
and then at the bottom of the product
information file we have a section on
animal testing data this is a very
generic statement so i'm going to read
you what r states and to be honest you
could probably take what we've written
and just substitute your own business
name feel free to do your own checks and
obviously don't just copy me because i'm
saying copy me do do your own checks and
check that it's going to work for you
required to but ours basically says
animal testing on finished cosmetic
products has been banned in the eu
since 11th of september 2004 animal
testing on ingredients or combination of
ingredients for cosmetics
has been banned in the eu since 11th of
march 2009.
i am going to actually have to check
that because i may have to update that
since we've now left the eu
that's going to go on my to-do list so i
might need to update that to say uk as
well
i'm going to look into that anyway the
sussex handmade soap company can confirm
that to our knowledge none of the
ingredients and products we supply have
involved testing of any sort on animals
no testing on animals has been conducted
at the initiative of our company or
on our behalf so that just basically
confirms that we are not
using animal tested ingredients or and
we are not
asking for any of our products or
ingredients to be tested
on animals and then we sign and date
that
um and that is the basic product
information file the other information
that i do keep along with that
is the msds forms the safety data sheets
that is so
for every oil and butter and ingredient
we use there is a
sds sheet which is a safety data sheet
and will tell you
all about that specific ingredient so we
have safety data sheets for every
ingredient we use
and they go into the product information
file
we also keep records of our batches that
we have made so we have got batch sheets
where we state
the date that the product was made what
the product is what ingredients went
into it
and the batch numbers from all of those
ingredients as well
so we have got a nice large paper trail
that shows anybody who needs to when
items were made
what's in them and if need be there is a
traceability there
that means say there was a problem with
a bar of soap a bar of lavender soap
that we made on the 10th of october
we could be contacted we could then pull
out the bat sheet
that would show the details for the bar
of soap that was made on the 10th of
october and it would have
all the batch numbers for all of the
oils and ingredients that we used
and then we've got the ability to trace
back to the company
find that batch and hopefully locate any
problems
touchwood we have never had any issues
like that in the past but it is
important to keep
these details and this data just in case
something happens
in the product information file i would
also note
if there was a batch that turned out
slightly
different than it should have done or
behaved slightly differently that would
be noted too obviously anything that
went
bad would be disposed of correctly
but if there was just a slight variation
that didn't affect the soap being able
to be sold
but was slightly different to usual i
would note that down
put it on a back sheet and pop it in the
product information file just for future
reference
basically a product information file is
anything
you can think of that may be useful
to know regarding the product that you
have just made
it is what is called a living document
that means that it can be added to over
time it doesn't just sit as one document
and stay there like that forever you
need to add to it
which is what we do every time we make a
bar so
we add to our product information files
with new batch records and new
documents every time we get a new
ingredient in
or a new batch of an ingredient again we
know all of that down so that is what
needs to be kept in a product
information file
and i think i think that's about it
are we done are we happy actually done
um i feel like i've been rabbiting on
forever and in actual fact i know i've
been rabbiting on forever because i had
to change the camera at one point
because i filled up the sd card with my
ramblings um
this has been a really long video if
you've made it to the end then
congratulations
um it had to be long because i wanted to
give you guys kind of an in-depth
view on the legal side of things in the
uk
um and that's not a quick subject
to cover so if you've made it to the end
of the video then well done
i doubt there'll be many people watching
my end segment here i'm sure
the majority of them would have sort of
filtered off at some point
but it's important stuff to know and as
i say
my knowledge is okay
i have an understanding of what is
required but please do not
solely rely on what i am telling you
please do your own research i am by no
means some kind of oracle on stuff like
this i'm only telling you
how i interpret it and how i work it
into my business so that i know
i am confident of legally selling my own
soaps
similarly there may well be certain
things i've actually forgotten to
mention that are legally required
obviously
i can't think of any now because if i
could then i wouldn't have forgotten
them
so do do your own research as well that
is really important
doing your own research makes up it
seems more important sorry than
just taking face value from anybody
however much you may or may not
trust them um yeah that is
that is how we are able to legally sell
our soaps in the uk there is an
awful lot of steps to do it but if you
take it one by one and bit by bit
it's actually not quite as daunting or
as tough
as it at first seems because when i
first came to
assessing our soaps and getting them
ready for legal sale i was just
completely i looked at it all in one
go and went i can't do this but then i
broke it down did it bit by bit
and i got through it and so will you so
thank you for watching at today's video
i'm not sure what our next
little tuesday update is going to be it
will be something a little more exciting
than this we might do a day in the life
of
kind of video or we might show you us
making some more products
not soaps because we're not going to
kind of cover them in these videos but
we might just
we'll just sort of show you what's
what's going on
what's going on whatever that may be i
haven't got a clue
um but yeah thanks for watching today if
you've enjoyed today's video or found it
helpful please do give it a like give us
a subscribe and hit that notification
bell
so you can find out when we list some
more videos
with more long-winded tips and hints
that will hopefully be useful enjoy the
rest of your day thanks for watching
guys and we shall see you next time bye
[Music]
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