Why Batch and Bubble Isn’t a Shop — At Least, That Wasn’t the Plan

My partner asked me early on whether I intended to sell the bars. My answer at the time was no, and the reasoning behind that is still largely true. But I want to be honest that I’m holding it a little more loosely than I was.

It’s a fair question. The bars work. They cost a fraction of what you’d pay commercially. They’re made from ingredients I’ve researched, tested on myself, and would happily hand to my kids. If they’re genuinely good, and I truly believe they are, why not sell them?

The honest answer has two parts. One is practical. The other is more personal, and, I think, the part that really matters.

The practical part first

Making a bar in your kitchen for your own household is completely different from manufacturing a cosmetic product for sale.

The moment you sell a cosmetic product in Australia, you take on a set of obligations that are entirely reasonable from a consumer protection standpoint and pretty expensive from a small producer standpoint. Stability and safety testing. Proper labelling that complies with the Australian Consumer Law and relevant cosmetic regulations. Product liability insurance. Packaging that protects the product and communicates everything it needs to communicate. Somewhere to store inventory. Time to make it, pack it, and post it. The postage itself.

None of these costs are excessive or unfair. They exist because people deserve to know what they’re putting on their body, and because the person selling it should be accountable for its safety. I have no argument with any of it.

But the cumulative effect is that a bar costing $3 to $4 in ingredients becomes a bar that needs to retail at $18 to $25 to cover all the associated costs without losing money, and that’s before factoring in any margin that makes the exercise worth doing. What I can make for under $4 becomes something you’d need to pay at least $18 for, and I’m back in the territory I started in: expensive natural products with a long list of costs built into the price that have nothing to do with what’s actually in the bar.

When I did some light research into why retail bars cost what they do, my reaction was not outrage but recognition. The price isn’t a rip-off. It’s the reality of manufacturing, compliance, and distribution. The costs are real. It’s just that when you make your own, most of them disappear.

The part that actually matters

Helping others help themselves has been a thread running through most of the things I’ve found meaningful in my life.

I’m currently parenting foster children. The goal was never to be the person who did things for them, it was to be the person who helped them figure out they could do things for themselves. The moment a kid who didn’t believe they were capable of something discovers that they are, that’s irreplaceable. You don’t get that from doing it for them.

The friends I find most nourishing are the ones where the relationship goes both ways – where we coach each other, challenge each other, help each other reach our own conclusions rather than handing each other answers. I find that kind of reciprocal respect far more sustaining than being the person with all the answers.

Making your own personal care products sits in the same territory for me. There’s something genuinely satisfying about standing at your kitchen bench, combining ingredients you understand, waiting through a seven-day cure, and then having a first wash with something that works better than anything you’ve possibly ever bought. That feeling is yours. You own it. I can’t sell that to you. But I can show you how to get there yourself.

I also find it more fulfilling to be part of someone’s capability than to be part of their supply chain. If I sell you bars, you need me every time you run out.

That’s not a business model I want to build. It’s a dependency model, and it’s not what I’m here for.

So what is Batch and Bubble actually for?

It’s a resource. A real one, built from actual batches made in an actual Brisbane kitchen, with real costs, real mistakes, and real results documented honestly.

Every recipe on this site has been made and used before it was published. Every ingredient guide is written from the experience of buying, handling, and formulating with that ingredient rather than summarising what a database says about it. The troubleshooting content comes from problems I’ve actually had or that are direct consequences of how the chemistry works.

The goal is that you leave here with enough understanding to make something yourself, adjust it for your hair type, troubleshoot it when something goes wrong, and eventually not need to come back for the basics because you’ve learned them.

That’s a different kind of value from a product you can buy. It’s slower to deliver and harder to measure, but it compounds. A skill you’ve built doesn’t run out.

Where this is going

Batch and Bubble will always be free to read. The recipes, the ingredient guides, the troubleshooting content, it all stays here.

What I will offer, in time, is packaged resources that make the learning faster and easier. Compiled recipe collections. Printable guides you can take to the kitchen bench. The kind of thing that takes everything scattered across twenty articles and puts it in one place in a format that’s easy to use while you’re actually making something.

Not a membership. I find the proliferation of subscriptions exhausting and I see no reason to be part of that. What I’ll offer will be worth paying for once, not forever.

That’s what will keep the site going. Not selling you bars you could make yourself for $4, but helping you become someone who can.

One thing I didn’t anticipate when I started this: there’s a a significant amount of people who’ve hit exactly the wall I hit with retail options, who understand completely why making your own is better, and who simply don’t have the time or inclination to do it themselves. I didn’t build Batch and Bubble for them, but I’m not sure ignoring them is the principled stand I originally thought it was. If manufacturing ever becomes a real option, it would be genuinely accidental. The goal was always to make better products accessible, and if that means sometimes making them for people rather than just showing them how then I can live with that. The recipes stay free either way.

If you’re ready to start, the beginner shampoo bar recipe is the place. Everything you need is there, including what went wrong on my first batch and how I fixed it.

Written by Neets at Batch and Bubble
DIY personal bathroom care recipes for real life.
www.batchandbubble.com