Starting Your Own Body Wash Brand
Starting your own body wash brand has never been easier. Here is a guide explaining what a body wash base is, how to work with it, marketing tips, and a basic recipe to get you started. Find a wide range of bases, fragrances, extracts, and bottles on our website.
What is a body wash base?
A body wash base is a pre-formulated liquid soap that can be customized and used as a shower gel, body wash, hand wash, or bath gel. Formulation can cost thousands of dollars, making entry difficult for a small business. So using a body wash base can help you get started quicker, bringing your brand vision to life.
Since 1999, Essentials by Catalina has been in the industry and works tirelessly to be the best manufacturing partner our customers, both big and small, can depend on. We offer a full range of tried-and-true formulas to fit the needs of just about any brand. We manufacture all of our bases in our California facility using domestic and imported ingredients. We also use third-party testing to ensure you get a quality product.
Types of Body Wash Bases
- Clear Body Wash Base: Clear body washes are great for adding color. We offer basic formulas like our Multi Function Liquid Glycerin Base, or more high-end formulas like our Purely Mild Sulfate Free Wash Base. When mixing in the color and fragrance, it may look cloudy. After letting it settle, the final product should look crystal clear.
- Milk Body Wash Base: We offer wash bases that contain Goat’s Milk, like our Purely Mild Goat’s Milk Sulfate Free Wash Base, or Organic Coconut Milk, like our Creamy Milk Face & Body Wash Base. These have a more milky pearlescent look. Making great products for farms or holistic brands.
- Solid Body Wash Base: For a textural experience, our Foaming Bath Whip Base is a sudsy, fluffy treat for the bath or shower. It takes color, fragrance, and exfoliates well. All you have to do is whip it in a stand mixer or handheld mixer.
- Suspending Body Wash Base: A suspension body wash base, like our Suspension Shower Gel Base, has a suspending agent that makes things like glitter, poppy seeds, Mica, and other ingredients suspend evenly throughout the base. Without the suspending agent, the additive would sink to the bottom of the container.
Marketing Tips For a Body Wash
Making your dream body wash brand become a reality can be daunting; there are so many things to think about. Product line up, fragrance, Market demographic, and distribution channels. Here are some marketing tips to point you in the right direction.
- Product Line: Starting off with a body wash is great; however, it is wise to have a companion product, such as a body lotion or body scrub. Starting small with one or two products is the way most businesses debut their brand. And you can make multiple 4 or 8-ounce bottle scents with one gallon of product.
- Fragrance: What will be your signature fragrance? There are so many fragrance oils and essential oils to choose from. Think about what fragrance will best represent your brand. Hobby farms and agrotourism do well with lavender-scented products. While spa and luxury brands tend to lean more towards fresh, clean fragrances.
- Market demographic & distribution channels: We’ll group these two topics together since they go hand in hand. Think to yourself, who will be buying your product? A health-conscious shopper looking for clean ingredients? Is it a younger shopper who leans more towards gourmand fragrances? And where will you be selling your product? farmers market? tourist town? tiktok shop? purely online? These are all questions you have to ask yourself when building a brand.
- Usage and pricing: Body wash is a product that gets used daily by most consumers. So offering a body wash satisfies a great portion of the population. Pricing will depend on the size and additves you incorporate to the base. Here’s our Cost and Profit Calculator to help with pricing and profit margins.
- Wording: Body wash vs shower gel. Check out this Google Trends graph; it shows that more people search for body wash than they do shower gel. This is important when listing your product online because it will play a heavy part in how many people will see your listing.
Basic Body Wash Recipe To Get You Started
The recommended scent load for a body wash is 1% fragrance by weight. Use our calculators to find out how much product you need, the cost of the product, and more cosmetic-related calculations. Here is an example of a body wash using our luxurious Shower gel base, scented at 1% with Creamy Coconut Vanilla fragrance oil. Customizing a body wash is one of the quickest and easiest bases to work with.
You can most certainly add color to this recipe. However, make sure it is water-soluble and cosmetic grade.
You will need:
- 1 gallon of Luxurious Bath & Shower Gel Base.
- 8-ounce bottle of Creamy Coconut Vanilla Fragrance Oil.
*Note: You will only need 1.29 Ounces of the fragrance oil, so you can use the rest for scenting other products in the future.
Other Materials Needed to Mix Body Wash Base
- A large stainless steel bowl
- Silicone Spatula
- Plastic Funnel
- Spray Bottle with alcohol
- Paper towels
- Digital scale *Must measure pounds, ounces, and grams*
- Gallon pump
- Bottles and caps of your choice
How to Mix Body Wash Base
- First, spray down your bowl and spatula with alcohol, then wipe them down with a paper towel.
- Place the bowl on the scale and press the tare button, ensuring it reads 0.
- Open the gallon of body wash base and empty out 8 pounds into the bowl. It should be the whole gallon. Set aside the gallon.
- Press tare again and slowly add 1.29 ounces by weight to the bowl with the base. You can add drops of colorant if you want to at this time.
- Slowly mix the base and fragrance for a couple of minutes or until everything is one consistency.
- Carefully pour the mixed base back into the emptied gallon with the assistance of the plastic funnel. Leave about an inch and a half from the top to leave space for the gallon pump.
- Once the base is in the gallon, insert the gallon pump, screwing it in securely.
- Fill your bottles and secure the lids, then they are ready to label. If there are air bubbles, let the product sit for an hour or so, the bubbles should go away. If there is a significant empty space in the bottles, simply top it off with more product from the gallon.
Closing Thoughts on Starting Your Own Body Wash Brand
When it comes to starting your own body wash or skincare brand, using a pre-formulated base is a quick and easy way to get a good-quality product on your shelves. When you purchase your body wash base from a manufacturer like Essentials by Catalina, you know you are getting the product directly from the manufacturer, with excellent quality control, third-party testing, and customer support. There are plenty of body wash bases to make your brand’s vision come to life. And knowing your goal demographic is critical when building your brand. Follow our blog for recipes, ingredient information, market news, and free calculators. Visit our website to browse all of our bases and fragrances to get you started on building your dream personal care brand.
Is shower gel the same as body wash?
Yes, both are liquid soaps that are used to cleanse the body.
What is a body wash base?
Body wash is a pre-formulated liquid soap used in the bath or shower that cleanses the skin. You can add fragrance, colorant, or extracts to make a custom product.
Can you add glitter to a body wash base?
Yes, you can add glitter to specially formulated body wash bases like Essentials by Catalina Suspension Body Wash Base. They must have a suspending agent so the glitter doesn’t sink to the bottom.
