Philippines Guide

Josephine is a simple homemaker with a husband and children. She once worked for the beauty soap industry and retired to pursue her dream: make and sell her own soap! She enrolled in a soap-making class in Technology and Livelihood Resource Center and in no time, started selling her soaps like hotcakes.

Her core market are her friends, family, and acquaintances. Her pool of customers steadily grew through referrals until customers would just come knocking at her house looking for her popular  herbal soaps.

Add to that the fact there are certain companies who buys her soaps with no labels then sell them using their own. “I have customer, I won’t mention the name, but that person is really popular right now because of my papaya soaps. Although she uses her own label. The soaps are being sold in leading supermarkets right now.

Her own label is called Dagta (Extract) Herbal Soap which comes in papaya, tawas-papaya, squalene (which she herself concocted and which provide the same effect as the squalene capsule form), guava (for feminine hygiene), and hair-grower soaps. Ther herbal soaps cost P65 per pack of 5 pieces (P13 each).

Together with her five assistants and her husband,  Josephine can make an average of 2,000 herbal soaps everyday.

“I was glad that customers liked my herbal soaps. They said it does well for their skin. It prevents itches and eliminates discoloration and other blemishes on their skin. I could say that my products are pure herbal because I only use pure coconut oil on making them. This is what differentiates my products from the rest of the herbal soaps in the market today.”

At present, Josephine’s soap business is doing well in the market. Her income has helped them a lot especially with her children’s education. She was also able to invest some of her earnings in vehicles and land.

“TLRC helped me a lot. I think the reason why other people weren’t successful in this field was probably because it wasn’t really meant for them. In this business, your product should have the best quality and you should take good care of your customers so that they will patronize your products and hopefully gain more customers in the end.”

Truly, quality is what makes a product lasts. And for Josephine, who’s been making herbal soaps for almost 10 years now, it is no wonder how her small home business stayed this long.

And as long as there are itches, blotches, and other skin problems to deal with, Josephine’s herbal soaps will always be here to save our face.