A sugar scrub business plan sets out the scrubs you'll make and who buys them, what a jar costs and sells for, the cosmetics rules that apply, and the first year month by month. Sugar scrubs are one of the cheapest skincare products to make: sugar, oil, a little fragrance, about a dollar of ingredients in an 8-ounce jar. They also fit beside body butter and soap, so they're the easiest product to add to a skincare line. One thing to plan around is the shower: a scrub that's dry in the jar gets wet fingers dipped into it, which is a preservation question to settle with a formulator. In the example below, a skincare maker on Oʻahu sells scrubs direct and wholesale, lip scrubs and gift trios, makes a profit from the first month, and ends the year about $30,200 ahead on $53,900 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the making. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the formula and the claims, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: the scrubs, where you sell, the workspace, the goals.
- Cost a jar with your time in it: the jar and the time cost more than the sugar and oil.
- Price direct and wholesale separately, and add a lip scrub at the till.
- Build gift sets from products you already make: scrub, body butter, soap.
- Water gets into scrubs in the shower; ask a formulator about preservation.
- Keep claims to exfoliating and softening; "treats acne" or "heals eczema" makes it a drug.
- TaroStack keeps formulas, ingredient lots and every batch together. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Hoʻola Botanicals, a made-up skincare maker in Kailua, Oʻahu, I use in these examples, writes:
Hoʻola Botanicals makes whipped body butter, lotion, cold process soap and bath bombs, and now sugar scrubs and lip scrubs, in small batches sold at markets, online and wholesale to boutiques and spas, with gift trios for the holidays. Every jar carries a batch code and a way to reach us. In our first year of scrubs we plan to supply 12 boutiques and spas.
Part 2: what a jar costs
| Per unit | Sugar scrub, direct | Sugar scrub, wholesale | Lip scrub, 0.5 oz tin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugar, oils, emulsifier, fragrance, preservative | $1.00 | $1.00 | $0.15 |
| Jar and lid, or tin | $0.70 | $0.70 | $0.45 |
| Label | $0.15 | $0.15 | $0.10 |
| Making and filling, at $20 an hour | $1.00 | $1.00 | $0.50 |
| Card fee, 3% | $0.48 | $0.24 | |
| Case share | $0.10 | ||
| Variable cost | $3.33 | $2.95 | $1.44 |
The gift trio, a scrub, a 4-ounce whipped body butter and a bar of soap in a gift box, costs $14.61: $2.85 for the scrub, $3.52 for the body butter with its $1.67 of ingredients, $4.10 for the soap, $2.00 for the box, a dollar of assembly and the card fee. How a formula turns into a cost per jar is in how to calculate cost per ounce.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | A month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sugar scrub, 8 oz jar, direct | $16.00 | $3.33 | $12.67 | 79.2% | 200 |
| Sugar scrub, 8 oz jar, wholesale | $8.00 | $2.95 | $5.05 | 63.1% | 250 |
| Lip scrub, 0.5 oz tin | $8.00 | $1.44 | $6.56 | 82.0% | 150 |
| Gift trio: scrub, body butter, soap | $38.00 | $14.61 | $23.39 | 61.6% | 40 |
A wholesale jar leaves $5.05, less than half a direct one, but boutiques and spas sell scrubs to customers who come back for them. The lip scrub is the add-on: a small tin at the till that leaves $6.56. How to set a wholesale price a shop will accept is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Part 4: the formula and the claims
A plain sugar-and-oil scrub has no water in the jar, but it's used in the shower, so water and fingers get in, and water is what lets mold and bacteria grow. Whether to add a preservative, and which, is a question for your formulator, and the answer belongs in the product's safety records. Emulsified scrubs, which rinse off without leaving the tub slippery, have their own formulation questions. Keep the claims to what a scrub does to skin's appearance, exfoliating, smoothing, softening; a scrub that claims to treat acne or eczema is a drug. Under MoCRA, a small business is excused from facility registration and product listing but not from adverse event reporting and records, or from keeping safety records, and labels need a US address, phone number or website. What counts as small is in MoCRA for small businesses. This is general information, not legal advice.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $725 a month: a studio share ($200), market fees ($200), marketing and samples ($200), insurance ($50), the website and online shop ($40), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:
| Month | Scrubs, direct | Scrubs, wholesale | Lip scrubs | Gift trios | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30 | 38 | 23 | 6 | $1,196 | $138 | $138 |
| 2 | 40 | 50 | 30 | 8 | $1,584 | $418 | $556 |
| 3 | 50 | 63 | 38 | 10 | $1,988 | $710 | $1,266 |
| 4 | 60 | 75 | 45 | 12 | $2,376 | $990 | $2,256 |
| 5 | 80 | 100 | 60 | 16 | $3,168 | $1,561 | $3,818 |
| 6 | 100 | 125 | 75 | 20 | $3,960 | $2,133 | $5,951 |
| 7 | 120 | 150 | 90 | 24 | $4,752 | $2,705 | $8,655 |
| 8 | 140 | 175 | 105 | 28 | $5,544 | $3,276 | $11,932 |
| 9 | 160 | 200 | 120 | 32 | $6,336 | $3,848 | $15,779 |
| 10 | 180 | 225 | 135 | 36 | $7,128 | $4,419 | $20,199 |
| 11 | 200 | 250 | 150 | 40 | $7,920 | $4,991 | $25,190 |
| 12 | 200 | 250 | 150 | 40 | $7,920 | $4,991 | $30,181 |
The year's sales are $53,872 and the profit $30,181, on top of $20 an hour for the making. As in the other skincare plans here, the margins are the easy part and the 640 units a month are the work.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Mixer and tools | $300 |
| Scale | $80 |
| Ingredients, first order | $400 |
| Jars and tins, first order | $700 |
| Label design | $350 |
| Safety review by a cosmetic chemist | $300 |
| Market tent and display | $450 |
| Website | $200 |
| Working cash | $1,500 |
| Total to start | $4,280 |
Get the template
Download the sugar scrub business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Scrubs, body butters, soaps and bath bombs share oils, fragrances and jars, and gift trios draw on all three. A notebook can't say which batch of coconut oil went into which scrub, whether there are enough jars for the holiday trios, or what a scrub costs now that sugar and jars have gone up.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the formula, the lots and the batches together.
Formulas with versions. Each scrub is a recipe with versions, every ingredient by weight, and units convert: oil bought by the gallon, weighed by the gram. A change to the formula is a new version, and every batch records which one it was made to.
Batches with their lots. Recording a batch takes the ingredients, jars and labels off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and notes the lots automatically. One report goes from a jar's code to its batch, its ingredient lots and every customer who got jars from it.
And the gift trios. A gift trio is a recipe of the finished scrub, body butter and soap, so assembling trios takes them off stock. The reorder list works in days of cover so jars arrive before the holidays, and margins are reported by product and by customer.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which oil lot is in this scrub? | Maybe in the notebook | The batch's lots |
| Jars for the holiday trios | Found short | The reorder list, in days |
| What a scrub costs now | Last year's number | Every batch, at what you paid |
| Boutiques or markets, which pays? | A feeling | Margins by customer |
Recipes, batches, lots, recalls and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.