How to Sell Lotion From Home (Step-by-Step)

You made a batch of lotion for yourself, gave a few bottles to friends, and now the same friends are asking when they can buy more. Or you already sell bread, eggs or honey at a farmers market, and lotion looks like a natural second product for the same table.

Both are good starting points. Lotion is cheap to make, people use it up and come back, and it sits well next to soap, honey and baked goods. It also has more rules than a loaf of bread, because the government treats it as a cosmetic, and it can grow mold in the bottle if you skip one ingredient. This guide covers both halves: how to make a lotion that is safe to sell, and how to label it, price it, sell it and take reorders without living in your messages.

Can You Sell Homemade Lotion From Home?

Yes, you can sell homemade lotion from home in the US, because FDA's fact sheet for small businesses says plainly, "It's not against the law to manufacture cosmetics in your home." Lotion counts as a cosmetic. FDA lists "skin moisturizers" by name among the products the cosmetic definition covers, so the rules that apply are cosmetic rules, not food rules. A home vendor making products like body lotion stays clear of FDA registration paperwork until US cosmetic sales average $1,000,000 a year over three years, adjusted for inflation.

That matters if you already sell food. Cottage food laws let you sell low-risk foods like cookies and jam from a home kitchen, and they do not cover anything you put on skin. Our guide on whether you can sell homemade soap walks through the same split for soap, which can land under different rules than lotion depending on how it is made and what the label says. If you are adding body care to a food table, the guide on selling soap, candles and other non-food products at farmers markets covers how those products fit into a market booth.

Here is what being a cosmetic means in practice:

• No federal license or approval. FDA does not approve cosmetics before they go on sale, with the exception of color additives, and it does not license cosmetic businesses.
• You are responsible for safety. FDA's homemade cosmetics fact sheet says the business that makes or sells it is legally responsible for making sure the product is safe and properly labeled.
• Your label follows federal rules. Name, amount, ingredients, address and a contact for reaction reports, covered in the label section below.
• Your state may add its own rules. FDA tells small businesses to contact state and local authorities. Florida and Missouri are two examples further down.

Should You Start With a Pumped Lotion or a Waterless Lotion Bar?

Start with a waterless lotion bar or body butter if you want the simplest first product, and move to a pumped lotion once you are ready to buy a preservative and watch every batch. The difference is water. A pumped lotion is roughly two thirds water held together with an emulsifier, and water is what mold and bacteria need to grow. A lotion bar is just oils, butters and wax, so there is nothing for microbes to live in.

Swipe the table to compare both product types.

The preservative and rancidity rows follow Humblebee and Me's preservatives FAQ, read October 8, 2026. The equipment, feel and heat rows are general guidance, not a test result.

You can sell both. The bar is the gentle first step, and the bottle is what many regulars actually want on the bathroom sink.

Why Does a Water-Based Lotion Need a Preservative?

A water-based lotion needs a broad-spectrum preservative because water lets mold, yeast and bacteria grow, and a bottle that gets a hand or a pump in it every day will be contaminated over time. Marie at Humblebee and Me puts it bluntly in her guide to when a recipe needs a preservative: "You MUST add a broad-spectrum preservative to recipes that include water." She adds that things with water are "probably only good for a day or two" without one.

"Broad-spectrum" means it fights bacteria, yeast and mold, not just one of them. A few things that do not count:

• Vitamin E, rosemary extract and grapefruit seed extract. These slow oils from going rancid. Humblebee and Me notes they "are not preservatives" and do nothing against microbes in a water-based product.
• Essential oils. A scent is not a preservative system.
• The fridge. Your customer's bottle lives on a counter for weeks.

FDA's fact sheet sets the bar: cosmetics "do not have to be sterile, but they must not contain any harmful microorganisms, and the number of aerobic microorganisms per gram must be low." The preservative is how a home vendor meets that bar, and it is a small share of the batch: 1% of the formula below, about 2.3 grams and 21 cents in an 8 ounce bottle.

What Is a Simple First Lotion Formula?

A simple first lotion is about two thirds water, one fifth oil and butter, and the rest emulsifier, thickener and preservative. The cost math below uses the beginner formula from the formulating blog Swift Crafty Monkey, with one preservative option from her list:

• 66.5% distilled water (her formula lists 67% water with 0.5% preservative; we use 1% Optiphen Plus, so water drops to 66.5% to keep the total at 100%)
• 3% glycerin, which pulls moisture into the skin
• 15% liquid oil, here high oleic sunflower oil
• 5% butter, here unrefined shea butter
• 3% cetyl alcohol, a thickener (a fatty alcohol, not drinking alcohol)
• 6% emulsifying wax, which holds the water and oil together; she names Polawax or BTMS-50, and the cost table prices Lotioncrafter's BTMS-50
• 0.5% fragrance oil, optional
• 1% Optiphen Plus, the preservative

She warns that changing the preservative or the emulsifier changes how the lotion has to be made. Optiphen Plus at 1% and BTMS-50 are both on her own lists, so follow her formula exactly before you change anything. Every percentage is by weight, which is why a kitchen scale that reads in grams matters more than any other tool. The making process, in short:

• Weigh both phases. Water and glycerin go in one heat-safe container, the oil, butter, cetyl alcohol and emulsifying wax in another.
• Heat and hold. Swift Crafty Monkey heats both containers to 73°C (163.4°F) in a double boiler and holds them there for 20 minutes.
• Top up the water. After the hold, put the water phase back on the scale and add hot distilled water until it weighs what it did before heating, since some steams off in the double boiler. Write that starting weight down, container and all, when you weigh the phase in the first step.
• Blend. Pour the oil phase into the water phase and mix with a stick blender for a few minutes, then blend again every few minutes with the stick blender or a hand mixer as it cools. Do not mix it by hand with a spoon or whisk, which risks the lotion separating later.
• Add the cool-down ingredients. At 45°C (113°F) she adds fragrance and preservative straight into the lotion, weighed on the scale so none is lost in a measuring cup.
• Bottle and record. Fill the bottles, label them, and write the batch date and weights in a notebook.

Make a small test batch of 100 to 200 grams before you make a dozen bottles. At the prices in the next table, a failed 200 gram batch costs about $2 in ingredients.

What Does One 8 Ounce Bottle Cost to Make?

One 8 ounce bottle of the lotion above cost $3.18 to make at supplier prices we loaded on October 8, 2026: $2.28 in ingredients and $0.90 for a bottle with a pump. We figured 227 grams of lotion per bottle (8 ounces by weight) and the price of the 1 pound size of most ingredients (20 ounces for the glycerin).

Scroll sideways for the price and cost columns.

Prices loaded October 8, 2026: ingredients from Lotioncrafter except the fragrance (Nurture Handmade's Pumpkin Spice, formerly Nurture Soap), the bottle set from Wholesale Supplies Plus (8 oz clear Boston round with a saddle pump), and distilled water from the Instacart product page for Walmart's Great Value gallon, loaded that day at $1.54. Rows are rounded to the cent; the total is figured before rounding. Labels, shipping on supplies and your time are not included.

Two numbers matter more than the per-bottle cost. Buying one pack of each ingredient plus a dozen bottle sets came to $141.57 before shipping, and a 12-bottle batch uses about $38.18 of that. The oil and the bottles run out after that first batch, so you rebuy them every time. The glycerin, shea butter, cetyl alcohol, BTMS-50, fragrance and preservative each cover close to three batches or more, and the gallon of water covers about two. The biggest ingredient line is the oil at 78 cents, just under the 90 cent bottle, while the preservative runs about 21 cents a bottle and is the one line you never cut.

What Do Small Shops Charge for 8 Ounces of Lotion?

Small US farm and soap shops charged between $7.00 and $20.00 for an 8 ounce lotion on October 8, 2026. The middle price of the nine we checked was $14.00. All nine sell goat milk lotion, because that is what came up when we searched for small farm shops selling their own lotion, and every price came off the shop's own product page.

Slide right to see each shop's price.

Each price was read from the shop's own product page on October 8, 2026, for an 8 ounce bottle that was in stock. Prices change; check before you copy one.

Seven of the nine sit between $12 and $15. The $7 bottle is the outlier on the low side, and the $20 bottle comes in a glass pump bottle with a 16 ounce size beside it at $35.

How Should You Set Your Lotion Price?

Set your lotion price from your own cost first, then check it against what shops near you charge. The nine shop prices above are for goat milk lotion, not a plain water, oil and shea lotion like the one costed here, so check what plain lotions sell for near you too. At a $3.18 cost, an 8 ounce bottle priced at $14 leaves $10.82 before selling fees, a 77% margin, which gives you room for labels, the booth fee and your time. Here is how the cost compares at three prices:

• $12 a bottle: $8.82 left before selling fees, about 74% of the price.
• $14 a bottle: $10.82 left, about 77%.
• $20 a bottle: $16.82 left, about 84%, but you need a reason a customer will see, like a glass bottle or a scent nobody else carries.

A margin that looks big on one bottle shrinks fast. As an example, a $60 booth fee takes the margin from five or six bottles at $14 ($60 divided by $10.82 is about 5.5), so a slow market can wipe out a day. Count that in before you settle on a price, and do not price to beat the cheapest shop on the table above.

A few pricing habits that work well for lotion:

• Sell a small size. A 2 ounce bottle lets a new customer try a scent without committing to a full bottle.
• Price scents the same. One price per size keeps the booth sign simple and stops people from shopping by price instead of smell.
• Offer a set. A lotion plus a bar of soap or a lip balm makes an easy gift in November and December.

What Has to Be on a Homemade Lotion Label?

A homemade lotion label needs five things: what the product is, how much is in it, the ingredients from most to least, your name and place of business, and a contact where customers can report a bad reaction. FDA's cosmetics labeling guide spells out the first four, and the 2022 federal cosmetics law adds the fifth:

• What it is. The identity statement, like "Hand and Body Lotion," goes on the front panel.
• How much. The net contents go in the bottom 30% of the front panel. FDA's guide says liquids are labeled by fluid measure and solid, semi-solid or viscous products by weight, unless there is a firmly established trade custom. A thick body butter is labeled "Net wt. 4 oz."
• Ingredients, most to least. The list runs in descending order by amount. Anything at 1% or less can go in any order after the rest, and scents can be listed simply as "fragrance" for now. The 2022 federal cosmetics law tells FDA to set fragrance allergen labeling rules, so check FDA's page on that law before a large label order.
• Who made it. Your name and place of business with street address, city, state and ZIP. FDA lets you leave off the street address if your business is listed in a current city or telephone directory. FDA's fact sheet says "A post office box or website address is not adequate for this labeling requirement."
• A contact for reaction reports. Under 21 U.S.C. 364e, every cosmetic label must carry a US address, a US phone number or electronic contact information, which can be a website, where you can receive reports of bad reactions. This applies to small businesses too.
• Any needed warning. If a warning is needed to prevent a health hazard, it goes in bold type at least 1/16 inch tall.

Two words to handle carefully. FDA has not defined "natural" for cosmetics, and its fact sheet says not to use words like "natural" inside the ingredient list, since each ingredient goes by its common or usual name. FDA has no rule for "organic" on cosmetics either; its fact sheet says USDA governs that word for agricultural products under the National Organic Program. Use the plain name, like "shea butter," not "natural shea butter." If you want the word "organic" anywhere on the label, USDA's National Organic Program sets the rules (see its fact sheet on organic cosmetics), so check them before you print.

If you do not want your home address on every bottle, the fix is a real business address, not a P.O. box. FDA also accepts a label without the street line when a current city or phone directory carries your business, but a P.O. box or website alone is not enough.

Which Lotion Claims Turn It Into a Drug?

Any claim that your lotion treats, cures or prevents a condition, or changes how the body works, turns it into a drug in FDA's eyes, no matter what is in the bottle. FDA's page on whether a product is a cosmetic, a drug or both says intended use decides it, and that intended use comes from "claims stated on the product labeling, in advertising, on the Internet, or in other promotional materials." Your Instagram captions and listing descriptions count.

Claims that cross the line on lotion:

• Skin conditions. "Heals eczema," "treats psoriasis," "clears acne."
• Sun protection. FDA says moisturizers "marketed with sun-protection claims are cosmetic/drug products." Even "SPF 15" on the front of a $14 bottle puts it under drug rules.
• Body changes. FDA's examples include claims to "reduce cellulite" or "regenerate cells."
• Aromatherapy promises. A scent marketed to help someone sleep is a drug claim, and so is a massage product sold to relieve muscle pain.

Words that stay on the cosmetic side describe how the lotion looks, smells and feels: moisturizes dry skin, softens, smells like lavender, absorbs quickly. "Moisturizing" is fine, because FDA lists skin moisturizers among the products the cosmetic definition covers. When a regular tells you your lotion helped her eczema, thank her in person and leave it off the label and the post.

What Does the 2022 Federal Cosmetics Law Ask of a Small Lotion Vendor?

The 2022 federal cosmetics law, called the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act or MoCRA, lets most small lotion vendors skip FDA registration, product listing and the coming manufacturing rules, but it does not let them skip safety records or reporting serious reactions. The small business line in the law is average US cosmetic sales under $1,000,000 a year over the previous three years, adjusted for inflation, according to the text of 21 U.S.C. 364h.

What a kitchen-table lotion vendor under that line still owes:

• Safety substantiation. FDA's fact sheet says the business named on the label must have adequate evidence that the product is safe and keep records of it. Supplier safety data and published ingredient reviews can support it, and animal testing is not required.
• Serious adverse event reports. If someone reports a serious reaction, you send it to FDA within 15 business days, with a copy of the label, according to FDA's MoCRA page.
• A correct label. Everything in the label section above applies at any size.
• Safe products. The exemption covers paperwork, not safety. Lotions still cannot be adulterated or misbranded.

What you can skip while you stay under the line: registering your kitchen with FDA, listing each product with FDA, and the manufacturing practice rules FDA is still writing. The exemption does not apply to a few product types, like products that regularly come into contact with the mucus membrane of the eye, so a body lotion is fine but an eye product needs a closer look.

Do You Need a State Permit to Sell Lotion?

Whether you need a state permit depends on your state, and FDA's own advice is to contact your state and local authorities before you sell. Two states show how far apart the rules can be: one has a permit with a $25,000 exemption line, and one lets home lotion sell at farmers markets as long as it is not adulterated or misbranded and makes no health claims.

Outside the cosmetic rules, the usual small-business steps still apply in most places:

• A local business license from your city or county, if your area requires one for home businesses.
• Sales tax. Check whether your state taxes lotion and whether you need to register to collect it.
• Your farmers market's own rules, which may ask for product liability insurance, a list of ingredients or proof of your state's permit.

Our guide to selling homemade sugar scrub covers which states add their own permit for another body care product, and much of it carries over to lotion.

How Do You Check a Batch Before It Goes on the Table?

Check every batch by keeping a sample from it, watching that sample for changes, and writing down exactly what went in. Humblebee and Me's list of spoilage signs is a good checklist: changes in color, scent or texture, visible mold, or separation. Any one of those means the batch does not get sold, even if it is 12 bottles and $38 of supplies.

A simple batch routine for a home lotion vendor:

1. Sanitize first. Clean and sanitize every container, spatula and blender part before you weigh anything.
2. Weigh everything in grams. Write each ingredient and its weight in a batch notebook.
3. Give each batch a code. A date code like 1008A on the bottom of each bottle ties a bottle back to its notebook page.
4. Keep one bottle back. Leave a retained sample from each batch on your shelf and look at it every week.
5. Pull a batch at the first sign of trouble. If the retained bottle changes, contact anyone who bought from that batch.

Looking only tells you so much. A retained bottle that still looks and smells right can catch spoilage you can see, but it cannot prove the preservative is working against microbes you cannot see. That notebook is also part of your safety record under the 2022 law. If a customer ever reports a reaction, you can show exactly what was in the bottle, where each ingredient came from and when it was made.

Some lotion vendors also pay a lab for a preservative challenge test, which adds bacteria, yeast and mold to a sample to prove the preservative kills them. FDA's fact sheet says it "does not require specific tests" for individual products, but a challenge test is the strongest answer to "how do you know it is safe?" once you settle on a formula you plan to sell for years.

Where Can You Sell Homemade Lotion?

You can sell homemade lotion anywhere you sell in person or online, as long as the label and claims follow the rules above. Pick 2 or 3 of these 5 places to start:

• Farmers markets. A booth lets people try a scent on their hands before they pay $14 for a bottle, which sells lotion better than any photo. Check the market's rules for non-food products first.
• Craft fairs and holiday markets. Fewer days, bigger crowds and gift shoppers. The comparison of craft fairs and farmers markets breaks down which shoppers each one draws, and gift-ready items like a lotion and soap set usually lean craft fair.
• Your own storefront link. Regulars reorder their scent between market days and pick up at your porch or booth.
• Etsy. Strangers can find you in search, but you ship every order and pay Etsy's fees on each one.
• Local shops. Gift shops, salons and boutiques buy at wholesale or take lotion on consignment. The guide on where to sell soap covers both setups, and the math is the same for a bottle of lotion.

If you already sell beeswax candles or lip balm, a lotion bar uses the same wax and the same booth, and the guide to selling beeswax products at the farmers market covers pricing the candles, lip balm and salves that share that wax.

How Do Regulars Reorder Lotion Without Messaging You?

Regulars can reorder lotion through one storefront link that lists every scent and size with a price, takes payment, and tells you which bottles to fill before pickup day. Lotion is a refill product. A customer who loves your lavender bottle comes back when it runs out, and the vendor who makes reordering easy keeps that customer.

Homegrown is a storefront built for that kind of local reorder, at $10 a month billed annually ($12.50 monthly) with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing. You list each lotion once with its scents and sizes as variants, each with its own price, and the ingredients on the listing, which suits a product where shoppers ask what is in it. Customers pay when they order, then pick up at your porch, your farmstand or your market booth, or you deliver within a radius you set. Sales tax is calculated at checkout and filed for you, and that matters here because lotion is not a grocery product.

Compare that to the usual alternatives:

• Instagram or Facebook messages. Free, but you track scents, sizes and payments across a dozen threads, and nothing stops two people from claiming the last bottle.
• Etsy. Built for shipping to strangers. On a two-bottle, $28 order Etsy takes about $3.31 in listing, transaction and processing fees before shipping, against $1.11 in card processing on Homegrown, plus its $10 a month plan billed annually.
• Square Online's free plan. A real option at $0 a month. Its 3.3% + 30 cent online rate costs less than Homegrown's plan until you pass about 90 orders a month, on $28 orders against the annual plan.

What Homegrown does not do: it does not help you formulate, test or label your lotion, and it is built for pickup and local delivery, so a vendor who mostly ships across the country is better served by Etsy or Shopify. It has no drops or countdown release feature for launching a new scent at a set time. Customers create a Homegrown account to place their first order. Your storefront is listed on the Homegrown marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from regulars you send to your own link. Card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 is paid by you, not added to the customer's total.

If your lotion regulars are already texting you for refills, set up a storefront for your lotion on Homegrown and send them one link with every scent on it.

What Does Each Way of Taking Orders Cost on a $28 Lotion Order?

On a $28 order of two $14 bottles, you pay about $0.63 to $0.73 with a Venmo business profile (the higher figure with Tap to Pay), $0.88 on a Square card reader at your booth, $1.11 on Homegrown, $1.11 to $1.28 on Shopify, $1.22 on Square's free online store and $3.31 on Etsy before shipping. Monthly plans change the picture at 50 orders a month.

Scroll sideways to see every column.

We checked every fee on each company's own pricing page on October 8, 2026 (Etsy's listing renewal rule is from its Fees and Payments Policy). Fees are figured on the $28 price before sales tax and shipping. Venmo and a card reader take payment, but they do not give customers a menu to order from ahead of pickup day. Square's Tap to Pay on your phone needs no extra hardware, so it costs nothing up front; a Square card reader is a one-time hardware purchase.

The honest read: cash, Venmo and a card reader are the cheapest ways to get paid in person, and Square's free online store is cheaper than Homegrown below about 90 orders a month, on $28 orders against the annual plan. Etsy costs the most per order, because a $0.20 listing renewal on every bottle and 6.5% on top of processing add up on a $14 product. The full breakdown of Etsy fees for small sellers shows how the Offsite Ads fee can push that higher.

Who Sells Lotion and Body Butter on Homegrown Right Now?

Six vendors listed lotion, cream, body butter or tallow balm on Homegrown in a pull of the catalog on October 8, 2026, across 11 listings priced from $7.00 to $34.00. Seven of the 11 name tallow, which is rendered beef fat, in the listing.

That last point is the useful one for a food vendor. Mothers Love Homestead in Georgia lists sourdough loaves, cookies and goat milk soap beside its tallow lotion and cream, and D&D Bees in Virginia lists honey, sourdough and granola beside a lotion bar and a face cream. Anyone who opens either storefront for bread sees the lotion on the same page. D&D Bees' face cream also names its preservative in the listing, which is the kind of detail that answers a careful shopper's first question.

The catalog also shows how few lotion vendors there are so far: 11 listings out of 2,907 products, from 6 of 313 vendors. If you already sell food and have a lotion your friends keep asking for, add it to a Homegrown storefront next to the products your regulars already buy.

What Mistakes Cost New Lotion Vendors the Most?

The mistakes that cost new lotion vendors the most are skipping the preservative, making a medical claim, and pricing below their real cost. Each one is easy to avoid once you know about it:

• No preservative, or the wrong one. Vitamin E and essential oils do not stop mold. A spoiled batch costs you the batch and the customer.
• Health claims in captions. "Great for eczema" in an Instagram post is a drug claim, even if the label is clean.
• A P.O. box on the label. FDA's fact sheet says a P.O. box or website is not an adequate address.
• Swapping ingredients mid-formula. Changing the emulsifier or preservative changes the process, so test a new version in a small batch first.
• Pricing from the cheapest shop. The $7 bottle on our list is the outlier; seven of the nine shops sat between $12 and $15.
• No batch records. Without a notebook, you cannot trace a bad bottle back to the batch it came from.
• Ignoring heat. Lotion bars and whipped butters soften in a hot car or a sunny booth, so keep them shaded at summer markets.

If you also sell herbal salves, use the claim and label rules in this article for them too, and the guide to selling herbal salves at the farmers market covers the rest of that product line.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a license to sell homemade lotion?

You do not need a federal license to sell homemade lotion, because FDA does not license cosmetic businesses or approve cosmetics before sale. Some states do require a permit. Florida requires a cosmetic manufacturer permit above $25,000 in annual gross sales, a line the statute does not limit to lotion sales, and does not issue it to homes, and a maker under that line must print "Made by a manufacturer exempt from Florida's cosmetic manufacturing permit requirements." on each unit in contrasting color and at least 10-point type. Check with your state and your city or county before your first sale.

Can I sell homemade lotion under my state's cottage food law?

No, cottage food laws cover low-risk foods, and lotion is a cosmetic regulated by the FDA. That means a cottage food permit for bread or jam does not cover lotion. Homemade lotion follows federal cosmetic rules for safety and labeling, plus any state rules for cosmetics.

How much should I charge for homemade lotion?

Seven of the nine goat milk lotion makers we checked, all small US shops, charged $12 to $15 for an 8 ounce homemade lotion on October 8, 2026, with $14 in the middle. A basic 8 ounce bottle costs about $3.18 to make in ingredients and a pump bottle at October 8, 2026 supplier prices. Price from your own cost first, then check local shops.

Does homemade lotion need a preservative?

Yes, any homemade lotion that contains water needs a broad-spectrum preservative that fights bacteria, yeast and mold. Vitamin E and rosemary extract are antioxidants, not preservatives. Waterless lotion bars and body butters do not need one as long as they stay dry.

What should a homemade lotion label say?

A homemade lotion label should say what the product is, the net amount, every ingredient listed largest amount first, your name with a street address, city, state and ZIP (the street can be skipped when a current city or phone directory lists your business), and a US address, phone number or website where customers can report a bad reaction. FDA does not accept a P.O. box or website as the business address. Leave out claims about treating skin conditions.

Can I sell goat milk lotion at a farmers market?

Yes, you can sell goat milk lotion at a farmers market if your state allows home-made cosmetics, the market accepts body care, and the lotion is labeled and free of health claims. Preserving it is the hard part: Humblebee and Me says recipes with lots of water-like ingredients are "harder (or in the case of milk, impossible) to preserve," so pick a preservative whose supplier data covers milk and get a lab challenge test on the finished lotion before you sell. Ask your market whether it needs insurance or a list of ingredients for body care products.

Related Reading

These 6 guides pick up where this one stops. The first two cover the rules for other body care products, the next two cover products that sell beside lotion at the same booth, and the last two cover where and how to sell once your bottles are ready:

• Can You Sell Homemade Soap? covers true soap versus cosmetic soap and what each label needs.
• Can You Sell Homemade Sugar Scrub? covers the cosmetic rules for another body care product, with state examples.
• How to Sell Goat Milk Soap and Dairy Products Locally covers a full goat milk product line, from soap to lotion bars.
• Can You Sell Homemade Lip Balm? covers a small add-on that often sits beside lotion on a body care table.
• Where to Sell Soap covers wholesale, consignment and markets for body care vendors.
• How to Sell Soap, Candles and Non-Food Products at Farmers Markets covers booth setup and pricing for non-food tables.

Start Selling Your Lotion

Start with one formula, one size and three scents, and get the preservative, label and batch notebook right before you make your first dozen bottles. A test batch of 100 to 200 grams tells you whether the formula works before you put about $38 of supplies into a full 12-bottle run.

Then line up the rest in this order:

• Check your state and city. Ask whether your state requires a cosmetic permit and whether your city needs a business license for a home business.
• Print a compliant label. Name, net amount, ingredients largest first, a street address (or skip the street if a city or phone directory lists your business), and a US phone number or address, or a website, where people can report a reaction.
• Price from your cost. At $3.18 a bottle, a $14 price leaves about $10.82 before fees.
• Pick one place to sell in person. A farmers market booth or a holiday fair where people can try a scent on their hands.

Once regulars start asking for refills, give them one link to reorder their scent and pick up on market day. Build your lotion storefront on Homegrown for $10 a month billed annually ($12.50 monthly) with no commission on your sales, and list each scent and size with its own price.