Turning a recipe into a product
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Recipes for homemade cleaners circulate widely, and the distance from one to a product is larger here than anywhere else in this estate.
A recipe is not a formula
A recipe says "a squirt of washing-up liquid and some vinegar".
A formula says which surfactant, at what active percentage, from which supplier, at what pH, with what preservative at what level, in deionized water, in a stated order of addition.
And the internet recipes have a particular problem: several of the popular ones combine things that neutralize each other, and a few combine things that should never be combined at all.
What a product has
A formula in percentages of the finished product, with supplier and grade per line.
A process: order of addition, mixing, temperatures, pH target and tolerance.
A specification: pH, viscosity, appearance, odor, each with a tolerance.
Stability data: container compatibility, freeze-thaw, warm storage, and a preservative challenge test.
A label that is compliant, including cautionary labeling if the formula needs it.
A safety data sheet, if it goes to a workplace.
A recipe has a fraction of the first.
The tests a recipe never gets
Three months in the actual bottle, weighed.
Freeze-thaw cycles.
A challenge test, which is the only way to know the preservative works.
A staining test on the surfaces the customer will use it on.
And a check of the finished concentrations against the child-resistant packaging thresholds.
What you end up with
A document, not a bottle: formula, process, specification, stability data, label copy, SDS and the supplier for each material.
That document is what scales, what a co-packer can be quoted from, and what answers a buyer who asks how you know it works.