How much time it actually takes

Making is fast. Everything around it is not.

The batch is the short part

Weigh, dissolve, adjust, check: an afternoon for a batch that fills a hundred bottles or more.

No cure, no set, no fermentation. Of all the crafts in this estate this is the quickest from raw material to sellable product.

Where the hours go

Filling, capping, sealing and labeling, which is per unit and exceeds the making.

Cleaning down, which has to happen between products and cannot be deferred.

Documentation: batch records, safety data sheets, ingredient disclosure pages, and keeping the label content current.

Compliance reading, which is genuinely an ongoing task in this category because there are several regimes and they move.

Stability testing is calendar time

Not work, and it decides the schedule.

Container compatibility takes three months minimum to say anything useful. Freeze-thaw takes weeks. Fragrance stability takes months.

Which means a new product is a three-to-six month project even though the batch is an afternoon, and launching before the data is a decision to find out in the market.

A realistic week

One making session of a few hours.

A separate filling and labeling session, longer.

An hour on records and on whatever compliance question is currently open.

And the stability samples sitting on a shelf doing the work that actually takes the time.

References