How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Career

Early batches were “a mess,” Ms. Dangerfield said, “oil was floating on the top, it never really hardened.” With practice, she mastered the craft. Not only did it seem to help alleviate her children’s dry skin, she said, but, back home in Alabama, it became her escape and a way to decompress after completing her delivery routes.

“It was so relaxing to go into my soap room at night,” she said.

She made soaps for family and friends, and when the pandemic hit, they persuaded her to sell them online. Before long, Ms. Dangerfield had converted her dining room into a studio cluttered with jugs of oils, mixing bowls and packing materials. And she began selling confection-like blackberry and vanilla soap, cedar-scented body butter and coconut oil sugar scrubs on her Etsy shop, We Made It Soap Co.

It took months to gain traction. She now fills more than 30 orders a month for whimsical products like pheromones-activated charcoal soap ($7), coffee-whipped sugar scrub ($8) and black raspberry vanilla whipped body butter ($9). A sorority at the University of Illinois recently ordered 70 self-care gift sets featuring soap and bubble bath. She recently shipped a ten-unit order.

Only problem? Ms. Dangerfield needs a new creative outlet to unwind after a busy day. Lately, she’s been crocheting. “Maybe that will be my next career,” she said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/style/turn-hobby-into-career-pandemic.html