When you first start to make soap for your business chances are your funds are limited so you will want to be extra careful not to spend too much money in one area of your business only to find that you are short on resources for another area. One place where money can disappear very quickly is money spent on fragrance oils and essential oils. I suggest you just go with tried and true fragrances that are not too exotic when you are starting. You can branch out to new fragrances after you start to generate some cash flow. There are many "best seller" lists on vendor websites which will help you get started buying "must haves" such as lavender, vanilla and citrus fragrances. The other tip I have is to try and buy your base oils, like coconut oil, locally to save on shipping. Most of the superstores now carry coconut oil and other soap making oils at great pricing that can really help your budget. The only area I would try to buy some bulk supplies is in caustic soda. Bulk purchases can save significant sums of money as you are most like going to have to pay for shipping anyway. Spreading that cost over many more pounds of product can really drive down your per unit soap price and allow cheaper pricing for your products. Happy soaping.