FAQ

Starlite is a small creative business dedicated to the teaching and production of products like cold process soaps, lotions & creams, soy and beeswax candles, liquid soap and several other products. 

We have been offering workshops since 2010 within The Good Planet Company, a Victoria, BC-based retail store. When we sold the store in 2016, we maintained workshops within Good Planet for a few years, and then moved to our current location in 2023.

We are located at 622 Courtney St in Victoria, BC, Canada. For more information, click here.

We want to hear from you! 

1. The best way is to use the “contact us” page on this website, or directly by email at hello (at) starlitesoapstudio.com  
2. We do not have a full-time phone answering employee, but you can text us anytime at 250 883 9414.  We will endeavour to respond within a couple of hours. 
3. There is a “chat with us” bubble on the website which, if not monitored, will alert us to email our response as soon as possible.

Please be patient - we try to respond to all enquiries as quickly as possible, but sometimes if we are elbow-deep in candle wax or soap batter, it might take a while to get back to you. If we are out of town or away from the internet, you will receive an auto-response to your email detailing our return date. 

All Starlite workshop reservations are made online at starlitesoapstudio.com. This ensures that we have exact numbers and will never experience duplicate bookings or overbookings. 

The system is telling you that although you requested four seats, there are only three seats left for booking in that event. Please try another date or event.

Please email us at hello@starlitesoapstudio.com with the details and we will do all possible to fix the error. 

All Starlite reservations are for one person only. We encourage you to bring along friends and family members, but every person in attendance requires a paid reservation. 

Starlite’s workshops are adult oriented, and often involve the use of potentially dangerous items such as knives, hot water, hot wax, or sodium hydroxide. In the past, younger children have become bored and/or disruptive which spoils the fun for other participants in the workshop. Our policy guideline states that participants should be at least sixteen years of age, however, we recognize that every child’s level of maturity and attention span will differ. If your child feels comfortable in the presence of other adults and can maintain their attention span for a full two-hour session, then we are more than happy to welcome them as a paid participant with an accompanying paid adult customer.
If you have younger children who are interested in joining a workshop, you might consider booking a private group workshop.  While the presence of a paid adult participant will be required for safety reasons, this is a good way to enjoy a family event without fear of upsetting other customers. 

We believe that Starlite workshops offer great value - you will leave the workshop with products equal to or greater than the price of the workshop, plus the entertainment value and all of the knowledge required to repeat the process at home. Therefore, we do not discount our workshops. Similar workshops in other cities will regularly sell for in excess of US$100. We believe that our current workshop price offers an unparalleled value and we are sure you will agree! 

Yes! The majority of Starlite’s workshops are for general signup by individuals. If it’s just you, or you and a couple of friends, you can easily sign up online at starlitesapstudio.com under the“BOOK A SEAT”heading. 
If you want to book a larger group of people and would like the studio and instructor all to yourself, then please click on the “BOOK A GROUP” heading. 

This is a great option if up to ten friends or family members want to get together for a fun morning, afternoon or evening of soap, candle or lotion making.  We make it very easy to book, and if you don’t want to pay for everyone, you simply send them the private booking link that we will create, so that they can pay their own way! 

We do not currently offer "offsite" workshops.

Our private group workshops are priced “per seat.” We are sorry, we do not offer any group discounts. However, having the workshop (and instructor) for yourself and your friends or family is always a ton of fun. 

Starlite Soap Studio is a small business located in British Columbia, Canada, and as a result, is obligated to collect and remit taxes to the provincial and federal governments. The current rate of PST is 7% and the current rate of GST is 5%. We do not have the authority to waive taxes.

Each gift certificate may be exchanged for one seat, so all you need to do is browse the available workshops and dates, book the seat you want, enter your personal details, then use the certificate serial number as a coupon code as you check out. Any problems, please email us at hello@starlitesoapstudio.com

Last year, we sold a small number of “$10 off” gift certificates during the Black Friday discount weekend. This certificate is programmed in the reservation system to be valid for redemption between January 1st and December 31st of the following year. The reservation system will not accept a booking using your certificate code number until after 00:01 on January 1st. 

Click here for our cancellation and refund policy. We do not offer refunds, but we do allow a change of date if you can give us ten days' advance notice. 

This puts us in an awkward situation, since we cannot fill your empty seat, and the workshop will still go ahead without you. It’s a bit like a concert, a play or a recital - with respect to the other attendees, the organizer cannot re-schedule the event to a later date if you do not attend.  However,if you can give us ten days' advance notice, we will switch your workshop to another event of your choice or offer you a gift certificate or soap/candle-making kit of your choice. 

Yes. Please let us know by email before the event if a person other than yourself will be attending 

A typical Starlite Soap Studio workshop consists of four to ten participants, seated around a U-shaped table grouping, with the instructor located in front of a TV monitor.
The workshop begins promptly at the scheduled time with some brief information about the workshop ahead, a quick “getting to know you” exercise, and then straight into the subject matter.  We will discuss a little theory, and then choose the specific products needed to make the project at hand. Once we have everything we need to make our unique creation, we put it all together and before we know it, two fun-filled hours have passed and we have our project complete!   

They are all fun, but most people begin with our Beginner Soap Workshop or our Soy Candle Workshop.  That being said, you can book any of our workshops with the knowledge that you will be given all the required information and materials to make a great product, you’ll have a ton of fun and you will learn all the knowledge, tips and tricks to repeat the project at home if you choose.

Every workshop comes with an online PDF handout, communicated to you after the workshop, detailing the formulation and method used for the project at hand, as well as useful tips, tricks and product-sourcing information. 

Yes, every participant has a seat and may remain seated for the entirety of the workshop.

We are wheelchair accessible in that there are no steps between the curbside and your Starlite Soap Studio seat, which may be replaced with a wheelchair. Starlite Soap Studio's washroom is fully wheelchair accessible. Please let us know if we can assist in any way. 

We use both! Essential Oils are derived/distilled from real botanicals, whereas Fragrance Oils are largely synthesized to replicate natural botanicals. Both are safe to use, and each kind of scent has particular applications. Some Starlite workshops use only essential oils, some use only fragrance oils, and many workshops use both. 

Yes, you can, but we cannot guarantee that your particular product will be compatible with the specific project being created during the workshop. For example, some oils may “seize” soap, or be ineffective in candles.

Yes. Lye is a strong alkali and has been used for centuries in the manufacture of soap. Lye can be used as a cleaning agent and is also used in the food industry for the making of lutefisk, olives, cannedoranges, century eggs, pretzels, bagels,moon cakes, ramen noodles and other foods. Lye is the generic name for sodium, potassium and other hydroxides. In Starlite’s soap-making workshops, we use a small quantity of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide combined with distilled water. This is the traditional and best way to make gentle, natural soap. The lye completely transforms in the process of saponifying the oil blend and sodium hydroxide.

We regularly use RSPO-certified palm oil in soap making. Palm oil comprises 38% of the globe’s total vegetable oil production while using only 10% of the land required to grow soybean, sunflower or rapeseed oil, making it an extremely efficient crop. Humans consume an average of 17 pounds of palm oil per capita, per year. That being said, there are legitimate concerns surrounding palm oil’s impact on deforestation and loss of natural habitat for endangered animals. Greenpeace opposes the use of palm oil biofuels. We provide our customers with a palm-free alternate recipe in our workshop handout, should they prefer to avoid this product. 

No. Starlite Soap Studio offers candle workshops using only soy wax or beeswax. Paraffin wax (or petroleum wax) is derived from petroleum, coal and shale gas.The burning of paraffin candlesreleases toxic chemicals such as toluene, a known carcinogen for humans (and their pets!)

We are developing an easy-to-follow program to enable beginner and established entrepreneurs to offer our workshops in their own home town, anywhere in the world. This program includes business basics, material lists, workshop notes & presentations, and lots more. Drop us an email at hello@starlitesoapstudio.com to find out more. 

Starlite does not currently wholesale any of its products.

Yes! You will find easy-to-follow cold process soap, melt-and-pour soap,bath bomb and soy candle making kits available for sale on our website and available for sale within The Good Planet Company at 764 Fort St, Victoria, BC. 

Yes, we sell soap making supplies such as colourants, soap oil blend, sodium hydroxide, soap cutters, soap molds, exfoliants, melt-and-pour soap, and more, within our section of The Good Planet Company, as well as at online at StarliteStudioStudio.com under the “shop supplies” section

Yes, we sell candle making supplies such as soy wax, beeswax, wicks, colours, scents and more within our section of The Good Planet Company, as well as at online at StarliteStudioStudio.com under the “shop supplies” section

No, we only sell hobbyist-size quantities of soap and candle making supplies.

We sell gift certificates for Starlite Soap Studio workshops online at StarliteStudioStudio.com. The certificates can easily be redeemed online by the recipient for any available workshop seat. 

If you order online and require shipping, we strive to dispatch your order within 24 hours from our base in Victoria, BC to any location in Canada by Canada Post Expedited Mail.  We are sorry, we no longer routinely ship to the USA or other international destinations due to the steep increase in shipping rates. If you are located outside of Canada and would like a shipping quote please contact us at hello@staritesoapstudio.com

Not EVERYTHING ;-)  but pretty much all you need to make some beautiful soap or candles, in hobbyist (not bulk) quantities. You can buy Starlite’s crafting products online at StarliteSoapStudio.com, or if you live close by, you can visit us within The Good Planet Company at 764 Fort St in Victoria, BC, Canada.