It never takes me long to shout for help in making those base items. Never gone out on a limb purchasing the materials and not found someone who could make it for me in /shouts.

Be glad, alchemy GP is pretty easy compared to other guilds like cooking. I'd rather go find someone to make a base item that I will turn into something for 5k-7k GP per item then turn in 34239872 of some food for 1800 GP.