10 Fun Facts About Bramble Berry

The Bramble Berry team is a diverse group of people who love creating, being active in the community, and spending time together. What started as CEO and founder Anne-Marie selling a few supplies out of a 400 square foot space is now more than 80 employees researching products, pouring fragrances, and helping customers. Learn more about us below.

We love to create
Soap isn’t the only thing we make. Employees love to cook, take photos, make stamps, embroider – you name it. If you’ve gotten a hand-drawn note in your order, it’s likely from Ben in the warehouse. Bramble Berry Chief Marketing Officer Amber has a house full of craft supplies. She recently demonstrated how to create art with beeswax and a blow torch.

Amber demonstrates encaustic painting, Ben shows off his lettering skills on our one millionth order.

We love animals
Most of us are lucky to have animals like dogs, cats, rats, and even geckos. If you visit our office there’s a good chance you’ll see a dog or two – sometimes they even get to attend meetings. We get to see adorable puppy training videos from Katy and Nikki in the warehouse. They help out at a local non-profit called Brigadoon Service Dogs. The organization works to provide trained service dogs to veterans, children, and adults with disabilities.

Brigadoon service dogs are not only cute, they provide important services to our community. 

Lunch program
Bramble Berry provides free lunches every week. That includes soup, tacos, sandwiches, and more. We also have barbecues every summer, which is a nice way to enjoy the sunshine that’s pretty rare here in the Pacific Northwest.

The Bramble Berry team enjoys a sunny afternoon during a company barbecue. 

Work hazards
Whenever we leave the warehouse, we take a piece of it with us. Most of the time it’s glitter or an extra shimmery mica. You can always tell the lucky person who packaged activated charcoal that day. And don’t forget the scent – we smell like blueberries, flowers, patchouli essential oil. It’s basically like free perfume, just a whole lot stronger.

Our president is a good sport
When Bramble Berry President Norm goes on vacation, his office is fair game. We’ve covered his desk with wrapping paper, squeezed all the employees into his office for a photo, and put posters of his face all over the warehouse. Once we got to throw water balloons at him because we met an order goal. We didn’t hit the paintball goal, but we have high hopes.

We’re passing along our love of DIY
Anne-Marie’s children, Jamisen and Lily, love creating as much as she does. Jamisen makes bath bombs and sells them at the Bellingham Farmers Market on the weekends. Right now Anne-Marie is trying everything DIY and sharing her experiences on her new website, and the kids are there every step of the way.

Anne-Marie’s children Lily and Jamisen are expert crafters in the making.

Strange sounds
There’s a gong in our warehouse and you hear it every time we hit another 100 orders, along with some happy yelling. It’s always funny to see visitor reactions when they hear a random gong going off.

Soap as far as the eye can see
As you can imagine, we make a ton of soap. We have six curing racks full of blog projects, product tests, and upcoming recipes for Anne-Marie’s new book on making soap with milk. Employees can take home as many bars as they like and the rest are donated to local organizations in Whatcom County. We also give soap away to mailmen, vendors, maintenance workers, and anyone else who comes through the doors.

Milk soaps Anne-Marie has been working on.

We love Bellingham
We love this community, so we try to participate in plenty of local events. We’ve gone shopping for Lydia Place, played softball, and ran in the Muds to Suds race. We don’t win very often but we’re happy to participate. As Norm said, we’re the artsy kids who keep signing up for sports.

The team poses for a photo at a local event for the Boys and Girls Club. We aren’t afraid to look silly!

We definitely make messes
The photos you see on the blog are steamed, beveled, and posed just so. The process to get them there is definitely not as polished. We often have to make recipes multiple times to ensure they’ll work for everyone, like this Sushi Soap. Along the way, we make plenty of messes – it wouldn’t be soapmaking without them.

This photo was taken shortly after we had an activated charcoal incident. Thank goodness for rubbing alcohol.