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Bramble Berry: Now, a little about you as a person – are you married? Kids? What doesyour family think about your soaping obsession? And more importantly, is akitchen for cooking or soaping?
Lisa: Yep, I’m happily married to a man I’ve known for 32 years. We’ve been married for 17 of those years and we have 2 beautiful daughters, ages 18 and 15. Wheeww, teenagers. Haha. My family is very supportive of my business venture with soapmaking. They all help out when I need them to. Since I’m a very small potatoes business, (1 woman operation and that’s the way I like it) there are many times during high production season that I need help unmolding, cutting, wrapping, labeling, etc. Both my daughters help me every summer with my farmers markets. They enjoy getting out, meeting new people, talking about the products that they use and love and earning a little bit of money for themselves too. My sweet husband built my soap display boxes for me and helps me load and unload my van every weekend after I come home from a long day at the market. Although I am a small business compared to some, I stay very busy with retail and wholesale and I couldn’t do all of that alone. I need my family’s help, and they never complain about pitching in where needed. Besides, I spoil them all rotten anyway, so they owe me. Haha.

The kitchen, in my humble opinion, is for cooking. Being Italian, I LOVE to cook (almost as much as I love to eat) and although I started my soaping obsession in my kitchen where I prepare my meals, I very quickly realized that I needed more space, in an area that was more safety conscious where I could really let loose and get creative. Besides, I have dogs and cats that even though we take safety precautions when working with sodium hydroxide, accidents can and do happen. I’d never forgive myself if anything ever happened to one of my beloved pets if they were underfoot while I was soaping in the kitchen. I had my ‘soap shack’ built by the Amish to my specifications and flat bedded onto my property about 6 months after I first began soaping. Now I just walk out the front door of the house, down into the back yard, and I’m at work.

Bramble Berry:Favorite Bramble Berry product! =)

Lisa: Oh wow, put me on the spot…haha……..there are so many that I love and use, including Arabian Spice, Basmati Rice, Cold Water, Energy, Grapefruit Lily,Coconut, Huckleberry, Ocean Rain, Peach, Pearberry, Pumpkin Spice, Rise & Shine and Sensual Sandalwood. But my #1 selling fragrance from Brambleberry is Bonsai, which I use in my soap called ‘Rain Forest’. It sells like hot cakes. I can’t keep it in stock. People adore that scent and the color combo of the soap that I use it in.

Bramble Berry:What’s your favorite outlet for selling – farmers markets, craft shows, wholesale, your own web site, e-bay or etsy? And, why?

Lisa: I’ve done ebay and it just isn’t the right venue for my products. I’ve done craft shows and it’s too hard of a ‘sell’, in my opinion and not really worth the time, trouble & cost to set up a nice display. It’s not always about ‘selling’ yourself or your product. It’s about educating people on the differences between handmade and mass produced. Etsy has turned out to be a very nice place to sell retail because people are there specifically to buy handmade items. They really appreciate all the hard work, effort, knowledge and education of all the vendors who offer up their handmade works of art.

But my favorite avenue for selling my soaps has got to be my farmers markets, hands down. Though I love selling to my wholesale accounts and doing retail sales through my own business website and my newly opened Etsy shop, you just can’t beat the live interaction with your customer base in person. The hands on demonstrations of my products and talking up the different ingredients used, their components and properties, just makes me feel great about what I’m doing in this business. I love people, I’m a people person. I’m very silly and like to joke around a lot. I’m always smiling, laughing and having a good time. I really get the customer involved when they stop by my tent. I project a positive, feel-good energy and my customers enjoy coming and spending time with me underneath my tent in the middle of a hot August day…..just because they enjoy my company and they’re hooked on my products. What could be better than that?

Bramble Berry: Your photography is clean, professional and very artistically staged. Do you have any sort of art background or photography training?

Lisa: Oh my no. I’m such an amateur. I just do a lot of reading & researching. I’ve learned many tips & tricks about using natural lighting vs. light boxes and it’s helped me to fine tune the color and contrasts of my photo’s. I prefer to shoot images of my products using the ‘hero’ shot (a shot which shows product alone) rather than a styled shot (which uses other appropriate elements along with the product). There’s a great tutorial and how-to article on “The Storque” on Etsy here.

Lisa: You’d be surprised at how far my soaps have come in the 5 years that I’ve been making soap. The very first year I soaped, my bars were so small and skinny, it was embarrassing really. Again, through tons of reading until my eyes were bloodshot, I educated myself about fatty acid profiles (with the help of some VERY talented & more experienced soapers) and properties of oils and butters so that I eventually was able to formulate an incredible recipe for my soaps that made it easier to sculpt the tops of the logs after the pour. I’ve tweaked those recipes to perfection over the years and I’m happy to say that my current 3 soap formulas have been perfected and haven’t been tweaked in a very long time. Depending on the FO or EO used, some batches are thinner than I’d like, so it takes a little bit of patience to wait until the soap batter is thick enough to allow me to sculpt the tops. My trick? Simple, I use an ordinary kitchen whisk. Make the whisk your friend and you’ll be able to get very high whips, peaks and textures. I also purchased a ‘tank’ soap cutter from For Crafts Sake, which was made to my specifications. This allowed me to make sure my bars were all uniformly cut to a very thick bar. Everyone comments on the size of my bars. They’re quite large and heavy in comparison to most handmade soap.

I love to get creative with the tops after I’ve sculpted them, by using raw materials and ingredients that I feel compliment the name or scent of that particular soap. For example, on the cinnamon frosting soap, I thought that putting some cinnamon chips on the top of the soap after I’ve textured it, would be a nice touch that would draw the eye directly to that soap. It worked. Everyone loves that look and I’ve had other soapers ask me if it would be alright to try to duplicate that look themselves. Sure, I say…. “go for it.” There really are no original ideas, only the realization and fulfillment of an idea. Besides, every soaper puts their own twist on things anyway. Have fun, I say. Experiment, play around. That’s what’s so exciting about this craft, whether it’s just a hobby or your primary business. There are so many ways to do the same thing.

Bramble Berry:Tell us a little bit about your solid shampoo! The bars look great!