Panther is a consulting/advisory business focused on helping its hospitality clients create hotels with distinction. Paul and his team approached me with an idea they had to send out gift packages to clients and to donate to a worthy cause in their name. I was really pleased they thought of Risa and put together a nice package for them to send out. We also made sure a nice note was included in the package that highlighted that a donation was made to Global Soap in the recipient’s name. Global Soap is an interesting non-profit that recycles hotel soap and sends to folks in need across the globe. The principal there, Derreck Kayongo, was a finalist for the CNN Hero award a couple weeks ago.

Here are a couple photos of the Sampler Gift Tin, hope you like em!

We debuted some new products with great success — handmade lotions in three flavors as well as bath bombs/fizzes available in 6 flavors. Both new products make great stocking stuffers, try some out today! I especially think the ‘Candy Cane’ bath fizzes are fun and great gifts for kids and kids at heart. You can learn more about it in our shop at risasoap.com/shop

I also want to express my deep appreciation for my wife, friends and mother in law, Carol, who manned the booth in my absence on Saturday afternoon as I went down to the dome to watch the Dawgs in the SEC Championship.

Here are a couple photos to check out from the weekend.

I thought I would give you a quick update on this past weekend’s activities. Risa participated in the very first Farmer’s Market in Highlands, NC and had a blast. Marlis and I made some new friends and got some great feedback from folks on our bar soaps, liquid soaps and laundry detergent. We managed to sell some in the process as well!

As usual, my uber-talented wife had the booth looking great as you can tell from some of the attached pictures. I am also particularly proud of her given how complimentary folks were on our soap packaging — way to go Marlis! I also want to give a shout out to Andrea Gabbard who organized the market and look forward to seeing folks up in Highlands again at the next farmers market on July 23.

One of my favorite things from the weekend was a 10 year old boy that hung around our booth for at least an hour, came back a few times, used our ‘running water’ setup to try 3 or 4 different soaps and looked at Marlis and I’s identical t-shirts and said he wanted one like mine — not hers. It was pretty amusing. He also lamented the fact that he didn’t have any money to buy soap because, and I quote, “He blew all his money on video games, because that is what guy teenagers do.” Mind you, he is 10!

Anyway, check out the attached photos from the weekend.

First, the pronunciation.  Risa is pronounced Ree-sah.  The Ree sounds like Be and the -sah sounds like an old time southerner saying yes-sir…

Now, how did we decide on the name Risa?  One of the principles that the brand is based on is the basic emotion of happiness.  Our tagline, ‘Good Clean Fun’ characterizes that.  We want your shower, bath or washing experience to make you feel great and be a reward after a long day or just for getting out of bed and getting going!

For those of you that might speak Spanish or recall your High-school Spanish I class, Risa means ‘Laugh’ or ‘Pleasing Emotion’ in Spanish.  What better word is there to describe a positive emotion than Laugh?  Maybe Smile… but hey, at least we named the company that!

Our logo design incorporates a ‘smile’ down in lower part of the circle to represent laughter and positive emotions.  If you have not noticed it before, check it out next time you have a look.

And one last thing, I have to include a picture that makes me laugh — this is our daughter Beatriz in the middle of our product photo-shoot, stealing the broom and telling us to hold on one sec…

Rub a little on you,

Brad

The latest and greatest is that our product packaging is finally done!  They turned out great thanks to Marlis’ diligent efforts and some great input from Debbie Smith at Design Seven.  I especially want to thank Liz Pilgrim at Prographics for all of her hard work and infinite patience as we went through this stuff.  I sure hope you like the packaging as much as we do.

I posted a couple photos to check out so you can really see it up close…

So, how did we decide on this packaging?  Budget aside, we lived by four simple rules.

1. The package had to have a classic look, yet shout fun and jump off the shelf

2. A prospective buyer had to be able to smell and see the soap

3. The package had to be environmentally friendly

4. The packaging had to be easy for retailers to carry (eg, have bar codes, easy to handle/stock, and offer ample, but not overwhelming selection)

We accomplished each of these goals through a variety of means.  To meet 1., we gave each soap a unique personality by giving it a name that appeals to a particular emotion, noting the therapeutic benefits of each essential oils and of course, adding a tag line like ‘Soap with Soul’ to the box.  We got lots of feedback from friends and even a class of students in Austin, TX (thanks, Tom) to help us make our call.

For 2. and 3. we used FSC paper with recycled content that we die cut the box shapes and added four holes to look like bubbles on the front of the box that make it really easy to see and smell.  We learned a lot about the printing and finishing business during this process that should help us minimize cost and maintain quality in our next run…

We met 4. by adding bar codes and using very heavyweight cover stock to make our boxes. We also limited ourselves to ten ‘flavors’ to start, covering the gamut of emotions and skin types.

Well, that is it for now as I need to get out and sell some soap.

Brad

Soap is simply a ‘salt’ of a chemical reaction between the fatty acids in oils and a strong base like Sodium Hydroxide or Potassium Hydroxide.  An additional product of this reaction is glycerin – one of the best skin moisturizers around.   This reaction is called saponification and most hand-made soapmakers like us utilize the cold-process method to make our bar soap.  Detergent is synthesized from a bunch of chemicals in various high-volume processes.  It is typically made in very large manufacturing plants and represented as a Beauty Bar or Moisturizing Bar.  Take Dove for instance – if you read the label carefully, you will see that it is called a Beauty Bar.  How about Neutrogena?  It is labeled as a ‘Face and Body Bar’.

Smile Soaps uses both Natural and Organic ingredients in our soaps.  A typical Smile Soap bar contains both saturated (e.g., coconut, palm kernel, palm) and unsaturated oils (e.g., avocado, almond, castor, olive) as well as oils and butters well known for their skin moisturizing properties (e.g., jojoba oil, shea butter, cocoa butter).  For our bar soap, we saponify these oils with a solution of sodium hydroxide and distilled water.  Last but not least, we add essential oils (rarely, a fragrance oil), sometimes herbs like mint, or exfoliants like walnut shells, and allow our bars to cure for a minimum of 4 weeks before we sell them.

The FDA  defines a cosmetic as: A COSMETIC IS A PRODUCT, EXCEPT SOAP, INTENDED TO BE APPLIED TO THE HUMAN BODY FOR CLEANSING, BEAUTIFYING, PROMOTING ATTRACTIVENESS OR ALTERING THE APPEARANCE. Sec. 201(i) FD&C Act.  It defines soap as: every product marketed as soap meets FDA’s definition of the term. FDA interprets the term “soap” to apply only when –

• The bulk of the nonvolatile matter in the product consists of an alkali salt of fatty acids and the product’s detergent properties are due to the alkali-fatty acid compounds, and
• The product is labeled, sold, and represented solely as soap [21 CFR 701.20].

Take Dove for instance – if you read the label carefully, you will see that it is called a Beauty Bar.  How about Neutrogena?  It is labeled as a ‘Face and Body Bar’.  Look for ‘Soap’ on the package label to ensure  that you are getting real soap!

Whether or not you try some Smile Soap is, of course, entirely up to you.  If you end up not trying ours, we urge you to go by a local farmer’s market or craft show and pick up a bar or two of hand-made, natural soap.  I can assure you that it is worth a try – your skin and mind will love you for it.  Don’t forget a nice hand-crafted soap dish while you are at it!

I decided to start this business called Smile Soap and Detergent and throw my hat in the entrepreneurial ring.  Why did I choose soap and detergent?  I’m glad you asked.

Back in the day, I got a college degree in Chemistry from CU-Boulder.  Fast forward about 18 years, of which only one was me actually working in a related field.  I worked construction (for a week), worked at Wendy’s (for about two shifts) and then onto selling copiers, advisory services to telecom companies, market intelligence data and most recently, telecom infrastructure.

Working for the man was getting old, so off I go to do something I believe in.  Make and sell high quality, natural products that do not harm the environment and support sustainable living.  I figure, hey, everyone needs soap (some more than others)…

I spent the day today at the aptly named “Soap Factory” (credit to my 7 year old niece, Katherine for the name) cutting bars and brewing up a new batch of Sandalwood soap.  My wife and 6 mo old daughter were with me – wife uploading photos for our product catalog and little Bea hanging out in her ‘Jump and Jive’, doing lots of jumping and jiving.  I’ll have to admit I like that toy as well, since it is one of the few that don’t play the same nursery rhymes that can drive you batty after hearing the same tune a million times.  But I digress…

Making soap is a labor of love, it is time consuming and exacting, especially since I am still experimenting with new scents and colors.  Today, I started the day by cutting bars from yesterday’s newest batch – a peach scented bar that I am making for a local boutique store here in Decatur.  I am psyched about how they turned out, the color is perfect and the scent reminds me of a Varsity peach pie.  Now, I have to wait about a month for them to cure enough to be ready to sell – interestingly, hand made soap continues its saponification reaction a lot longer than you would suspect.  The bars harden, lose water content and mellow over time, leaving just the stuff that creates the bubbling, cleansing action as well as stuff that moisturizes your skin (glycerin, among other things).

Let’s hope the new sandalwood bars turn out as well!

I have loads of work to do to finish setting up the website (smilesoaps.com), decide on packaging, secure some advertising, make loads more soap, find reliable suppliers, pay bills and oh yeah, sell some soap.

Stay tuned as I provide regular updates…