M. GRACE holding one of many Pure GRACE Soap products made without the use of microbeads.
June 29, 2014
YOUR GREEN VALLEY: Microbeads found in personal care products damaging to waters
Jane Santucci
Special to the Tribune-Star
For the past six years Julie Manson has been working to get plastics and chemicals out of her home. She also tries to cook as many from-scratch meals as possible with local food from the Terre Haute Farmers Market and a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) she participates in. During a visit to the Farmers Market last year, her daughter, Madeleine, told her mother she wanted to be like the vendors she saw there and sell something. Julie then went to work trying to find a niche for the two of them to enjoy together.
“Madeleine had chapped lips all winter last year. It got so bad I thought it was going to be an issue at school so we went to the dermatologist. They gave her three different prescriptions. When I looked at the ingredients in the prescription, I said ‘these have to go back.’ I was not going to put that on her mouth. This is when we started thinking we could make our own chap stick and lip gloss, which eventually led us into soaps,” Julie said.
Today, the mother-daughter duo has a full line of natural skin-care products.