We were honored to be including in the local magazine, Southern Deming Living, as the resident business of the month this month. The article in its entirely can be found below:
Pure GRACE Soap
Written by Julie Manson
Over a year ago my daughter Madeleine asked if we could participate in the Terre Haute Farmers Market. Madeleine had spent a lot of Saturday mornings at the Market getting fruits and vegetables (and cupcakes) with her dad while I was home with our infant son. My husband Tom always made the trip to the Market fun, including a yummy father daughter breakfast from Clabber Girl or Square Donuts after getting supplies. While considering Madeleine’s request, she told me how she thought the vendors seemed to have such a good time and genuinely enjoyed being at the Market. She liked having conversations with them, learning about how they grow their produce and why they made the decisions they did about selling their wares. I knew then that opening a booth at the Market would not only provide Madeleine and me with a great opportunity for some one on one time (she was feeling the stresses of a new baby brother), but it would allow me to teach her life lessons that she couldn’t get from a book and fulfil her wish to sell “something” at the Market. So I agreed, we’d open a shop, and with that, Pure GRACE Soap was born.
It didn’t take us long to figure out what we wanted to make and sell at the Market. Like a lot of other kids, Madeleine had dry, chapped lips in the winter months. It had gotten so bad that winter that I had taken her to our dermatologist in Indy and she had prescribed three different prescriptions to get the issue under control. Once I saw the list of ingredients, mostly chemical words I could not pronounce nor understand, I said no way, there has to be a better solution. Luckily there was. Coincidently a friend had made our family some all-natural lip balm for a Christmas present and after trying it and seeing it heal Madeleine’s lips seemingly overnight we knew our direction.
We have always been a rather “green” family. We compost, we try to eat as organically as possible. We have gardened on and off. I tossed the plastic years ago in exchange for glass. I made my own baby food when it wasn’t on many others radar and have been crafty on and off for years. I began researching soap and other body products and quickly put together a rough idea of what our Farmers Market booth would be – soaps, scrubs, salts, lotions, lip chaps, detergents and wool dryer balls. At the core it would be products we believed in – products Tom and I would feel comfortable using on our kids and products which were all natural, homemade and made in small batch. Many recipes and test batches later Madeleine, who goes by M. GRACE for business purposes for Pure GRACE Soap, and I were ready to setup at our first show.
Our first show was the Herb Faire at Fairbanks Park last May 2014. It was a wonderful experience! We met so many amazing customers who were interested in all natural skin care and bath and body options just like us. Madeleine would stand at the entrance of our booth and invite them to smell her soap as they walked by. It was pretty hard to resist a sweet girl asking you to smell soap and eventually they would come in to the booth to see what else we had for sale. The Farmers Market season began in June and it was great to see Madeleine enjoying her request to be part of it. She was even featured in a newspaper article during the opening weekend which was a highlight for her.
Since the Herb Faire and Farmers Market we have released dozens of new soaps. Our product line and customer base has grown larger than either of us ever could have imagined. We have added moisturizing bath bombs, facial sugar scrubs in addition to body sugar scrubs, a complete line of men’s soaps and spa soaps made exclusively with essential oils and skin benefiting clays. We have a new activated charcoal facial soap bar coming out soon along with two types of shampoo bars which are great for travel. Our dryer balls have somewhat of a cult following – they are an no static all-natural alternative for removing chemically laden dryer sheets and fabric softener from your laundry routine.
Through this experience Madeleine has learned more than I ever anticipated she would. She has learned to step outside of her comfort zone and approach (friendly) strangers, she can speak extensively about our products. She has helped to develop many of the recipes and scents. She provides her insight as to what pictures to place on the website and social media. She has real thoughts about what makes a product worth a certain price and what quality really means. I am glad she came up with the request to be part of the Farmers Market, we have both enjoyed seeing Pure GRACE Soap grow and develop.
You can find us at area craft and art shows throughout the year along with the indoor and outdoor Downtown Terre Haute Farmers Market. Our online store and a listing of our retail locations can be found on our website at www.pureGRACEsoap.com. We ship worldwide and routinely take custom orders.
This May is not only our one year anniversary of being in business but also our first Hobnob Marketplace show of the season. We will be launching our Spring/Summer line of soaps at this show and the Herb Faire (Mother’s Day weekend). We will be featuring special promotions and have lots of Mother’s Day gifts ready for gift giving. The outdoor Farmers Market begins again the first Saturday in June and you can expect to see some great Father’s Day gift ideas from us including Bacon Soap, Beer Soap and the launch of our Beard Line including beard oils and waxes and our new Men’s Shaving Line of soaps.
We’d love to have you keep up to date with what we are doing on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pureGRACEsoap and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PureGRACESoap. You can contact us anytime at info@pureGRACEsoap.com.
