We were lucky to catch up with Allyssa Hay recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Allyssa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

A customer of mine has a condition that causes a lot of nerve dysfunction. She has nerves in her neck that get pinched and deals with pain and so much itching that she has scars from making herself bleed while scratching. She takes nerve medication and allergy medication daily without full relief, but had never tried a natural product before so she decided to give it a try at an outdoor market. She returned to my booth just minutes later to tell me the herbal salve she bought from me had already given her relief!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Back in 2016 my husband was struggling with psoriasis on his hands. It was so bad that his knuckles had deep cracks in them that would bleed. It was painful and he worked with his hands so he was always breaking open those wounds! He tried over the counter rash creams, diet changes and eventually he visited doctors to try prescription medication. Nothing worked! We had no idea what to do.

At the time we were pretty much the ‘average consumer.’ What I mean is we purchased mainstream shampoos, body wash, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. We used popular products that were easy to find at the big box stores where we live. We also purchased food based off of price, convenience and what we felt like eating. We had very little concern where our food came from. We also believed solely in Western Medicine.

But Western Medicine was letting us down! My husband was physically miserable and embarrassed by the state of his hands. So I thought, what the heck, why not try something natural? It isn’t gonna make anything WORSE. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work and I wasted money on hippy skincare. Totally worth the try!

So I dive into researching. I learn what oils, butters and fats are best for different purposes. I came up with a list of herbs and flowers that I thought might address the issue. So now I was on a hunt. I searched locally and online looking for some kind of herbal product that contained herbs from my list. But it was really hard to find! And when I did find them they would also have additives like fragrance or preservatives which I didn’t want.

During my research I wasn’t just exposed to what plants are good for us, I also read a lot about the common ingredients found in soap. And THEN my mind was opened. And maybe a little mad?! What I read was shocking. In the U.S. the rules on soap and cosmetic making are actually very lax. There are a lot of different ingredients that have known damaging health effects and even more that are suspected to and just don’t have the data to back it up yet! But these ingredients are widely accepted and commonly used.

It soon became apparent that I was not going to find what I was looking for. So more research! I figured out how to make herb infused oils, and how to make a healing salve out of that oil!

My first salve attempt was a wonderful success. My husband said it gave him immediate relief. It was very soothing and in 3 weeks with daily usage his knuckles had healed up. No more deep cracks and bleeding and no more red/itchy flakes. We were both stunned. So I wanted to test it more!

My little sister has very sensitive skin. Always has. I remember growing up and 9x out of 10 when she got out of the shower she would have a new itchy/burning rash from whatever soap she used. She had never found a soap that was easy on her skin, she just put up with the scratching and bleeding. I gave her a jar of salve to try after she washing. And sure enough, it worked. She would use soap that made her itch and burn, get out of the shower and apply my salve.

For people that struggle with rashes and dermatitis issues, having something that ACTUALLY soothes that itchy burn can be life changing. I branched out even further and gave samples to friends and family that I knew had different skin troubles. And I was flooded with appreciation. I saw that my salve clearly was able to help people in a meaningful way.

It really bugged me that my sister needed salve, to counteract the affects that soap had on her body. I was glad I could help but it would be even better for her to just not itch and burn in the first place! So I decided to try making soap myself and fell in love with the process. I found ways to play with colors and patterns and decorate bars with botanicals. If I was going to make what I once called ‘hippy soap’ I wanted it to be pretty and smell good. I didn’t want anything plain or boring. When I started making and giving my sister soap, she stopped even getting the rashes. She doesn’t need the salve anymore!

Being a new believer in herbal medicine and natural remedies changed my whole life trajectory. I still believe Western Medicine has its place, but I’ve adopted a more holistic approach to life. One of the goals I made was to slowly make changes to my everyday use products. Swap them out for natural ones. This lead to me building a pretty good product line for self care. I currently make a wide variety of soap, florals, earthy smells, spicy, sweet, woodsy, citrusy, herbal and so many good blends. I also make a variety of lotion bars, pain salve, sleep balm, eyelash growth serum, coffee under-eye refresh, bath salts, beard oils and beard balm. More recently I have also added an all-purpose cleaner and am working on laundry soap!

I choose each ingredient very intentionally and leave out the extras. I strictly use soft and hard oils, fats, butters, essential oils and plant material to make my products. Even the bright colors you see in some of the soap are plant derived or natural clays. And all scent is from Essential Oils or herbs used. No preservatives and NO detergents.

My stand for quality ingredients is something that sets me apart from other soap makers. Even natural soap makers often use Mica for colors. While that is a natural mineral, it does go through a process to end up the colors we see. It didn’t come out of the mines neon pink! But the even bigger issue with mica for me is how it is harvest and who is doing the work. That industry is widely known for child labor in very uncomfortable and unsafe environments. I can’t support that. The other option is lab created mica. And nope, nothing lab created for me thanks!

I also do not use Palm Oil. Palm is one of the most common oils used in soap making. It behaves well and is cheaper then other hard oils/fats/butters and people don’t often have allergies to it. But the harvesting of Palm is ruining Forrest’s and getting multiple species on the endangered animals list!

Lastly fragrance oils. It’s a big no for me. Hard pass. This is a surprisingly controversial topic amongst soap makers. It’s widely accepted that some people are just sensitive to fragrances, like THEY are the issue. But truthfully there are chemicals in fragrances that can cause a lot of very serious health issues. Some people might just get headaches or rashes but some of these compounds are known to cause fertility issues and cancers. But the excuse is made that soap is a wash off product so it doesn’t have time to soak into your bloodstream. But how true is that? If just washing can irritate someone’s skin to the point of scratching until you bleed, I think a fair amount is soaking in. Some people also claim the chemicals are okay in low doses. But is that dose really that low when it’s in your shampoo, and soap, and toothpaste and deodorant and makeup? Are all these little bits of toxins we pick up all over the place accumulating. Lastly. Fragrance oils are particularly scary because their ingredients aren’t all required to be listed. It’s a competitive industry and they are aloud ‘trade secrets,’ meaning they don’t have to list all the ingredients because that would out their special formula. So we don’t even know what’s in them!

So my big question is why? Why use chemicals when they aren’t needed? Why use products full of things we don’t need along with the things we do? It just seems unnecessary. And if it comes with possible danger to my health, no thanks! I made products that have what we need in them, without the extras.

My goal is to provide natural options to replace our everyday skincare and self care needs.

Ingredients are important. I have made the effort to buy as many of my ingredients locally as I can! But wether I buy local or order online, I’m always looking for sustainable options. Aside from purchasing Ingredients I have also started to grow some of my own and even forage!

For me living a more holistic life style also mean doing my part for the environment. I had the goal from day one to be zero waste! All of my packaging is either compostable paper or recyclable/reusable glass bottles and tins!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is going to be different for everyone depending on their goals. I wasn’t just selling things from my website, I was also doing in person markets. That’s actually where the majority of my sales come from! So I decided to follow local businesses on Instagram that I know host markets! That way when they are looking for vendors, I see them announce it and can apply. When I do events I make sure to post about it on Instagram at least a week ahead of time and tag the business/location. They will often share or repost so we are cross promoting each other and pictures of my products are now reaching that businesses audience, not just mine! I also follow other local businesses that I have met as fellow vendors. Networking is huge. We are always sending each other info on new markets to apply for and which ones to avoid! I also follow pages that inspire me! I turned a hobby I loved into a business and to keep it from getting stagnant feeling I keep feeding my mind with other soap makers and herbalists so that I can continue learning and being inspired by their art!

My biggest advice, don’t do the follow and then unfollow thing. Don’t buy followers. Don’t do anything, just to get a follower. Post quality content, regularly. And engage with your followers and the people you follow, comment on posts, replay to comments made on your posts! Build an online community!

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

We had one really bad show our first year. There was a ton of hype around this event. Other vendors we knew had previously done well there. It’s a very established yearly event. But it was huge. I was used to paying $15-$150 for markets. This event was over $1000. It was 4 long days days about 12 or 13 hrs long. My husband missed work to be there. Because of the expected foot traffic we brought a lot of product. So much so that we had to rent a uhaul! This was common for this event. A lot of regular vendors had trucks and trailers full! It was also hours from home so we had to pay for a hotel.

It was dead. There was little to no foot traffic all 4 days. We didn’t even make our booth fee back until the last day! There were many vendors who didn’t even make their booth fee back. All in all we lost a lot of money on that event. It took us a long time to recover.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.evergreenessentialco.com
• Instagram: @evergreenessentialco
• Facebook: Evergreen Essential Co
• Other: I’m currently working on my website so it is down at the moment but I’d love to finish before you publish so that my website could be included too! Do you happen to know how much time I have?

Image Credits
Priscilla Chowning