We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Breena Shelby a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Breena, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

A little while before the quarantine that shook the world went into full effect, the younger member of our duo, Brea, threw the random idea of making soap into the ether. This wasn’t too absurd an idea, being we’ve always picked up hobbies every few years.

As we’re sure many can recall, once the lock down hit, household staples and necessities that were once taken for granted became rare finds. The shelves of our local grocery stores lacked toothpaste, toilet paper, and SOAP. Then the once random idea turned into a something more. Soap made sense to us because it was a staple- especially at a time when we were practically washing our hands raw. But we also noticed consumers paying even more attention to what they’re putting in and on their bodies. There’s a greater appreciation for simple, straight forward ingredients.

So after discussing with our family, we dove in head first – as we have the habit – creating a business name, researching the most simple soap recipes we could find, and hyping ourselves up to family and friends before we’d even made our first batch- which did happen in April of 2020.

Breena, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We are Breena and Brea Shelby, a sister duo originally from the Inland Empire. We got into soap-making at the beginning of the worldwide quarantine in 2020. We not only wanted to create a relevant product, but also something that could mean something more. Something as simple as a shower at the end of a long day could be transformed into a self-care session- a chance to relax your mind and nurture your skin- literally and metaphorically washing the day away.

But we believe bath care products don’t have to be riddled with unpronounceable ingredients- it could be a simple list of oils and butters, and other natural ingredients like spinach powder or calendula petals- ingredients anyone can read and understand and feel comfortable putting on their skin. To be honest, there is nothing exceptionally special about us or our product- we’re not afraid to admit that. There are hundreds of soapers in California that are also creating amazing products. Our goal, besides getting to a point where this becomes our full-time jobs, is to convert more people over to handcrafted bar soaps.

Our favorite aspect that we are getting more experience with is creating custom orders. We’ve only completed two so far- one for a wedding and another for housewarming, but it truly brings us joy sitting down with individuals who want to provide a unique, practical, and personable gift to guests for the special events.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Our family, like many others, suffered many personal hardships in 2020. In April, around the time we created our first batch, Brea was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, our father was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer, and our Grandfather passed away after spending weeks on hospice, and we’d been granted full guardianship of two young family members.

We’d built the idea of this business so much in such a short period of time, our foundation was easily shaken by all the hard news. But instead of throwing in the towel before we’d really given ourselves a shot, we just kept soaping. It very quickly became our safe haven. When Brea was experiencing what we now knew was a hyper-manic episode, she’d throw herself into studying soap techniques and making batches alone. When our dad spent days in doctor’s appointments, he’d read up on small business techniques in the waiting room. We soaped our way through the mourning of our grandfather, and taught our young cousins the science of it all.

We spent a lot of money and materials on failed batches. We initially tried bright, bold colors with intricate deigns that ended up bleeding. So we scaled back and simplified our design- sticking to mostly single colored bars and moved forward with a more simplistic approach- allowing us to put the quality of our product on the front line.

We still have days where we crunch the numbers and feel like we are spinning our wheels financially, but this is our passion. This process has gotten us through some very tough times, and it’s become more than a side hustle..

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We do! What don’t use a pre-made soap base or bottled glycerin. We buy all of our oils and butters wholesale and create our base recipe completely from scratch.

We had no idea how to make soap previously. We spent a lot of time on YouTube learning about different soap-making methods. We used the hot process method for a while, but after learning we were basically cooking the nutrients out of our ingredients, we switched to cold process. We learned little tips along the way- such as using pure aloe vera instead of water in our lye solution creates more lather.

We also learned not all wholesale suppliers are equal. We’ve had to switch suppliers quite a few times before we found the right ones for us, so sampling supplies before pushing a full product was a very valuable lesson for us that we still remind ourselves of today.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shelbysoapshop.com/
• Instagram: shelbysoapshop
• Other: Email: info@shelbysoapshop