We recently connected with Desiree Rodriguez and have shared our conversation below.

Desiree, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Well, I first had the idea to make soap around 2015 and once I decided to really learn how to make it professionally, I decided to take classes so I could get a grasp on the science of it in person. Once I did that and realized this is something I would like to do for the long haul, I decided to start my own business and use that as an opportunity to showcase my creativity through soapmaking. The designs, the aesthetics, the soaps being named after songs that related to me the most at that moment etc…

After that, I decided to take some time to come up with a name and after about a month or two I came up with HAUTBath- I tend to run the brand as if it were a fashion house coming out with different collections every season and the brand aesthetic resonating with Chanel & Dior, it just made sense to call it HAUT instead of HAUTE because I’m not in the fashion industry but rather the bath & body industry. If that makes sense.

Right away, I wanted to come up with a logo and lock down the domain name as well as all social media handles so that came next. I hired a freelancer on Fiverr to design a simple logo, then I created all of my social handles for HAUTBath. After that, I decided on the brand colors being black, white, sage green and kraft. In addition to that, I quickly came up with the packaging and sourced out different vendors that aligned with my vision and luckily there was a local vendor called, Paper Mart in Orange, Ca that had everything I needed in one place. They had matte black shipping boxes as well as black tissue paper along with lace and velvet ribbons that totally fit my vision for the packaging. I also got a label maker to make all of the labels myself.

Then of course I bought all of the equipment needed to make soap on a regular basis and sourced out reputable vendors for my raw materials (I like New Directions Aromatics) as well as actual soap equipment like molds etc…and the rest I used what was in my kitchen; my hand blender and a big pot that I had to mix the batter as well as measuring cups.

Finally, I decided to start my own website so I can have full control on how my store would look like online. I bought the domain and signed up for a Shopify account (super user friendly if you don’t know coding) and started to really learn how to use all of that so I could design the website myself.

This all took a good year and half – my website officially launched in 2017.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I like to consider myself a bath boutique as opposed to a soap business because I carry products from other handmade vendors such as candles. I also make bath salts & soaks as well as bath trays and soap dishes made out of resin, so there is a lot of variety, but my main focus is the soap.

My focus is to help you glow from the inside out, so I am currently adding a blog to my website to give my audience the tools to be the best version of themselves, whatever that looks like to them. I will have content such as healthy recipes to inspire people to eat better and educate them on why certain foods are good for your skin along with self-care and wellness tips and information!

Eventually, I would like to private label my own towels and have a pajama/lingerie line or buy those products wholesale from a local designer- I’m not really sure yet so I’m currently doing research on all of that, but my goal is to make it a one stop shop for everything self-care and with quality being my main priority.

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

I do manufacture my own products for the most part even though a lot of people have asked me for liquid soap as well as bath bombs, I honestly don’t think I would enjoy making those nor do I think I would be good at it. Eventually I will outsource both of those and preferably from a local artisan that could use the help- it just takes time to source someone with the same values and is local.

It wasn’t until last year that I decided to add variety to my store by outsourcing candles so I can focus on what I’m actually good at and not just try to make everything myself for the sake of good profit margins. I think it’s important to have that self-awareness and always have quality in mind. I much rather leave the other stuff to people who are experts in those fields.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

My initial capital was self-funded and probably cost me around $1000 if I had to guess to just pick myself up off the ground. This is ranging from the education like my soap classes to the digital expenses such as my logo, website, and creative programs such as adobe cloud as well as labels and my label maker. In addition to that I had to buy my raw materials from overseas, packaging and equipment.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.HAUTBath.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hautbath/
• Facebook: https://www.twitter.com/HAUTBath
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hautbath

Image Credits
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