We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jesse Brajuha a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jesse, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
One day I was showering and thought I’d try out my girlfriend’s body scrub. It felt delicious on my skin but the shimmery pink packaging and flowery scent didn’t really resonate with me. In that moment it struck me that there is so much missing in the world of skincare. In spite of a new generation of unapologetic gender benders, soap and skincare products really toe the line in marketing products to MANLY men and SOFT DELICATE women, forgetting that the majority of people exist beyond the binary or somewhere in between.
Also, there is so much fun to be had when it comes to soap and skincare. I thought I’d be the change.
I began to learn soap making and I fell in love. I also realized I was pretty good at it and received a lot of positive feedback about my products.
There are a million soap companies but I knew when I started that I was doing something different. I’m a queer and trans man and I don’t shy away from infusing my products with my story or vigorous nods to queer and trans community. People from all walks of life can and do enjoy my products because they are made with amazing ingredients, are beautiful and smell delicious. But people from particular subcultures enjoy them on a deeper level.
I worked so hard to create a leather scent that I love and I’m so pleased to know that my leather loving friends are obsessed with my “leather bar”. My newest “drag bar” (grapefruit & lavender) is one of my most popular products, particularly with people who are looking for something a bit more floral and colorful than my other offerings. I have a swirly woodsy “bear bar”, exfoliating face and body “cub scrub” and a scent free 100% olive oil “clean and so-bar” to celebrate my sobriety and my fellow friends in recovery.
I have spent most of my career in the social service sector, working directly with young people, people living with HIV, people with emotionally or intellectual disabilities. While I seemed to be good at the work, it was depleting and it didn’t fuel my soul. It is amazing to feel that I am doing something that I love, that allows me to show and give care to others, to produce something that makes people feel seen, and products that I’m able to donate to those in need.
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
I’m originally from Long Island, NY but I currently live just outside of Philadelphia. I studied psychology in college and went on to have a wide number of professions and experiences. I was a counselor at a group home in Oakland, a truck driver for an organic produce distribution center in San Francisco and in New Mexico. I traveled Europe playing music with my girlfriend at the time. I went on to work with LGBTQIA youth as a health specialist, doing HIV testing and running workout groups, meditation, and sexual health related groups. I was a Special Education Physical Education teacher, and a personal trainer with an emphasis on inclusion, body positivity, and with a particular focus on queer and trans people, as I know that it isn’t always easy to train and with straight cisgender people who haven’t walked in our shoes.
While my career can seem all over the place, health seems to be something that ties them all together. I ended up going back to school and getting my masters in public health about five years ago, and went on to be a research coordinator, working in social behavioral health research.
Some people have felt as if soap making seems so random, but people who really know me don’t. To me, being a soap maker and running a business, is about health. Some of my trans friends have said that before they used my soap, taking a shower was a chore, and now they have more joy and feel better in their skin when they wash their bodies. Through the process of becoming a soap maker, I feel I’ve helped to encourage self-love to my customers, and particularly in my communities. I was never someone who went out of my way to put something delicious on my body. I kind of think part of being drawn to soap making at this point in my life, is due to finally feeling like my more basic needs have been met. I began my transition over 10 years ago which for me included a lot of growing pains and also a lot of surgeries that I feel I’m really starting to heal from. I have a house and healthy friendships.I lived in Philadelphia for about 10 years before moving to Lansdowne which is just outside of Philly which has allowed me to settle and build community. Prior to this, I never lived in a place for more than a few years. I kind of see myself climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and have finally gotten to the top, leading me to do something more creative and life-giving than I ever had before.
Once I had an aha moment. Soap, along with most things in our society, are so gendered and binary. We have fru fru pink and flowery women’s products and then men’s products which boast about how MANLY they are. It also struck me that most soap I see in the world is boring. I like bright colors and learning new techniques to make beautiful designs. I practice making so many batches of soap to get the design and the scent exactly where I want it. It literally took me about a year to complete my “Leather Bar” fragrance. I wanted something that definitely read as leather, but didn’t hit you over the head with it. I wanted something more complex, delicious, and compelling. I added patchouli and grapefruit, tobacco and bayleaf, to name just a few. And my leather loving friends and customers are very into this bar.
I also wanted to be cheeky and playful and a little bit sexy. I have a woodsy “Bear Bar” and a grapefruit and lavender “Drag Bar” with pink, purple and black and white swirls. I love the feeling of hearing from people how they love my products and am especially touched when people say it has helped them in some way to feel happier in their body.
I realized that though my mission in life was to help people, but not in the way that I had planned. I have an extroverted personality, generally being quite animated and joyful when I’m with people, and that really masked my social anxiety and desire to be alone much of the time. Like a lot of people, the societal shifts that took place due to the pandemic allowed me to go deeper inside of myself and to focus on what is important to me. Before I don’t think I really knew. I thought that because I was good with people that working with them was what I should do. I thought that since I got a graduate degree in public health, that I should work on doing research, where I worked with transgender people, IV drug users, and people at risk for HIV. But I was wrong. I realized that the way that I wanted to show love to people in the world was to make something that I feel so proud of, cure it, cut it, wrap it in a little package, and send it to you with love. My hope is that it makes you feel good and that you feel the love that I’ve poured into it. I realized I like to work alone and that not having a boss is really a good thing for me.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
It’s hard to pinpoint one story to illustrate my journey. I had a lot of challenges growing up. I grew up in a dysfunctional home. I had untreated ADHD. I figured out I was gay in junior high, and the depression of mostly dealing with that on my own was overwhelming. Fifteen years after that I realized I was transgender and I began to transition which was an incredibly intense journey. The weight of doing that was in some ways even harder than coming out as gay, because everyone who knows you knows at pretty much the same time, and talking about it with each one of them is daunting. Around this time I bottomed out and realized I needed to quit drinking. That is when my deep journey of recovery began, not just from addiction, but from trauma by getting into therapy, getting treated for ADHD, having healthier relationships. Then I went to graduate school and for the first time in my life I was the teacher’s pet, never being late and sitting in the front of the class. I also got straight A’s (aside from one B+, darn it), won both the Drexel School of Public Health as well as the entire university’s “Common Good” Award, was on student government, and was my school’s commencement speaker. Crazy to go from being the kid who would sleep in class, cut school to drink, smoke in the school bathroom, and then being the person voted to have this role. After that I worked for a couple of years as a research coordinator for Temple’s School of Public Health. I quit during the pandemic because I just couldn’t do it anymore. It just became evident when the pandemic began and I was working from home, that it wasn’t the work I wanted to be doing in the world. I said to myself that I would be okay, and that by quitting my job and living off of my savings, I would have the space and time I needed to find out what I really wanted to do. This question has always evaded me. And then I found soap making. It was love at first sight. I knew that this was it. This was my thing. I started a soap making business starting with an online store and then vending at events. I started to listen more to people who encouraged and believed in me and not to naysayers who didn’t believe in my dream. Sometimes the only person doing that was me. It required a lot of strength to overcome the doubts but my desire to continue was stronger. For me, soap making was like love at first sight. I have never been in love with my job, or even really liked my job a whole lot…until now.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I don’t know if it’s a lesson, but I had to stop calling myself crazy for starting my own business. It’s like, when I told my friends I needed to preface by saying that I know I’m crazy but…. I was insecure as I had never done something like this before. But eventually, with a couple of really big cheerleaders in my life, I started identifying as a business owner, even when I was barely making any money. I think all of us have self-doubt but considering where I came from, the self-doubt was quite was a lot to overcome.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tritonsoap.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/triton_soap/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TritonSoap/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@triton_soap
Image Credits
Alexander John Photography