Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Julie Matola. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Julie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The Green Cottage Makery emerged from the inspiration of a modest century cottage and a way of life that used to exist. The Green Cottage is a 130 year old farmhouse that has no front door or doorbell. It is a modest, chippy, quirky home with a winding garden, wisteria arbor and echoes of past inhabitants. There are pottery fragments in the ground and finger prints in the handmade clay floors that speak of the potters who once lived here with handmade bathroom tiles and illustrative painted porcelain backsplash. It is the details in the cottage that make it special. A hand painted ‘pork chops and gravy’ repurposed window, from a song a band played when my husband and I were first dating, paired with oil paintings my sister painted of our chickens. The cottage is also a place for collected antiquities and repurposing the old, well worn and solid bits of past just like the home itself.
The cottage is personal to me. It’s a dream my husband and I had for our life and family with a slow life in an open country immersed in fresh air and nature all around us. We soak in the summers spent by the campfire watching movies on the back of the garage and swinging from the mature trees. Memories are made here with family and friends. Chickens roam freely perching on a patio chair to have a conversation. We are inspired to play at the cottage and let go of every convention. It is a place of rest and retreat.
The Green Cottage is not the color green (though maybe one day…) it is about the green living that we once all lived by. It’s about clean living without toxins. The Green Cottage inspired me to clean up, reduce unnecessary and harmful products, simplify life and live like people used to. When we see the beauty around us, we choose to take care of it more kindly. We respect the earth, our history, and our future inhabitants. Life is not about money and owning more things and speeding through the process. The Green Cottage has inspired me to live sustainably and reduce my landfill footprint, to choose to bypass plastics that live on forever and pollute through its whole production chain and to compost for soil enrichment rather than bringing in store bought. The Green Cottage has taught me to appreciate handmade and well made items for longevity and artistry and to support others who have that same dream.
In my ‘makery’ space, I use basic essentials (the raw, organic, and as original to nature based form) to make everyday home and body care. I don’t use preservatives or unnatural colors or scents. I enjoy finding a way for nature to provide the color, using clays and roots to infuse into my soaps and salves. What started as making simple household cleaners from vinegar and rubbing alcohol just like my Grandma made, showed me that simple nature based ingredients that we already have on hand are truly the best and all you really need.
Through my process of making, I find more and more people appreciate the simple, clean, unprocessed products in their lives and for their families. They may have skin or respiratory issues or maybe they have gone through cancer treatment. Connecting with people and how I can help them has been the most rewarding. I dream of more visibility to simple, clean products for a healthy home and body care with appreciation for non-plastic and compostable packaging. This is truly important to me. Healthy products in sustainable packaging. We all deserve the best, most clean way to live and treat our planet.
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’ve always been a ‘maker’ since I was a kid, I would make everything and I never really knew what I wanted to make as a career. Professionally, I started as a product designer for large companies in a highly consumer arena. The process was not very special and I didn’t have any connection to it with such large companies and so many hands in the mix. The work was fast and formulaic and I craved time with my little ones at home and more of an integrated work / family life. It took a long time to get to where I know what I am doing is ‘my thing’. We moved into a century home that inspired me to slow down and get back to basics. Simple ingredients and nature are all that is needed to care for our home and body. Coupled with my love of nature and protecting our resources, the Green Cottage Makery was born and started to grow. I learned as I made and kept going, encouraged my husband to ‘just keep doing it’ because I loved it so much. My background in product design was a natural fit for the packaging and I love putting together special gift boxes that you can easily share with someone you care about.
I think what sets me apart is that I care. I care about people. I’ll give you my recipe if you are a maker and want to do it yourself to save money. I care about everyone’s health. There are too many bad ingredients in products on the market. There are so many health issues and I feel that all the toxic chemicals, fragrances, preservatives and colorings are contributing to the problem. I talk to people when I am set up at pop-up markets. I listen to what they need or what they are going through and create custom orders based on their needs. Some of my products are inspired by my customer’s requests and needs. I never understood why we need so many products when simple things can be multi-purpose. My PAW BALM can be used for your pet’s cracked paws AND your dry human skin. It’s all organic and food based so you can basically eat it. I appreciate multi-purpose products and simplicity. I also only make one body lotion, my Body Butter, which has infused organic fractionated coconut oil with calendula flowers, a healing flower and is whipped with organic shea butter. I think it’s absolutely the best body moisturizer so I’m not going to make other versions. One jar lasts a long time because it’s thick and wonderful and heals scrapes while it softens your skin with a shimmery glow. I love this stuff! I’m asked all the time what my favorite product is. This is hard because I use EVERYTHING I make for myself and my family. The one that I can’t live without and would never go back to would be a traditional cream facial moisturizer. I have completely changed from using my oil serums. I created the Glow serum with simply organic argan and jojoba oils. I added a bit of botanicals for my different versions. Frankincense and pomegranate seed oil for normal skin and lavender and tea tree oil for sensitive and breakout prone. I have a mushroom oil serum for mature skin with carrot seed oil for spf and a beard version of Glow called GRUFF that is the same base oils with exception of cedarwood and rosemary for conditioning hair.
The Green Cottage is all about nature’s ability to heal and take care of us. I choose to take care of the earth that cares for us by choosing earth mindful packaging and have a glass jar buy-back program for in-house jar recycling.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
This year I plunged forward into doing a lot of pop-up markets to gain visibility. I spent a lot of money on the fees and tried any that I thought might be good or was recommended. Starting in the spring, my weeks were spent making and many weekends were spent setting up markets as far as 90 minutes away. Pop-up markets are a hard day’s work to create a whole shop in one morning, sell all day then tear down at the end. This is a big hustle but with every show, even the ones that I didn’t have many customers and felt defeated, there was always someone I was able to connect with that led to something along the way, down the road. There were repeat customers, a wholesale order negotiated, a show invited to, a boutique introduced. After one particularly hard show, I questioned everything I was doing and why and felt pretty down on myself. I confided in my life cheerleaders, and spent the next week journaling, brainstorming, and binge listening to motivational podcasts (Motivated Mompreneur) while making products for the next show I had in 2 weeks. I gained so much clarity from that failure that I showed up at my next show with 110% and had my best sales ever.
Failure is going to happen. That allows us to get stronger and better and learn. It has to happen. Also, have a support team!
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
I would say my business is growing organically. I started with limited resources. I would only buy the bare minimum of what I could afford at the time then little by little I was able to increase that amount or purchase a new supply or tool to create efficiency or increase my margin by buying supplies in greater bulk. It wasn’t ideal, but it allowed me to grow without creating debt.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.greencottagemakery.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greencottagemakery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegreencottagemakery
Image Credits
Julie Matola