Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Julie Smith. 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. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

I make products that are environmentally responsible and sustainable. Aspire products are simple and never contain toxins that aren’t good for us or for the environment. All our products are available in containers and in bulk, so you can buy the container once, then fill it in bulk after that. Bulk saves money and saves single-use containers. We pay double for products when we buy in single-use containers, because of the cost of the container. Single use plastic increases our carbon footprint by nearly 2% in the U.S. in manufacturing, at a time when we need to reduce our carbon footprint to save our planet. We add 900 million toothpaste tubes to landfill every year in this country, when we can avoid toothpaste tubes and use refillable toothpowder from Aspire instead. Aspire is a zero energy, zero waste shop. We host Terracycle boxes for the public to recycle toothpaste tubes and brushes, disposable razors and blades, and pens and markers. We are transparent with our ingredients, which are listed in detail on our website, and with our shipping practices and other zero waste initiatives. We think all products manufacturers should be transparent with their ingredients. I also do workshops to teach people how to make their own personal care products, because I think the world will be a better place if more of us do that, and it will save waste and make our products safer.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a chemical and environmental engineer by discipline, and I started my career in the oil industry. I learned about our environmental problems and the role of fossil fuels, and developed a passion for the environment that drove me to change industries in the middle of my career. I moved to the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado, and began my career there in the water and wastewater lab, moving later into a plant engineer position that supported the water and wastewater plants, and all the other utilities at the brewery. I also was a charter member of the Coors green team, CARE (Committed to Active Responsibility for the Environment). During that time, I also earned a master’s in Environmental Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. These experiences taught me about the impacts of our personal care and home cleaning products on the environment, in particular the fish and wildlife that need the surface waters we discharge our treated wastewater into. Most commonly available products contain toxins that don’t break down very well in wastewater treatment plants, and end up “passing through” to receiving water bodies such as creeks, rivers and streams. Choosing not to be a part of poisoning our wildlife, particularly given that we’ve already decimated more than half of our wildlife in just the past several decades, I have been on a path to avoid toxic chemicals in products I use at home and on my body. I also know that the problem of single-use containers is horrible for the environment, creating more demand for fossil fuels to make plastics, and mines to make metal and glass, which takes away yet more habitat from fish and wildlife, so I got on a path to reduce my single-use containers. I discovered it to be extremely difficult to meet these goals. I would read every label on products at the store to find something that didn’t contain toxins, and it was nearly impossible to find ways to refill containers.
Because of the difficulty of finding good products, I started making my own. I also made products for my friends and family, figuring that every product of mine that they used instead of conventional products would be just a little less poison and single-use containers in this world. Eventually, I started a business that provides my products from an on-line store, and in several stores on the front range. Many of the stores that have our products in them are bulk refill stores, and they are all listed on our web site, to make it easy for someone to find stores that have our products. We also sell directly from our home shop in Golden, and people can pick up product that they order on-line there, or get refills.
At Aspire, we believe in transparency of ingredients, something that big corporations tend to be fairly elusive about. On our website, we list every ingredient in our products, whether or not they are organic, and the source of the product. We are trying to use as much material the is made in U.S.A. in our products as possible, and as much organic as we can find. We don’t use toxic synthetic ingredients. Ever. The most toxic thing we use in product manufacturer is caustic that is used for soap. To make soap, the two main ingredients are caustic and oils. These react with each other during the soap making process, and are consumed as the soap forms, leaving no residual caustic or oil in the final product.
We are very proud of our Colorado Gold liquid all-purpose soap, which is a local alternative to the more ubiquitous Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap. The difference is that, instead of olive oil from the Castille region of Spain, we use vegetable oils with similar oleic acid profiles that come from North America, and make a great liquid soap. The gold color is the natural gold color of the oils that are used to make the soap. We provide an unscented version for those who don’t do well with scents, and several choices of scented soaps that are scented with essential oils. Aspire Colorado Gold liquid soap can be used to clean everything in the home, including dishes, floors and laundry. It’s also great for camping, since it’s completely biodegradable. When camping, you can use for hand, body and hair too!
We have a very simple and refillable spray deodorant, refillable toothpowder, lip balm in your choice of containers, including compostable tubes and refillable tins, and non-toxic refillable bug spray. We make lotion bars, which are basically lotion without the water. Normally, lotion is an emulsion of oils that sooth our skin, and water. Since oil and water don’t mix, emulsifiers and other chemicals are needed to hold the oil and water together in a suspension, and a bottle to contain it all. By eliminating the water, we simply melt the oils into a bar, and no bottle is needed. Now, how simple is that?
Aspire primal soap is bar soap that is made from caustic that is extracted from wood ash, instead of purchased caustic that is normally a mined material. By extracting caustic from wood ash, we are using a local by-product from woodstoves, and after extracting the caustic, the wood ash is safe to apply as a nutrient and soil-builder in our garden.
Our newest product is Aspire Colorado Gold shampoo. It is similar to our liquid all-purpose soap, but it’s thicker in consistency, and contains coconut oils for more foaming. It is finished with a little Vitamin E oil and Castor oil, both of which are great for our hair and our scalp. Our next new product will be a shampoo bar.
Aspire is now offering workshops to teach people how to make their own personal care products. I believe that the more people who make their own personal care products, the cleaner our environment will be, and the healthier we will be. I want to teach others how to reduce their consumer footprint, and be critical of the ingredients in the products they buy, and strive to reduce single-use containers, especially plastic.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The first half of my career was in the oil industry, and I was fairly oblivious to environmental problems. Then, when the garbage barge from New York was stuck in the ocean with no place to get rid of the garbage in the 80’s, I woke up to the problem of too much trash. I began to recycle, and quickly became fanatical about it, then I started getting information about other environmental problems, including energy and water. My oil industry job took me to China, and I saw how the Chinese lived on a smaller footprint per capita, and I realized how bad we really are in the U.S. At first, my main concern was sustainability of resources. I was concerned we’d run out if we didn’t rein it in, and I was really concerned about our population growth, which would exacerbate that issue. I woke up to the reality of global warming after joining the Coors Brewery in 2000, when it became evident that our activities were definitely increasing atmospheric temperature. At Coors, I started in the water and wastewater plants, and ultimately became the energy engineer for the brewery, working on projects to reduce energy and water per barrel of beer. We reduced energy by more than 50% and water by nearly 30% during that time. We also made the brewery into the largest zero waste to landfill brewery in the world. We also converted the brewery power plant to 100% natural gas, getting completely off coal, and installed two EV chargers for employees to charge their EV’s for free. My last hurrah before retirement was to get several facilities, including the Blue Moon Brewery in LODO, on solar power through Xcel’s solar program. To this day, I still find it ironic that I started out my career by making more oil, and then ended it by using less, and I’m really proud of the career change I made. Because of this, I have no sympathy for people in irrelevant careers that hurt our environment, who refuse to change. We all need to change, especially if we can make the world a better place by doing so.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I make all my own products and, as a chemical engineer, I love bench testing formulas at the lab scale, and then scaling up to larger, more efficient batches. I have formulated all my own products, with the help of several books, references and textbooks. I get on the internet and research new products, unless I have my own ideas to begin with. I started making my own products for personal use many years ago, when I realized how toxic the typical products from big corporations really are. I would make them for friends and family as well, and several years ago I decided to start a company and sell the products. I figured that a local source of responsible products would help consumers have access to more responsible and refillable products. I am proud that all Aspire products are simple and environmentally responsible, and all are refillable. Our consumer dollars make a big difference, and by purchasing Aspire products, you can divert more money from the big corporations that control our government with their lobbying dollars. You can also help by buying from locally owned bulk stores that are dedicated to zero waste, and from the farmer’s market in season. All of these actions matter, and collectively we can help the environment a lot with responsible consumer choices. If we want to leave our children and grandchildren with a decent planet, we have to change our habits. It is our ethical obligation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aspirecolo.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/AspireColoradoBodyCare

Image Credits
I took all these pictures – Julie Smith, except the one of me was taken by Karyne Clark, my former partner.