We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kimberly Capron Gonzalez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tell us the story of how you came up with the idea for your business? Paint the picture for us so we really understand the context, circumstances, the emotions etc. Walk us through how you knew this was a worthwhile endeavor – talk to us about the logic of why you felt this would work? Were you solving a problem that no one else was solving? Were you offering a unique approach or what about this idea got you most excited?
So during the COVID lockdown of 2020, I taught myself how to make cold-process soap. There was a big demand for soap because everybody was washing their hands about every five minutes. Learning about all the different oils, herbs, butters, and fragrances really stoked my creativity — the possibilities seemed endless. Also, I have to admit that mixing the oil and lye together to create soap gave me somewhat of a thrill – it seemed so dangerous! I spent the rest of the COVID lockdown not only learning how to make soap but learning how to formulate bath and body products through some online classes. I also started making wax melts to teach myself how to blend fragrance and essential oils together to create unique new scents.
The whole time I was making soap and other potions, I had this Victorian/Dark Academia/Apothecary aesthetic in my head. I’ve always been really drawn to Victorian typography, bottles, and graphics. I started thinking seriously about opening a shop, picturing myself mixing up potions among shelves and shelves of bottles and jars stuffed with herbs.
As I started to do some market research, I noticed that most indie vendors were using plastic clam shells for their wax melts. And, I just thought, man, what a waste to be putting single-use wax melts in a forever container. I’m a huge environmentalist. I thought, if I’m going to do this, I’m definitely going to make the products packaged as plastic-free as possible.
When I was researching companies with sustainable packaging, I noticed some trends with most of these companies. Most major corporations are telling you that they are “green,” but, really, they are greenwashing, and if you dig deep, find that they’re really not that sustainable at all. The second kind of company that I noticed selling products with sustainable packaging was luxury-ish, unrelatable, and felt very non-inclusive. And then we have the super crunchy, all-natural types, that mean well, but, formula-wise, weren’t the best because for shampoo and some other products, there are just better ingredients.
I didn’t want any of those vibes. The packaging should be sustainable, yes, but the products shouldn’t feel elite. And, I want to choose my ingredients based on how well they work. It’s tricky to call something “natural” because first of all, just because it’s natural, It doesn’t mean that it’s safe. Arsenic is natural. When I’m choosing ingredients for my products. I deep dive into that specific ingredient and find out if it’s the best ingredient for the job, how sustainable is it, and if there’s any harm that it does to either the person or the environment. Trust me, you totally want preservatives in your lotions!
Even though my products come in mostly sustainable packaging, I don’t want to promote my company just on that. I want to promote my company based on the quality of the products and the creativity of my scent blends and all of that stuff. My hope is that all companies switch over to environmental packaging sooner rather than later and if I promote my company just based on just the packaging, then when everybody has sustainable packaging, I’m not unique anymore. I want to produce creative, scrumptious handmade products, that just happened to be in eco-minded packaging.
I named my company Athame + Alchemy to represent my intention on creating magical things and, alchemy, well, if you ever make soap from lye and oil, that’s some crazy alchemy right there! I love it. It enchants me every time.
For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself, how you got into your industry / business / discipline / craft etc, what type of products/services/creative works you provide, what problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others. What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.
Please provide as much detail as you feel relevant as this is one of the core questions where the reader will get to know about you and your brand/organization/etc
I’ve always been an extremely passionate DIY maker. I love learning new skills and being able to make and fix things myself. I don’t want corporations to rob me of skills and crafts that have been passed down for generations, only just to sell them back to me in a way that costs lots of money, hurts the environment, and exploits human labor. Gaining this kind of knowledge in our hyper-consumer culture can be a radical act in itself. (I’ve got some punk rock origins, can you tell?)
My professional background is in graphic design and teaching. I was a freelance graphic designer for over 20 years and for most of that time, I taught design classes at Miami Ad School (and still do!). Sometime around 2017, I stopped wanting to accept freelance design projects – no more brochure design for me! I decided to finish my MFA to go in more of a pedagogy direction, maybe teach full-time.
I decided to pursue my Master of Fine Art in Interdisciplinary Art at Goddard College in February 2018. Entering the program, my interests included DIY culture, zine-making, environmental activism, and feminism, so these were the subjects that intersected with my artwork during the program. I “Zoom-graduated” in the Summer of 2020 after finishing my thesis, “Alchemical Reverie” (foreshadowing?) Not surprisingly, colleges and universities weren’t exactly on a hiring spree during the days of covid.
I started Athame in October 2020 with a teeny-tiny catalog of soap and wax melts (soy wax based). In the last three years, I’ve created a pretty extensive scent catalog, mostly inspired by music, books, magic, and pop culture.
Through 2021, I bootstrapped my company bit by bit, adding blends to my scent catalog and creating new products. The sugar scrub was a huge passion project for me because I’ve always used a certain “apricot-based” scrub in the shower and I wanted to create a unique, high-quality formula that doesn’t come in plastic. Once I had that recipe down, I looked for sustainable packaging options and settled on 100% aluminum screw top jars – inexpensive to ship, won’t break in the shower, and won’t rust.
The other product that I’m extremely proud of is the shampoo bar. It’s a rice-protein-based formula with Panthenol, it’s super gentle and creates massive amounts of thick bubbly lather. Right now, a conditioner bar is in the works as well as several hydrosol-based micellar waters and toners – packaged in aluminum Bottles of course!
Another thing I’m super excited about is growing my own herbs and botanicals to use in my formulations. I have an organic aloe vera garden and several herbs that I grow for use in soapmaking. That’s one advantage to living in Miami, a year-long growing season!
Thinking about the future of Athame + Alchemy, I want the company to remain a small-ish, indie brand. I’d definitely like to bring on some full-time order fulfillment help, a general assistant, and a bookkeeper. But, I want to keep making the potions and designing the labels and mixing up the scents. I want to keep interacting with my customers, many of whom feel more like friends at this point. I never want to just be the one telling other people what to do.
Can you share the story of a time when you had to pivot (in business, career or life).
Funding your business – tell us the story of how you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Starting this company will be my third professional pivot career-wise. I started off doing photography and then I pivoted to being a website designer and then to being a freelance graphic designer and all the while also being a teacher.
I don’t think that people have this one career that they do for their whole lives anymore. I think what happens is that you open the door and go through it and that door leads to another door and so on and you keep pivoting and going around corners to see what’s next. I’m inherently curious and that has always really helped me in opening those doors.
Athame and Alchemy is the culmination of almost every pivot I’ve ever made, plus all this new terrain. Photography, website design, graphic design – I use all those skills every day. And, even though I decided not to pursue teaching in higher education, my time studying environmentalism and art also informs so much of what I make. A pivot in your career can lead you to places you never thought about going; it’s a winding road, for sure.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
The main way that I keep in touch with my customers is through my monthly newsletter which is available for sign-up on my website. I send out an update about 10 times a year and list everything that’s new on the site, sales and discount codes, and general shop updates. I’m super conscious of only sending about ten per year because I hate all that constant junk in my inbox and I know everyone else does too. I don’t do restocks in June or December – those are my planning and “catch-up” months.
The other major way that I keep in touch with my customers is through Instagram. Social Media is a very challenging necessity for small business owners. You feel like you need to be on all of the platforms… Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, … but really, it’s just too much for one woman. I decided to pick the most important platform for me, and that’s Instagram because I can tell stories, link my products, and showcase my photography and videos. I’d really like to get into creating some longer-form videos. A couple of years ago I actually did create a YouTube channel. There are only about 3 or 4 videos there. But I really enjoy making them (one of my previous pivots was getting my BS in Broadcasting from the University of Miami and then deciding not to do broadcasting!). I have some soaping videos planned for August; I’d like to commit to at least four a year.
As far as fostering brand loyalty, my strategy is just to provide the best customer service and products that I can.
I want Athame + Alchemy to create an enchanting experience when the customer opens the box and sees the aesthetic of everything and how everything is packaged and the care that’s put into packing every order. I’m trying to grow very slowly and intentionally because I definitely don’t want the customer service and purchasing experience to suffer at all as my company gets bigger.
Lastly, I try to have an open dialogue with my customers. I think in this day and age, you can foster a lot of loyalty by being honest, transparent, and authentic.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.athameandalchemy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athame_and_alchemy/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@athame_and_alchemy
Image Credits
all by me!