We were lucky to catch up with Melanie Eberly & Arianna Surface recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Melanie Eberly & thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

Corporate America does not always have their consumers best interest in mind. The skincare industry in particular, is full of huge brands that have celebrity endorsements and pretty packaging, but their products are full of toxic ingredients that are harmful and can cause disfunction in our bodies. Our skin is the biggest organ in our body, and it is constantly coming into contact with these harmful ingredients. Whether it is lotion, makeup, moisturizers, soap, whatever… more often than not, we are clogging our pores and are overall doing more harm than good. We deserve to have products made with all natural ingredients, and that will truly help to better the health of our skin. At Deeply Rooted Handmade, we have your skin’s best interest in mind, and only use natural ingredients that are ethically sourced.

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

We are Arianna (left) and Melanie (right) and we own and operate Deeply Rooted Handmade LLC. We have been friends for almost 14 years and our husbands have been friends their whole lives. We both went to Texas Sate University, graduated, got married and started our families. We are both full time Domestic Engineers and we now have Deeply Rooted!

We had used goat milk soap in the past and we liked the benefits our skin received and how it cleared some skin irritations we had. We chatted a bit about all of the toxins in the soaps and body washes we were buying at the store, and our previous experiences with goat milk soap and it got us thinking about making our own goat milk soap. “It can’t be that hard!” So we looked into it, developed our own luxurious recipe, bought ingredients and got started! Our husbands, aka our “shadow men”, have been supportive and have helped us tremendously in getting our business up and running. They put a soap shop together where all of our products are made, and made a soap room where all of our packaging is completed.

Our current products are our 13 scents of goat milk soap, 4 scents of tallow soap, three different balms (First Aid Balm, Baby Balm and Beard Balm), Lard Dish Soap and a Postpartum Herb Bath. All of our products are handmade with all natural ingredients. The base in our goat milk soaps consist of raw goat milk, cocoa butter, shea butter, olive oil, coconut oil and sodium hydroxide (lye). To get different colors and scents in our soaps, we use all natural clays and pure essential oils. Our soaps are considered luxury soaps, as they give a creamy lather and leave your skin feeling clean, hydrated and moisturized. Goat milk is extremely beneficial and nourishing for our skin. It has naturally occurring alpha hydroxy acid (AHAs), which act as a natural exfoliant and help to get rid of the top layer of dead skin cells, while also providing intense moisture, without stripping your skin. Many of our customers have reported seeing improvements with their skin irritations specifically eczema, “chicken skin”, psoriasis and acne. We also have customers who have said that our Baby Balm has helped to clear/soothe diaper rashes, bug bites and “baby acne”. One customer has been using our First Aid Balm for her arthritis in her hands, and was surprised to find that her hands do not feel as stiff when she uses it.

As mothers and wives, we wanted to be able to make soaps and other skincare products that not only we could use, but also our babies and our husbands. Babies have such sensitive skin and we have formulated some of our products to be extra gentle for them. We also wanted our soaps to not only be gentle, but actually work to clean dirt and grime. Our husbands have definitely put that to the test and were initially surprised at how well our soaps cleaned while also moisturizing and smelling good. We are proud to say that we have formulated our recipes to do exactly what we envisioned- nourish, replenish, moisturize, clean and smell good. We feel very blessed to have been able to share our products with the public and that we have gotten such great feedback from our customers. It is very rewarding to hear their results, and it just warms our hearts. It is a pleasure to be able to share clean products, and give our customers an extra option.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

We met at church camp when we were just 12 and 13. We just clicked and quickly became best friends. We had crushes on two boys that were best friends… and they are now our husbands! We went to college together and lived together for a couple of years. We are now both married and each have children that are close in age and we are excited to see them grow up together.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We currently sell our products in person through local markets and events with vendors, as well as though direct messages on social media and Etsy sales. However, we are working on developing our own website, and will sell through that once it is published! Choosing to sell through social media was an easy decision for us, as most , if not all third party sites take a percentage of sales away, and you have to agree to all of their terms and policies in order to sell with them. Once we have our own website, we will be able to keep all of the proceeds from our sales and can run our business on our own terms.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DeeplyRootedSoap
• Instagram: @deeplyrooted_handmade
• Facebook: Deeply Rooted Handmade

Image Credits
Melanie Eberly