We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sean Watson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sean, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

As someone who had difficulty in school due to suffering from undiagnosed dyslexia, as well as having a child with mild A.D.H.D., it seems obvious that the current one size fits all approach to education is underserving a large swath of students. Setting aside the usual observations about the lack of reinforcement of basic life skills (i.e. how to pay taxes and how credit works) the current system seems to actively penalize children who have different learning styles.

Allowing for School Choice seems to be the most direct action toward positive changes. Innovation will be spurred by competition to find new ways to teach, new institutions to cultivate specialized life paths for these everchanging times, and to reinforce achievement through artistic expression. To find ways to help foster the skill of critical thinking and discourse through the Socratic method. And most importantly, to mine out each individual’s talent at an early age then help strengthen said talent. Unfortunately, we have to come to grips with the fact that technology will make the old paths to “success” obsolete very… very soon.

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

The Jeweled Alchemy Soap Company creates luxurious handmade, one-of-a-kind, custom bath products that benefit the skin and entices the senses with scents and treatments that will add a little luxury and fun to your everyday life.

After making soap and skin products for friends and family for over a decade, I decided to share the craft that I love so much with the public. My original inspiration came from watching an interview with Lisa Price, the creator of Carol’s Daughter, and how she began her journey by making products in her kitchen with household ingredients. I decided to start with simple ingredients in the hopes of making a soap that might help our daughter deal with her sensitive skin. Very quickly I found that I had a real passion for soap-making that tapped into an artistic ability that I never knew I had. So here we are.

Our goal is to provide unique, custom-made skin-healthy bath products for people seeking an upgrade in quality as compared to the same old store brands. And at a reasonable price.

It is difficult to compare ourselves to other artisan soap makers. We follow, support, and engage with so many incredible creatives. The main difference would be that we use melt-and-pour soap as our medium. The first thing that attracted me to use it as a base is its versatility. But most importantly after a lot of research, we partnered with the very best suppliers that provide top-tier ingredients.

When thinking of what we’re most proud of, first I would say taking that leap of faith and putting ourselves out to the public. Second, is when someone tells me that our product has helped them with sensitive skin. My heart leaps each time I hear that.

The main thing that wants the readers to know is that our customers and their feedback are the most important priority. Our goal is to improve our products and their experience. As an example, a customer made an observation about the plastic shrink-wrapping we used initially for our Cleansing Bars. After some consideration, we’ve evolved our packaging to simple parchment paper to be kinder to the environment.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

My partner and I met at a now-defunct business school out of Flushing, Queens many years ago. We were both looking to better ourselves and pave our way into the growing technology industry. However, after a very short time, we found that the “school” didn’t quite live up to the expectations they set.

We quickly became friends, and always made sure to keep in touch, even as my now partner followed a career in the military. Many years later, that friend evolved into a marriage partner, and later still that marriage partner evolved into a business partner.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

The greatest resource we could ever recommend no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey is to find yourself a mentor through the SCORE Association.

SCORE is a free, nationwide network that provides an intuitive online environment to help walk you through the start-up process with a number of courses and seminars… But they also match you with a volunteer mentor that helps guide you through learning who you are, helping you map out your goals, and pointing out your blind spots.

I can say with the utmost confidence we wouldn’t be anywhere near as far along without our mentor Walter.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jeweledalchemysoap.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeweledalchemy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeweledAlchemySoap/
• Other: You can also find us on Etsy. etsy.com/shop/JeweledAlchemySoapCo

Image Credits
Gleneraver Edwards Watson – Soapmaker/Chief Amazement Officer Sean D. Watson – Order fulfillment/Marketing/Purchasing/Head of Customer WOW