Hi!
My name is Kelli, and I've had a concept for this store for a while now, starting around 2010.
I just thought soap was really cool as a kid, not too much more to it.
I started in 2010, maybe 2009, but I was age 7-8 and setting up my own shop with other people's products. I squeezed conditioner and shampoo into travel size bottles and tried to sell it to my mom, and of course, did other similar things with soap. I eventually bought a soap making kit from Michael's not too long after that, which helped sparked a seemingly lifelong interest.
My first "event" was in the second grade, where we had to replicate a mall and buy products with fake money. I brought about 30 pieces of soap, and I ended up with the most fake money at the end of the day. The kids thought it was cool. All else I actually remember from that day was my friend selling Mario drawings, but they were cool. I bought some.
I ended up doing this at every elementary school event I could, and I made decent profits off of it for my age. Brought my soap to Pennsylvania on family trips, took it to church, everything I could think of.
I stopped making and selling around 2014, age 12, which was around when I started middle school. Kids weren't as interested in it anymore, and so I lost a good bit of motivation.
I ended up starting up again in January 2020, age 18. I made business cards, gave them to everyone I saw. I ended up giving one to my AP Biology teacher who proceeded to hang it up on her wall. She invited me to be a vendor at the school's fashion show, which I obviously said yes to. I ended up signing up for a couple more vendor events that year as well.
Then, the pandemic hit right as I was rebranding. Soap is good for the pandemic, but I hardly had an audience.
Throughout the pandemic, I've been advertising as much as possible, and coming up with a steady line of products. I'm happy with the progress I've made.