A local soap-making business, Thrive Handcrafts, recently teamed up with a local coffee business, Sweetwater Organic Coffee Roasters, to create a soap that will leave java junkies feeling squeaky clean.
Susan Niemann, a stay-at-home mom and licensed massage therapist, began making soaps because she wanted to know the exact ingredients she was putting on her daughter’s and her own body.
In two years, her hobby quickly expanded into a successful business that distributes soap to locally owned stores in Gainesville.
The Niemanns drink Sweetwater Coffee at home. When she realized soap could be made out of coffee, she began experimenting and brought her perfected product to Sweetwater. The company was eager to collaborate with her.
Thrive Handcrafts’ soaps sealed with the Sweetwater logo are sold at Ward’s Supermarket and will soon arrive in other local stores.
Niemann’s other soaps, body scrubs, deodorant and balms can also be found at Ward’s, Citizens Co-op, Florida School of Massage, The Green House Nursery, Garden Gate Nursery and Earth Pets, and she is continually partnering with more local businesses.
Niemann said she bought handmade soap at a craft festival years ago and loved the idea of buying it from the hands that made it.
She didn’t want to use Johnson & Johnson on her baby because it had petroleum products. She wasn’t comfortable putting mineral oils or unpronounceable ingredients on her daughter.
From an environmental perspective, she also wanted to feel comfortable with what she was putting down the drain.
“If there is any small way that I can make a statement,” Niemann said, “even if it’s with a bar of soap, I’m going to make it.”
Her soaps contain natural products and are made from scratch. There are no dyes or animal fats, and if animal products such as honey or goat’s milk are used, it is in the title so nothing is hidden.
Palm oil is a popular ingredient in soaps but Niemann refuses to use it in hers since the oil palm is grown in the rainforest and she does not condone crops destruction.
She uses herbs from her own garden to scent the soaps such as lemongrass, mint and rosemary.
“I wanted it to smell like the real thing,” she said, “not like a chemically recreated scent.”
A Thrive Handcrafts soap may cost double that of a bar of Ivory soap, but it is guaranteed to contain natural ingredients as well as support the local economy.
She said if someone buys a bar of her soap at Ward’s then she makes money, Ward’s makes money and then she ends up spending the money she made at Ward’s so it stays in town.
Niemann thinks people are realizing that when you buy locally you can help feed a family on your block.
Niemann is starting to collaborate with local breweries to create a beer soap.
“I laugh at myself sometimes when I act like a bar of soap can change the world,” she said. “But in reality I really feel like it can do its part to help.”
