What’s your business name and what do you do?
White Pine Bath & Brew is my business where I turn Maine craft beers into luxury, vegan beer soaps. There are amino acids in hops which soothe skin irritation, and there is biotin, pantothenic acid, and a number of other essential vitamins in brewer's yeast. Beer also creates a more luxurious lather. By turning beer into soap, I found a great little niche that really speaks to Mainers specifically while also bringing those unique benefits to the soap making craft. I've begun to shift how I source my beer recently to come more and more from brewery production waste. My goal is to eventually source all of my beer from this excess to boost my sustainability.
How did you learn your craft?
I learned to make soap in a crockpot in my friend's kitchen. I was struggling with burn out in my career of social service/special education work, so I saw entrepreneurship as the path to a new life. My friend had started her own beer soap business a while back but was moving on to new projects. When she offered to teach me hot process soaping, I took her up on it. Hot process is one of the less common methods of making soap because the process can be a little volatile if you don't know what you are doing. You can make a small batch of about 10 bar soaps in a standard crockpot. I soap at a much larger scale now, but thrift store crockpots is where it all began. It feels a lot like baking, so there is a certain coziness to the process - especially during the winter months.
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
I think I am the exception here, but I LOVE admin work. My favorite work is executing all the behind the scenes of business: building out a website, monitoring analytics, pitching the press, email marketing, looking at numbers, and scheduling my week. I love a good spreadsheet. I love a pile of data. I make fabulous soap--don't get me wrong--but I live for the nerdy stuff. I still have a lot to learn in that department, but it feels really empowering to dig into the crunchy side of business. Understanding that side of business is how I will really know what is working and how I can expand; numbers don't lie and they aren't up for interpretation. It just scratches a different itch. Taxes are my one exception. Taxes are the worst.
What do you enjoy least?
Working with lye is tough. Soapmaking would be so much easier if I didn't have to be so careful about that aspect of it. However, the caustic nature of lye forces me to be meticulous about safe handling practices. There's a bit of a misconception out there that modern soap no longer requires lye to make. Unfortunately, lye is absolutely a requirement for the chemical reaction (saponification) that produces soap. Soap made without lye is a chemical impossibility. What people think of as liquid 'soap' is actually a detergent. So I use a lot of PPE and ventilation and just deal with the necessity of it.
What’s one thing you wish people knew about your work?
This is not just for soapmaking but for small business in general. I wish customers knew how impactful they are and what a difference they are making. Small businesses usually can't compete with the prices of massive companies because of the scale at which they operate. When I tell customers 'thank you', they don't realize what a deep place that comes from. I really do get excited when I get a new order. I really do know my return customers by name, especially the ones who have been with me for years and show up to all my pop-ups. It is a huge risk to work for yourself, but I do it because it gives me a joy that I never experienced in other lines of work. It sounds corny, but starting a small business really did help me find myself. My customers make it possible for me to have my dream job. I don't get the Sunday scaries anymore, and I don't dread the work week. My customers gave me that. I think if people truly wrapped their head around that, the ripple effect would be tremendous in terms of support for small businesses in general.
What’s one artist you look up to?
I am inspired by Hilary Crowell at The Cultivated Thread. Her weaving is such a unique, fascinating process that you just don't see anymore. I love when small businesses work to preserve old trades the way they were originally performed. I admire the quality and attention to detail that clearly goes into everything she makes. She has really made a success out of her business too. It is inspiring to see people that are ahead of me in the process, because it reminds me that people really can 'make it' doing what they love instead of being trapped in a corporate nine to five job.
What do you do when you’re not making?
I play games with friends, and I try to stay physically active. I'm actually a big video game nerd...still trying to get over the heartbreak in Baldur's Gate 3. My husband and I are in a regular Dungeons and Dragons group and do a lot of tabletop games with the same crowd. We are all huge foodies, so we usually spend our weekends experimenting with new cooking ideas and gaming together. In my solo time, I enjoy fitness and finding new ways to move. I mostly split my time between weight lifting and running, whatever feels good really. I am excited to take swimming lessons soon because all I ever learned was the doggy paddle. 🙃
Night owl or early bird?
My husband will call me a liar, but I'm an early bird all the way! I'm not amazing at getting up super early, but I far prefer that to staying up late. The mornings are when I feel unstoppable.
What's your favorite place in Maine?
This is so boring but I'm very introverted, so my favorite place is my house. It's nothing fancy, but we've made it our little sanctuary and I love being home. Outside of that, I love Knightville in South Portland. It's the heart of the town, and so many cool shops and restaurants have popped up there in the past couple of years. You can get everything you need for a fun day on that one strip: local foods, beer, coffee, massage, flowers, antiques, gifts. All the shop owners know each other, and it's a great little community to be a part of.