Eleven years of customers, retailers, unexpected opportunities, and a whole lot of good people.
When we started Old Soul Soap Company in 2015, we had a pretty simple idea: make good soap, sell good soap, and hopefully make enough money to keep making good soap.
We certainly didn’t have an eleven-year business plan involving hockey pucks, boutique hotels, municipal governments, lavender farms, hundreds of retailers, and enough cardboard shipping boxes to build a small subdivision. But here we are.
Somewhere along the way, we realized something: we might make the soap, but it’s the people who have made Old Soul what it is.
It Started With One Bar
Every small business starts somewhere. For us, it started with soap: lots of experimenting, lots of learning, and eventually lots of people who decided our soap deserved a place in their bathrooms. Some became regular customers. Others introduced us to friends and family. Some became retailers. And some came to us with ideas that made us stop and say, “Well, we’ve never done THAT before.”
Over the years, Old Soul has grown into a Northern Ontario manufacturer producing approximately 200,000 bars annually. That’s a lot of showers. And an extraordinary number of opportunities to drop a bar on your foot.
Sometimes, Someone Else Has a Better Idea
One of the most interesting parts of running this business is discovering what other people imagine doing with our products. We’ve made private-label soap for the City of Greater Sudbury, worked with boutique hospitality businesses including Castle Keep at Blue Mountain, and created products for lavender farms in Prince Edward County.
We’ve helped businesses offer something a little more personal than another promotional pen destined for a junk drawer. Sometimes our name isn’t even on the finished product, and that’s perfectly fine with us. We know who made it. More importantly, so does the business that trusted us to make it.
And then there are the ideas nobody could have predicted in 2015 — like officially licensed Hockey Night in Canada soap pucks. Yes, soap. Shaped like hockey pucks. We still get a kick out of saying that.
The Retailers Who Took a Chance on Us
If there’s one group of people who deserves a particularly loud thank-you, it’s our independent retailers: the gift shops, boutiques, general stores, and little businesses tucked into downtowns and tourist communities across Canada.
These are people with their own bills, challenges, customers, and dreams. Somewhere along the way, they decided to make room on their shelves for ours. Some have been with us for years; others are just discovering us. Every bar sold in somebody else’s shop represents two small businesses working together. We think that’s pretty special.
A Little Soap Can Go a Long Way
And then there are the schools, hockey teams, dance groups, and community organizations that have turned our soap into something much bigger than a bar in the shower.
Fundraising has become one of our favourite ways to work with people. A team needs help covering tournament costs. A school has a project to support. A dance group is raising money for its next big adventure. We make the soap, families and supporters get something useful, and the organization keeps a share of the sales.
We’ve worked with groups right here in Northern Ontario and beyond, and the best part is seeing what a bunch of people can accomplish when they rally around something they care about.
Of course, there’s usually one very organized volunteer keeping the whole thing together with spreadsheets, reminders, and the patience of a saint. If that’s you, we see you. And we appreciate you. 😂
We may be the soapmakers, but the people who sell, share, deliver, and support those fundraisers are the ones making the difference. That’s another kind of partnership we’re proud to be part of.
The Customers Who Keep Coming Back
Then there are our customers. The ones who know exactly which soap they want. The ones who buy twelve bars of the same scent because running out would apparently constitute a household emergency. The ones who try something new every time. And the ones who walk in, pick up a bar, smell it, smile, and immediately start telling us a story.
We’ve heard about vacations, weddings, new babies, retirements, difficult years, happy years, and everything in between. You can’t measure those conversations on a sales report. But you’d certainly notice if they disappeared.
A Small Factory With a Surprisingly Big Reach
A bar made in Hanmer might find its way into a hotel room, a cottage bathroom, a Christmas stocking, a corporate gift box, or a little shop on the other side of the country. Every one of those destinations started with someone deciding to give our company a chance.
Behind the scenes, soap is poured, cut, cured, labelled, packed, and shipped. There are racks of freshly made bars, boxes waiting for couriers, fragrances lined up on shelves, and people working hard to make it all happen. It isn’t particularly glamorous. Some days it’s downright chaotic. But it’s ours, and we’re proud of it.
Why We’re Telling You This Now
In our last blog, “We’re Not Closing. We’re Doubling Down,” we talked about the changes we’re making to Old Soul. We’re simplifying, concentrating on manufacturing, and putting more energy into the products and partnerships that make sense for our future.
Our retail operation is changing, but our commitment to the people who helped build Old Soul isn’t. In fact, those relationships are a big part of why we’re making these changes. We want to keep manufacturing for our customers, supplying our retailers, and creating products for businesses that need something uniquely theirs — for years to come.
After eleven years, we’ve learned that making soap is the easy part. Building something people care about? That’s the real accomplishment.
And Then There’s Christmas…
Of course, there’s one time of year when those relationships and interesting requests come together in a particularly spectacular display of organized chaos: Christmas. The factory gets busier, the shipping boxes multiply, and somewhere around December 23rd, a bewildered husband inevitably appears looking for something his wife will love. Don’t worry, fellas. We’ve got you.
But Christmas at Old Soul has also become about something bigger than selling soap: community giving, thoughtful corporate gifts, and holiday traditions that remind us why small businesses matter. And that’s a story worth telling.
Coming next: Christmas, Community, and the Last-Minute Shopping Dads.
With gratitude (and probably soap on our clothes),
Robin, Trevor & the Old Soul Soap Company Team
Handcrafted in Northern Ontario since 2015.