Coming clean
Rhonda Winters, left, and Kelli Mahan, owners of Bear Naked Soaps Co., show a sampling of their products, which have gained shelf space in several area stores and markets.
Kelli Mahan, left, and Rhonda Winters pause in front of the ingredients that go into a variety of all-natural soaps, lip balms and scrubs.
A sign for Bear Naked Soaps, which was launched locally a year ago.
PROSPERITY – For the past year, Kelli Mahan and Rhonda Winters have been making artisan soap under the Bear Naked Soaps brand in a collaboration that started with a friendly telephone connection two states away.
The link-up was also the spark for the local start-up in the form of Winters’ niece, Timarra Gehring, who resides in Fort Wayne, Ind.
“She’s a brainstormer,” said Winters, 53, adding that her niece first approached them with the idea of a soapmaking business about a year ago.
Mahan, 39, who said Gehring “has been my best friend for 27 years,” would call to talk, “but it was soap, soap, soap” that always dominated the phone conversations.
Winters said she began to learn how to make soap and purchased many of the ingredients, but didn’t want to go it alone. That’s when Mahan said she would go into business with her.
Thus was born the Washington County branch of Bear Naked Soaps LLC.
They made their first bars a little over a year ago.
It didn’t take long for their enterprise to ramp up. Armed with base recipes from Gehring, who operates Bear Naked Soaps in Fort Wayne, the two began producing all natural bars from a mixture of coconut oil, olive oil, tallow, vegetable shortening, distilled water and essential oils that contain flaxseed, dehydrated herbs, dehydrated orange peels, spices, mica for color, activated charcoal, oatmeal or honey.
Many of the bars – there are currently around 30 of them – carry the bear theme, with names like Bear Necessities, HiBearNation, Sweet Honey Bear, Bearly Stressin’ and Grin n’ Bear It.
Winters said the brand name allows for products “that are whimsical, yet sophisticated.”
The women also produce a vegan bar that omits the tallow. Mahan noted that Gehring’s Indiana operation produces many more versions of the vegan product, due to marketing demand for it in the Midwest.
Regardless of what they’re producing, “We’re always coming up with new scents and new products,” Mahan said, adding that because of their use of natural ingredients, the soaps are non-irritating and depending upon the essential oils used in the different bars, can provide the additional benefit of aroma therapy.
The process, which takes place in a small house on Mahan’s family farm near Prosperity, begins with combining the coconut and olive oil, tallow and vegetable shortening and lye in a crock pot for two hours, then adding essential oils and colors.
It wasn’t long before Mahan’s daughters, Dani, 7, and Jade, 4, were also helping in the kitchen, with Dani’s specialty giving assistance with making the lip balm.
Neither woman had retail experience or in running a business of any kind.
Winters is employed as a full-time caregiver, while Mahan, before becoming a stay-at-home mom, worked in the construction industry.
Like most businesses operators who have a retail component, the duo also spends time doing some old fashioned selling when they aren’t making products.
“We do a lot of door-to-door,” Mahan said, adding that they also participate in numerous craft shows in the area.
Their persistence has paid off over the past year.
Today Bear Naked products can be found at Agway in Eighty Four; Lone Pine Market; Kaleidoscope in Washington; Town and Country Market in Wolfdale; and Bartolotto’s Market in Prosperity.
Last week, Bear Naked became a vendor at the weekly Main Street Farmers Market.
Mahan is hoping that she and Winters will be able to learn from their sales at the farmers market to determine what local customers like, so they can adjust their production accordingly.
They also make lip balm, massage oil, body sprays and kits soaps, as well as sugar scrubs – even an anti-flea soap for dogs.
But they may hold off on new product development for the time being while they study their developing markets.
The women are also planning to launch online sales, but haven’t zeroed in on a start date.
“We’re going to stand still for awhile,” Mahan said. “We want to see what the local people want,” she said.
Winters added that with the weekly stint at the farmers market, they’re also making inventory control a priority.
But standing still is a relative term for the duo.
Mahan said she’s already researching herbs that are indigenous to the area, considering growing them on the surrounding 60 acres of the farm and using them for the essential oils used in the soaps.
“It’s amazing what the oils can do and the plants they come from,” she said. “We’re learning as we go.”
For more information on Bear Naked Soaps Co., call 724-222-5626, email BearNakedSoapCompany@gmail.com, or go to www.BearNakedSoaps.com.