When her dream of working in law enforcement didn't quite pan out, Anne-Marie Faiola decided to turn her passion for making soap into a full-time career. Bramble Berry, based in Bellingham, Wash., now offers more than 2,500 soap-making ingredients like fragrant oils, soap molds, lip-butter flavorings, assorted herbs and botanicals, and even the books and kits to teach anyone to make their own soap from scratch.
"My dream was always to work for the FBI. But after I graduated from college with a degree in criminal justice, they wouldn't take me. So I took a job as a correctional officer to get some experience. I worked for six months at Cedar Creek prison in Littlerock, Washington, as a psychological counselor. I then transferred to a minimum-security prison in Bellingham. I was basically a social worker, and I was terrible. I was gullible -- and always wanted to believe in the best of people.
"I was miserable, and my only escape was making soap in the evenings after I got home. I'd been making soap since I was 18 and I loved it. My husband at the time saw how unhappy I was, and encouraged me to quit my job and start selling soap. He said as long as I made $500 a month, we could eat macaroni and cheese and be happy. I didn't have any lofty ambitions, just to sell 1,300 bars a month, which I figured would be enough to feed us and pay our mortgage.
"Within three weeks of quitting my job at the prison, I realized that all the suppliers I ordered from were based on the East Coast. After doing some research, I saw that everyone else was, too. So I placed a huge bulk order of supplies, set up a Web page, and waited. It didn't take long before I sold everything to seven different soap makers on the West Coast. I was like, 'Wow, there's a business here.' I moved my operation into an office and Bramble Berry was born.
"Our real turning point was the year I put up the web site. Martha Stewart was really into soap making, and she wrote about it a lot in her magazine and talked about it on her show. So as all those people started searching the Internet looking for supplies, they found me.
"We buy from 80 different vendors from all around the world. For example, we get our lavender oil from Hungary, France, and Spain. We often buy directly from the farmers, and it takes a lot of work trying to find suppliers and negotiate with them. It's very much a commodities business. Because of the frost in Florida this year, I'm getting killed on the price of essential orange oil. I haven't been able to afford pink grapefruit oil in three years. That has forced me to look for new suppliers in places like South America.
"My clients are mom-and-pop businesses. I just did a customer survey and most of them make less than $250 a month selling soap. Our average order is for about $75. It's a very seasonal business. Our orders go through the roof in the fall before the holidays. We pride ourselves on our customer service and 24-hour turnaround. When you order from us, you'll get your product the next day.
"While I'm not involved in the day-to-day production of soap, I still love making it when I can. In just the past few weeks I've made about seven new batches -- and just about ruined our brand-new wood floor when I spilled soap all over it."
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