It all started with a few tiny batches of handmade soap and turned into a love affair of scent formulation, product development, and natural skin care goodness. Wylde Ivy’s business philosophy is to make the best products possible, pure and simple. I prefer a simplistic approach to skin care where the products focus on key main ingredients such as Olive Oil, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, etc. and never add unnecessary fillers or chemicals.
I take great pride in offering unique, inspired scent blends. I do no believe in “duping” or copying popular designer fragrances. It is my wish that Wylde Ivy be know for it’s unique, capitalizing scent blends as much as the fantastic products themselves.
The people behind Wylde Ivy:
Ashlee: Wylde Ivy is truly a small business…and I like it that way! I created Wylde Ivy after my small soap making hobby took on a life of it’s own and people literally began tracking me down requesting I make my soaps available for sale. I began my professional life working in a hair salon focusing on hair, skin and nail care. That is where my obsession with skin care and raw ingredients started to take hold of me. I was constantly researching the product lines learning everything I could about the ingredients that they were made up of and how they affected the skin and hair. After a short while, I had to opportunity to open my own salon. Now that I had control over the products that I used and sold in the salon, I began even more intensive research and continued my education taking classes whenever I could. I owned my salon for six years. I became interested in making my own soap and products when I could just not find products on the market that contained high quality ingredients with minimal fillers and chemicals. Soon, my salon clientele became interested in my “hobby products” through our conversations and began requesting I make them available for sale. Just one short year of putting a few bars of handmade soap out on my shelves for sale, I was so busy with the Wylde Ivy side of my business that I decided to take it full time.
With years of skin and hair care experience behind me and the working knowledge of the ingredients formulating my own products has been an addicting pastime. Currently, I’ve been making my own handmade soap and body products for well over seven years.
Jeremy: None of this would be possible with out the help and support from my husband. Aside from working a full time job and his own part time business he helps with packaging, order picking, order shipping, and construction projects (he is responsible for making all of my wooden molds, large soap cutters, and displays for my soaps!). He is even getting quite a “nose” for himself, giving me spot on critiques and suggestions for my scent blends.
Bonnie: My mom works for me part time packing orders, packaging products, and managing inventory control. Since she loves organizational jobs and numbers, she has so much fun in her job here.
About the Soap:
Olive Oil makes the best soaps period. Although a costly ingredient, nothing can compare to a soap made with a high percentage of Olive Oil in my opinion. Olive Oil is the most mild oil that can be used in soap making and it produces an exceptionally creamy, gentle soap. It has never been a question to sacrifice the fantastic attributes of Olive Oil in my soap recipe for a larger profit margin. After adding at least 50% Olive Oil to my recipe, there is still room for yet more luxury ingredients like Coconut Milk, Aloe, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter and more.
Wylde Ivy soaps are made using the Cold Process method of soap making. I make all of my soap by hand and completely from scratch. Because Wylde Ivy soaps are handmade and hand cut, slight variations in color and size are to be expected. It is the beauty of handmade products.
Handmade soap differs from commercially made soap in many ways. The most important difference in handmade soap is glycerin. Glycerin is a natural humectants, which means it has the ability to draw moisture to your skin. Glycerin is a byproduct of the saponification process (the process of producing soap that occurs when an alkaline salt is introduced to oils). Handmade soap contains all of its naturally occurring glycerin. Commercial soap companies have found that glycerin by itself is actually more valuable than the soap they produce. They extract the glycerin, selling it off separately, and then add artificial fillers to their soap. In addition to these fillers they also add artificial foaming agents, emulsifiers, preservatives, and hardeners.
About the Products:
What goes better with soap then lavish body lotions and oils, creamy sugar scrubs, and unique high quality perfumes? I created a bath and body care line centered around the same high quality ingredients and unique scents to compliment my handmade soap line.
