When I look at our soap packaging, I see so many evolutions. In the beginning -- March of 2013 -- we wrapped our soap in brown paper with butcher twine. I had a rubber stamp with our logo on it, and I stamped the brown paper. It was inky. It was time-consuming.
So when we switched to a kind of corn-based shrink wrap (biodegradable, of course) with kraft sticker labels, it felt like a massive savings of time and energy. I still hand-wrote the name of every soap on each label (Russ has pretty messy handwriting, so label writing was my job).
Eventually, friends convinced me to get a handwriting-inspired rubber stamp after I confessed that I was staying up all hours of the night hand-writing our labels.
I still printed out the labels on kraft adhesive label paper from the office supply store, but at least I had the sense to get a paper cutter.
That Christmas (in 2013), my mom came down from Seattle to help us wrap the soaps for our holiday rush. She was pretty good at the manual and frustrating work of shrink-wrapping with a heat gun.
One day, our business card printer sent a bulk email saying they were getting into custom boxes. "SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!" I exclaimed in response... and we went through the very weird and new (to me) process of designing boxes. I wanted the beauty and artistry of the bars to show through a window on the front, so we had special dielines designed.
In 2014 or 2015, I asked our printer if he had a designer who he particularly enjoyed working with, and that's how we got to know Alyssa Butler, who designed the box you see here (as well as the earlier version with the wider window). Alyssa has moved on from package design and is now a fabulously successful web developer, but she remains my friend. So many of our design touches that people enjoy came from my vague handwaving and crude sketches, brought to life by Alyssa's mastery.
We have been so fortunate to have the kind of customers who appreciate this kind of work, because it brings me intense joy to create these types of product experiences. Thank you for being here for this adventure.
