Featured Vendor: Green Olive Soaps
A quote attributed to Plato which states, “Necessity is the mother of innovation” perfectly describes the story behind Camilla Rice’s business, Green Olive Soaps.
This mother’s love for her son inspired her to become the answer to her child’s eczema skin problem, even when doctors were unable to successfully treat his skin condition. As a result, she formulated a soap that naturally cleared her son’s problemed skin condition that later inspired her to launch a new thriving business.
This remarkable businesswoman and mother shared how she started her new business during a recent interview with Detroit Wedding Day. A business created out of love.
It all started a little under 5 years ago when Rice’s son was about 2 months old. When her son was only a few months old he was diagnosed with a case of eczema and other skin conditions. His skin was so severe that they could not even use a towel on it without irritating the skin even more.
After going to several doctors and dermatologists, coupled with trying an array of different ointments and prescriptions, Rice decided to take matters into her own hands and create her own organic vegan formula. She faced this dilemma using the same stamina, research, and innovation as she did in her engineering job.
Rice said, “I started my business to address my son’s eczema. I wanted to use something organic; something that I could actually understand what ingredients were on the label.”
After discussing the matter with a friend who was also a chemist as well as speaking with her son’s dermatologist, she created a special soap bar formula.
“I decided I wanted something organic and natural. That’s why I made it vegan. I didn’t want animal fillers or fats in it. I wanted his bar to be as pure as possible,” Rice said.
After 3 months of tweaking the formula and consistently using the soap on her son, the skin condition cleared up after a few months. By adding such natural ingredients such as whole-grain oats and coconut milk to the soap, Rice’s young son was finally able to get the relief that he so desperately needed.
She attributes much of his relief to her special honey coconut bar soap which was formulated to help cleanse and gently sloth off scaled dry skin without irritation. This has become one of her most popular soap bars.
After conquering his eczema problem, the new challenge was to keep up the healing effects sustained by the product. At the time, she was using products recommended by his doctor for people with dry skin, but after reading the ingredients of many of the products she again discovered that many of them contained undesired fillers and chemicals.
She again began to research alternatives that would be better suited for her family.
Shortly afterward, she created a complimentary body butter formula to help replenish her son’s skin moisture. Following the same guidelines as the soap creation, she followed a strict regimen that included only using vendors who complied with fair trade practices and no GMO products in addition to using organic vegan ingredients.
Today, her 100% Coconut Oatmeal bars and body butter are popular on her website and at retail outlets. Her body butter was formulated to be nourishing to the skin without being overly greasy. She created the body butter to work well on various skin types. Additionally, since she knew that her products would be used by children and adults suffering from sensitive skin conditions, she was careful not to overindulge in fragrances such as essential oils.
All of her body butter is all-natural vegan and gluten-free products. The butter has fair-trade shea butter, pure olive oil, avocado oil, and mango butter. As with her soaps, the body butter is free of fillers and meets Rice’s strict quality-control standards.
After achieving success with her soap bar and body butter, Rice continued researching soap making and began making decorative cupcake soaps and other soap bar shapes.
“My business really wasn’t intentional. It came out of people seeing what I was making and asking me to make different kinds of cupcakes. It just kept growing and growing,” said Rice.
Rice first introduced her business to others in 2016 during a craft show. She officially launched her business in the second quarter of 2017.
Recently, Rice has been showcased in pop-up shops as well as featured on Fox 2 news. As more customers become familiar with her products, the demand for this merchandise is steadily increasing resulting in her business often operating at full capacity.
Green Olive Soaps features a robust coconut fragrant line of soaps that include coconut, coconut honey, coconut lemongrass, coconut oatmeal, and coconut rosemary. Currently, there are twenty-four variations of soaps available which include such aromas as lemon poppy-seed, oatmeal milk, and honey, maraschino cherry, black raspberry vanilla, black-tie (which has black peppercorn, patchouli, musk and citrus), and butterfly kisses (consisting of wild currants, dried berries, and warm sandalwood). Of course, she also offers an unscented version of her soaps as well.
Besides the soaps and body butter, Rice has body sugar scrubs and bath salts that includes fragrant botanical flowers and herbs. Her body scrubs which was designed to make skin soft, contain an emulsifying wax coupled with sugar, and essential oils. Additionally, her bath salts contain organic coconut oil. She even offers a recyclable organza bag to contain the salts making clean up quick and easy.
What are some of the benefits of using her products?
Rice stated, “Our products are geared toward people with sensitive skin. When you use a product that has synthetic chemicals, those chemicals go into your skin. Your skin is your biggest organ. Who knows what kind of damage can be caused? If you can’t read the ingredient list and know what every ingredient is it and its purpose, you just shouldn’t be using it.”
She continued, “The majority of our olive oil bars has almost a 50% count of olive oil. They’re very nourishing to the skin. If you don’t have sensitive skin, your skin is going to love it that much more.”
Rice also has a line of products designed for men. She uses deep rich colors in the men’s products and pairs it with warm essential oils that have a slightly stronger scent. Some of the top-selling soaps purchased in the men’s product line include sandalwood, charcoal, and tropical. During certain times of the year, she even introduces new seasonal promotional products, such as men’s shaving soaps.
Although Green Olive Soap has a men’s product line, many of the soaps are unisex friendly fragrances used by men and women, such as the rosemary spearmint, lemon poppy seed, and spearmint eucalyptus.
In addition to her soaps, Rice has also produced a variety of vegan lip balms and lip scrubs to help keep lips smooth and moisturized. Her lip scrubs are made with 100% pure cane sugar and come in a variety of flavors like mint julep, cherry kiss, pineapple, chocolate orange truffle, and dragon fruit.
The lip balms pair nicely with the scrubs and share many of the same flavors. Similar, to her soap line, the lip products are also vegan and eczema-friendly in addition to not containing soy, almond, palm, or nut oils.
Customers who buy gift sets generally save about 10 percent off their total by buying it in a set compared to buying the individual products. Moreover, customers can build their own gift sets making their selection uniquely personal. For around $29, a customer can get a pre-selected gift set.
By the way, the product gifts sets offered by Olive Green Soaps are good wedding favor gifts to give to bridal and groom wedding parties.
Today, customers can buy her products directly on the company’s website at https://greenolivesoaps.com or at one of their participating retail partners that includes Kitty LaRue Boutique in Royal Oak and Conscious Café in Shelby Township. Furthermore, many wholesalers carry Olive Green Soaps products.
Family Business
This business is a family affair. By all accounts, Rice has created a successful business, but she has always had the support of her family along her journey. Even her young daughter helps with product labeling, in addition to lending a helping hand during trade shows.
What’s Next?
It’s an exciting time for Green Olive Soaps as they prepare for growth in the U.S. and internationally. In the months to come, they will be offering international shipping to help fill the demands being generated abroad. Additionally, Rice plans to set-up shop in a multi-use facility to permit her to manufacture and retail her products at one site.
Advice to those who want to start their own business
When asked what advice she would give to someone who wants to follow their dream of creating a business for themselves, she responded, “Make sure to understand what your vision is. What’s your vision for growth? I didn’t communicate that in the beginning because I didn’t know how big I wanted to grow.”
In addition to good communication, Rice recommends having a lot of patience and openly acknowledge your appreciation to others when they contribute assistance.
Rice shared another word of advice to consider. She stated, “The best advice that I would give, is to know your limits. By that, I mean you have essentially two businesses. You have your day job and you have another night job. Write down your goals. Time management is key.”
Rice shared that she writes down her entire week’s schedule. She schedules all aspects of each day from her work routine to planning important family time.
In closing, Rice is a testament to someone who has mastered challenges with grace. She turned a challenging skin condition into a business and has never looked back.
To learn more about Green Olive Soaps, visit the website https://greenolivesoaps.com.
