Stephanie Alexander: Lelu Soap Lab

After dealing with dry skin and breakouts, Beauty Boss, Stephanie Alexander, decided to treat her skin issues naturally. She bought her first book on soap making and started her personal process of learning and creating. She wanted to share her soaps with everyone and was encouraged to start her own business. Her vision was to create natural products that are easy on the skin and help men and women feel good. Read on more to find out about her and her brand Lelu Soap Lab: 

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you started Lelu Soaps?

I first started making handmade soaps in 2008 because I had an interest in natural products made from natural and skin-friendly ingredients rather than the harsh chemicals typically found in commercial soaps. I had very dry skin, and I constantly broke out. I felt so frustrated because I tried so many different acne and skin care products and nothing seemed to work.  I started researching online and watching YouTube videos on how to naturally treat skin problems. I watched so many videos and read so many blogs on soap making before I made my first attempt. I bought my first book on soap making and began the process of learning and creating. At first, I had no idea how to make it. Making soap can be dangerous if its not done correctly and I was nervous with my first attempt, but I worked through the process carefully, double-checked my work, and my first soap was a success.  It was an early version of one of the products we have on our website, our Oatmeal, Milk, & Honey soap.  This soap has become one of my favorites and one of our best sellers. After using that instead of the commercial soaps, I noticed a big difference in the health and look of my skin. The Oatmeal, Goat’s Milk, & Honey soap feels so gentle, moisturizing, and luxurious. It doesn’t leave me looking white and ashy and doesn’t dry out my skin.  I was so happy that I told a few friends and gave them bars to try, after an incredibly positive response and with encouragement from my friends and family, I decided to start making and selling handcrafted all-natural soaps and skincare products. I am so passionate about it that I work so hard day and night learning more and creating new formulas. I take advantage of every day off that I have from my primary job. The best part about handmade soaps is that I can customize them however I want or meet my customers’ desires. For the past several years I have had my business ups and downs, but ultimately we have been blessed to be able to start a business selling clean, fresh, and sustainable skincare products. Our desire is to provide those kinds of products to our growing list of loyal customers.

 Can you tell us a bit more about your products?

Picture Courtesy: Lelu Soap Lab

We started with simple all-natural soaps made with natural ingredients and scented with essential oils. For the longest time that’s all we made. After seeing a positive response to that, I started slowly venturing into other natural skincare products.  We have launched a line of bath bombs, bath melts, body scrubs, and body butter.  We also have plans to further expand our product line as market demand increases, but we intend to remain true to the original goal at LELU, which is producing quality, natural, skin-healthy body care products.  We produce our products using premium sourced ingredients from the best suppliers, and no harsh detergents or drying agents are ever used.

 Can you tell us the process of hand-making these soaps?

As many might already be aware, soaps are made using fats or oils that are melted and blended together.  Essential oils are added to scent the soap and to achieve specific properties that we want certain batches of soap to have. Then sodium hydroxide (commonly known as lye) and water are mixed together and added, this causes the oils to go through a process called saponification and the mixture begins to turn into soap, it is blended, and then poured into molds where it is further solidified. After about 24 hours the soap is cured enough that we can then demold it and cut it into bars.  We then allow them to cure further for a period of 4 to 6 weeks before they are ready to package and ship to our customers.

Making soap is an old process that started many hundreds of years ago, and probably by accident!  At that time, it was far from the exacting science that we have today, and we are happy to have spent many long hours testing countless batches of our soaps to develop our proprietary recipes.

What does it mean to be a #beautyboss?

Everyone says that beauty is only skin deep.  Whether that’s true or not, we can all agree that it’s important to take care of your skin!  Regardless of the ever-shifting and often very shallow beauty standards that our society tries to impose on all of us, here at LELU we have the opinion that healthy is beautiful, and skin healthy products are a part of that. LELU is driven by passion, persistence, hard work, and patience. With these driving forces helping us, we can weather the ups and downs of building our business. Our desire to simply give the best is one of LELU’s strongest foundations. We are happy to be able to provide these products to help all of our customers feel like a #beautyboss.