Soapy Soap Company may be the smallest small business on Small Business Saturday - The Herald-Times (subscription)

Small Business Saturday, a consumer holiday for the local and little, may not be local or little enough for Bloomington’s Soapy Soap Company.

Originating on Nov. 27, 2010, Small Business Saturday is a counterpoint to Black Friday’s focus on corporate retailers. The American Express-sponsored event has come to celebrate small businesses, like Anthony Duncan and brothers Mohammed M. and Mohammed A. Mahdi’s Soapy Soap Company. It’s a 4-year-old business so small, all three co-owners leave the production facility at night to go home to the same three-bedroom condo.

“When we started, we made a lot of our soap in our kitchen,” said Mohammed M. Mahdi, who also serves on the board of Local First Bloomington, a nonprofit organization committed to supporting and promoting locally owned, independent business. “I remember looking over it, and I was like, ‘We don’t really have a kitchen anymore.’ It was a soap-making factory.”

Interested in learning and doing things with their hands, the three entrepreneurs were self-taught by way of YouTube. Duncan said. In the pursuit of trying to make the perfect product, they wound up with about more than a hundred-years-worth of soap. When the need for space became a necessity, the Indiana University graduates took the leap needed to become a legitimate business and moved their company out of their home.

Now, they’re making their Sabun line of soaps using second-hand supplies from IU Surplus in a small production facility at 903 W. 1st Street, Unit 1. They make about 1,000 bars per batch and make 2,000 lip balms made at a time. Despite their production numbers and distribution list, the business remains small in almost every other sense of the word. Personal conviction and customer reaction have shaped the company’s soap production, with products created by the three co-owners or sourced locally.

Even the brand’s character in catering to conscious consumers is a reflection of that local representation. Whether it’s a customer with gluten allergies or one who’s concerned about the impact the palm oil industry has on orangutan habitats in the rain forest, Soapy Soap Co. has listened and made natural soaps that are cruelty free, vegan, halal, nongenetically modified and gluten free.

“We make our products as though they’re food,” Mohammed M. Mahdi said. “We have this belief; if we wouldn’t use it, we wouldn’t sell it.”

“It’s the same instance,” Duncan said, “If there’s anything you don’t want to put in your body, you don’t want to put it on your body.”

Aside from Duncan and the Mahdis, there are only about six other employees. With such a small base of operations and high demand, Soapy Soap Co. sources its help from a variety of disciplines at Indiana University and soap makers across the state.

Currently, the company has an intern from the university’s chemistry department who helps the business conduct its own third-party, independent evaluations of its essential oils quality. It’s just one of many self-imposed regulations common to larger businesses that Soapy Soap Co. has incorporated into the way it likes to make soap.

They’re constantly researching to see how much of a bar the body might absorb, how bubbly or creamy a soap might be, and they always test for a bar’s pH neutrality while adhering to all state and federal regulations for soaps and cosmetics. Local collaborations also help with the learning process, as Soapy Soap Co. gets its oatmeal from Bloomingfoods, relies on Hoosier Woodworks to craft its soap-savers and even involves a southern Indiana Amish family by hiring them to make their unrefined wood soap display shelves.

Sales data suggests those collaborations serve the local community over Soapy Soap Co.’s further markets. In the times they’ve set up shop in the College Mall versus venues in Indianapolis, Soapy Soap Co. has consistently done better in its home market, with the money generated here staying here.

“Everything we get we put back into the business,” Mohammed A. Mahdi said. “We haven’t even paid ourselves yet.”

More than just well-received by Bloomington, Soapy Soap Co. has come to represent the city, with some Indianapolis soap makers seeing the city as the obvious source for such a product. That recognition is destined to grow as Soapy Soap Co. launches the website DesignMySoap.com on Monday. The site allows customers to get the business’s personal touch online as they choose their very own soap’s base, scents, exfoliant add-ins, label and even the soap’s name.

“It was always our intention to go big,” Mohammed M. Mahdi said. “Even though we are targeting the national level, our goal is to have Bloomington known as ‘The Soap Place.’”

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