Meet ‘Bloom in Soap’

Meet Bloom in Soap

"I want to empower you to make good choices for the health of your skin and the environment when purchasing skincare products"

Hello! My name is Alison. I’m the founder of Bloom In Soap, a luxury skincare brand on a mission to empower women to make the right choices for their skin and the environment when purchasing skincare products. Here’s my story.

From confident to cringing

Several years ago, my beautiful sister (an ex-model) developed a horrific skin condition on her face. She went from having beautiful, clear skin to blistering pustules, painful bumps, and itchy redness overnight. As you can imagine, this completely broke her confidence, and she spent years and lots of money trying to fix it. She developed this skin problem due to the products she used on her face. Worryingly, many skincare products are formulated with potentially toxic ingredients that cause skin conditions like this.

So I started to take note of the products I was using and researched the ingredients they were made with. After suffering from the pain and embarrassment of acne for most of my life, I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me. After much research, I was horrified to discover that the products in my bathroom were made with ingredients that could set off a skin reaction.

Roll on to lockdown. I found myself furloughed from my job in Internal Communications. Wondering how to best fill my time, I decided to make my own skincare so I could set the benchmark regarding quality, and ensure that the only ingredients that made it into my formulations were beneficial for skin health.

Isn’t nature amazing?

Nature is my biggest inspiration – I truly believe that nature knows best and offers everything we need to be healthy and thrive. That’s why I’m so passionate about utilising the power of botanical extracts in my range of products, including natural soap bars, luxury whipped body butter and solid shampoo bars.

What is natural, anyway?

In terms of skincare, natural is a very broad statement. Surprisingly there’s no legal term to encompass what natural actually means. This is one of the reasons why it can sometimes be confusing when big skincare brands claim that their products are natural. I like to keep things simple and only use natural oils, colourants and superfoods in my soap bars, and not harsh detergents that you often find in commercial soap. In fact, you’ll probably find a lot of the ingredients I use to make my products in your kitchen cupboards! If you can eat it, then it’s definitely going to be healthy for your skin. Skin food for foodies!

Go one better than plastic-free!

Ethics and sustainability are at the heart of what I do. That’s why I decided at the start of my business to give back to nature by packaging my products in plantable paper. This unique paper is impregnated with over 15 varieties of UK native wildflower seeds that you can plant to attract pollinating insects and create a bio-diverse habitat in your own back garden. And who doesn’t want blooms in their packaging and their skincare?

Supporting fair trade (because it’s the ethical thing to do)

I love to empower women in business. One of the ways I do this is to support a wonderful fair trade initiative in Ghana, Jilima Co-op. Shea butter producers are often exploited by big corporations by being paid far less for their product than the real market value. By supportingbthe 54 amazing shea queens who make up this cooperative, we contribute to the quality of their livelihoods and empower them to have complete autonomy over production, price, and working conditions. In return, we get the most incredible quality shea butter which has some pretty powerful benefits for our skin; seriously, this stuff is amazing!

What’s next for Bloom In Soap?

After proudly winning two incredible BizBubble awards this year, I am super excited to see what the future brings. As long as it involves inspiring and empowering women, I’m happy. And if my business skyrockets, I hope to create a wildflower meadow of Bloom In Soap’s wildflower seed labels. Now wouldn’t that be something?