The Soap Lady Store: keeping your skin happy for over 25 years 

Soaps, bath salts, lotions, sugar scrubs, body creams and more – all homemade and handmade at The Soap Lady Store right down the road in Jamestown.

 

The Soap Lady Store offers only the highest quality, natural ingredient soap with a variety of scents to choose from. All of The Soap Lady Store’s products are made with all natural oils and materials – the best part, no preservatives used. 

 

Susan Stringer (AKA The Soap Lady) is the owner of The Soap Lady Store, and has been in the soap making business for over two decades. Susan’s business was born after she gifted handmade bars of soap to her Daisy Scouts troop, and the mothers requested more bars with scents and lotions to go with them.

 

The Soap Lady Store was established in 1998 and was originally being run out of Susan’s home studio. The demand for her soap was increasing quickly and she was becoming a well known local. Her business grew and grew into the success that it is now, and The Soap Lady Store now has well over 100 scents and 40 products. 

 

Her scents range from floral to seasonal to designer – all using natural essential oils. For those sensitive to scents or just personal preference, she also offers unscented products.

 

One of her best-selling products is a skin cream product called “Extreme Creme.” Susan had the motivation and inspiration to create Extreme Creme because of her youngest daughter, who suffers from eczema.

 

The product she made was the only skin cream that gave relief to her daughter, and that’s when Susan realized that she was doing much more than just making soap.

 

Many of Susan’s products are available to be unscented, which meets the needs of customers battling eczema, radiation and chemotherapy, and it’s something that Susan is extremely proud of. And her experience with these kinds of soaps is personal.

 

“I went through cancer treatment myself two years ago. I had lymphoma,” Susan said. “When you go through treatment, they want you to use unscented products – unscented everything, so that nothing irritates you.”

 

Susan knows the importance of having access to unscented, natural soaps, but she knows that people who are battling cancer can’t always go shopping with other people around. The Soap Lady Store is closed to the public on Mondays, but is open by appointment only to give immunocompromised customers a chance to shop without being worried about picking up something from other people. 

 

High quality, all natural products that’s good for the skin have always been Susan’s goal. 

 

Susan discovered as a kid that she has an allergy to preservatives…meaning that the majority of what was on the market was of no use to her. She realized that if she was going to have all natural soap, then she was going to have to make it herself.

 

Susan’s grandmother taught her how to hand make her own soap, a valuable skill that Susan never expected to become her livelihood and give her the title of “The Soap Lady.” And Susan’s homemade products worked better for her than anything else on the market.

 

Many skincare companies on the market today use preservatives and other chemicals to make their products last longer, but many of these chemicals are harmful to use long-term, and they end up doing more bad for the skin than good. For people with skin sensitivities or people with a weakened immune system, these products are simply not an option. 

 

“Those products have to be shelf stable. Sephora, Ulta, Bath & Body Works…if you look at the ingredients list on their products, they have to use preservatives because they don’t know how long their stuff is going to stay on the shelf,” Susan said. “You absorb 75% of what you put on your skin…why would you want to take a risk and put something on your skin that you don’t know is good for you?”

 

Susan explained that these companies use water as a filler, but water grows bacteria, hence why preservatives are added so that the products can be shelf stable for an extended period of time. The Soap Lady Store never uses water as a filler, and all the products are made with natural oils and materials that are safe to be absorbed through the skin.

 

The Soap Lady Store is located at 106 E Main St. in Jamestown. The Soap Lady’s official website and Instagram have more information on all of your soap wants/needs. 

 

The Soap Lady Store is a great place to shop locally and support a local business. Give some of Susan’s products a try and your skin will thank you.