Mountain Madness:Signature handmade soaps
Jennifer Morsell wanted to be a lawyer.
“I never thought I would own a handcrafted business,” the 44-year-old entrepreneur said.
But fate intervened, and things didn’t quite work out the way she thought they would.
Morsell, with her husband, Andy, owns Mountain Madness. These days she works hard to get customers into hot water as a soap merchant instead of keeping them out of it as an attorney.
The Morsells’ enterprise, which takes up 4,200 square feet of retail space on Sherman Avenue, began modestly in Fairbanks, Alaska, when Jennifer started hand-making soap as gifts for her friends and family members.
The couple later monetized the hobby and turned it into a thriving business by selling their signature scented products on Etsy. They’d take their bright orange 1972 Volkswagen Bus — which they traded a four-wheel drive to an elderly couple in Sandpoint for — to sell their wares at regional craft fairs. The fairs would end; the demand, however, would not.
Soon they needed more space, which they leased on South Fourth Street. They outgrew the space in 2016. The Sherman Avenue location costs four times as much as their previous space, but the larger location gives them plenty of room to produce and sell all their products, which are made in a climate-controlled studio. (Soap has to cure after it’s made, so managing temperature and humidity is crucial.)
“Not only do we get the foot traffic and we have a really good retail space that’s big enough for baby strollers and things like that, we also do all of our production here in the basement,” Jennifer said. “So everything we sell, we make downstairs and before we couldn’t do that.”
Creating the products is still one of her favorite parts of the job. But it’s certainly not the only job she has. As small business owners, Jennifer and Andy, 51, face many challenges. Jennifer said the biggest was simply getting everything done.
“As small business owners, we wear many hats, and it can be challenging to meet the demands,” Jennifer said. “We have three full-time employees and one part-time employee in production to keep up with demand.”
Part of the joy in creating comes from using all natural ingredients. As part of the Morsells’ commitment to limiting their company’s carbon footprint, they source inputs from local and regional suppliers whenever possible: They just inked a deal to buy lavender from a local grower.
That’s not only true for the products; it’s also true for the packaging. Mountain Madness has recently switched to packaging that is recycled or can be recycled. They eat the cost: The eco-friendly packaging is as much as twice as expensive as the previous packaging, but Jennifer says they’ve never raised prices to recoup the higher costs.
“It was important to us as a company because we really try to have a small footprint,” she said. “That made us okay with the additional cost.”
Doing well allows them to do some good, too.
During the holiday season, Mountain Madness donates to the women’s center and the Children’s Village.
“We sort of changed our marketing mindset,” Andy said. “We are now concentrating on community involvement and donating to various fundraisers, and getting out there and making ourselves known.”
Their reach isn’t just local. Andy and Jennifer traveled to Gualán, Guatemala, to help start a sustainable business for seven locals and their families. Mountain Madness donated equipment and supplies and used locally sourced ingredients to create soap recipes for the Guatemalans.
Mountain Madness also partners with Refugee Bath Co. in Spokane. Jennifer said the company employs refugees that are legal citizens of the United States, that are escaping extreme hardship. The company makes and sells bath bombs. Though two-thirds of Americans prefer showers to baths, products like bath bombs have experienced significant growth, data from industry tracker Mintel revealed.
“We really try to help in ways that we can, that actually make a positive impact on people,” Jennifer said.
Andy works behind the scenes: He handles the accounting, human resources, answering emails and anything that involves data. Jennifer trains new employees, works with customers and employees and leads product development.
That’s a big job: Innovation is key to differentiation in growing market. Hand-crafted soap as a category is quickly growing. The bath products industry is valued at $5.5 billion annually, $1.7 billion of which comes from bar soap.
To meet this demand, Mountain Madness manufactures and markets 50 varieties of soap at any given time and changes its lineup seasonally.
The most popular smell is Mountain Madness’ signature scent, called “goddess.” It’s a mix of amber, vanilla and chocolate. Andy prefers lemongrass; Jennifer loves the blackberry jasmine — a scent she used and is just now bringing into the store.
The most popular scent during August is huckleberry.
