Meet the founder - Suum Soap Bars
We caught up with co-founder of Suum Soap Bars, Jean-Sebastian, to learn a bit more about the story behind the brand. The journey behind Suum Soap Bars started for Jean-Sebastian while he was still a student at University.
At the time, his mother, Brigitte, was starting to concoct her own cosmetics. However, there was little to no brand identity behind her creations. Once deciding to focus on a product-based business and receiving feedback from her son, she decided to curate her brand around these values: environment, simplicity, and practicality.
Jean-Sebastian quickly became involved, from simple advice behind strategy and marketing to creating valuable content for her website and beyond. His goal was to showcase the values behind the brand and to better bring out the underlying message.
What was the mission to start this brand? What is your driving purpose?
“Since the cosmetics industry creates a lot of pollution due to by-product waste and packaging, our mission is to create a line of products that reduce environmental impact to a minimum. When a consumer buys something, we want them to know that they are making a conscious choice to support a brand aware of typical environmental harm.
We want our customers to be part of a larger movement. Choosing to purchase from a local business, trying alternative and more accessible products, and supporting the local economy are all decisions that make you more connected with a product. We want to be personal with our customers and have them choose soaps that are better for us physically and resemble what an individual wants to stand for - something that bigger brands like Dove, tend to miss.”
What makes your brand different from other brands?
“First of all, we use a unique process when producing our soaps. When creating our soap bars, we use a unique method that preserves essential oils for longer. This allows us to complete the typical drying process behind soaps faster than 95% off all other soap brands. Due to the production advantage of our products, we can meet the customer’s needs faster. For example, if you want to give a unique soap as a gift - we can get this done at a competitive speed, while still significantly minimizing our environmental impact.
All our outside packaging is hydrosoluble, and all other components of the final product, such as the ink and the glue are 100% biodegradable. Furthermore, by the end of 2021, we are on a mission to eliminate all jars or containers made of plastic, from the collection. We want our brand to be 100% zero waste. Surprisingly, no one else in our industry is doing this yet.”
What’s the one thing you want consumers to recognize about your brand?
We want consumers to recognize that we are constantly putting a lot of effort into becoming a greener company. While we can add information on our carbon neutral status to our website, it is not always easy to share our wholehearted environmental efforts to the public. Our vision is to never decrease our quality, but rather continuously respect the environment and the resources we use to enable product improvement. Our soaps are minimal in ingredients and use a minimum quantity in resources, to provide a maximum benefit product.
What physical/social/personal benefits do your products provide for a consumer?
All of our soaps are made from hydrating ingredients, using a minimum 65% olive oil and clay base. Our essential oils are 100% natural and pure, so they use no chemicals at all. This results in a perfect product for the skin - it's only made of good things!
Our shampoos use ingredients that are very gentle on the scalp. Typically, shampoo bars will irritate the scalp or cause the hair to become hay-like. We absolutely didn't want our shampoos to be like that and created a product that leaves the scalp hydrated and healthy.
As someone representing your brand - how would you ideally like to be presented?
We want people that use our products to share their experience - let people know that your skin is not dry after using our soap. This product is also made here in Quebec, Canada. So in addition to a great product, you are supporting a local brand that is driven to have a positive environmental impact. Furthermore, we want people representing our brand to talk about our awesome packaging, which is ultra eco-responsible. The paper packing dissolves in the water, and all of our ink and glue is 100% biodegradable.