ST. GEORGE — Finding inspiration and rejuvenation in Southern Utah’s natural landscapes, Ashley Marie LeBaron started Ashley Marie Soaps LLC, a soap and skincare business, in her garage.

LeBaron began making soap as homemade Christmas presents for her family. She started selling her homemade soaps at a Mexican trade show before moving to the United States.

Once in St. George, she moved into a house with a garage near the Virgin River. LeBaron said she made a conscious decision to use the garage only for her business and stores her personal items elsewhere.

She bought shelves from Craigslist and stainless steel tables from a restaurant supply store. She creates, labels and ships all from her garage and sells her products wholesale or online.

Her garage was featured in MyQ’s Garage Master Docuseries’ episode four. The docuseries focuses on people who have transformed their garages for their businesses, hobbies or passions.

“I have this empty space that I wasn’t using and it kind of just started coming together like a puzzle,” LeBaron said in the episode. “I didn’t really like plan out something or map it out or you know write on a piece of paper how my garage was going to be set up.”

She said living near the river is beneficial to her business.

“My garage door opens right up to a beautiful river,” LeBaron said. “I love all the fresh air that comes in. Sometimes I work before the sun comes up. So I’ll be in my garage working when the sun’s rising and it’s super beautiful.

“When I’m out there, I look at the different natural colors and I have so much gratitude for where I live. And I love being out there. I feel like I’m free and I feel so inspired and it gives me energy to come back and keep creating.”

In an interview with St. George News, LeBaron said that while she was growing up, her family ate mostly homemade food. So when she started making soap, it was a given she’d use only natural ingredients.

Synthetic coloring agents, like mica powder, allow soap-makers to create any number of bright colors, but LeBaron said she prefers to use clays and botanicals. Her Utah-inspired soap “Zion Sage” is colored using rose kaolin and french red clays.

“So all my colors are very subtle colors,” she said. “They’re not these hot pinks and hot yellows. I mean, I’ve seen soaps, you can go to the store and see natural soaps, handmade soaps with all these wild colors and I love them. I have so much respect for those soap-makers because they do the same thing as me. We’re just using different colors.”

Because LeBaron makes cold-process soap, a technique that requires no additional heat, the bars must cure for 4-6 weeks before they are ready for shipment. This allows the saponification process, the chemical reaction where oil and lye become soap, to finish and for water to evaporate.

To keep track of her stock and which soaps are ready or curing, LeBaron uses the software “Soapmaker,” which also helps her keep track of her ingredients and determine the cost of each bar she makes.

“Every bar of soap is different in price depending on what essential oils you use,” she said. “Essential oils are the most expensive part of my soap making.”

LeBaron said she learned business skills through trial and error and made mistakes along the way.

“(I’m) learning what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “And there’s been many failed batches and failed things where I wasted money, just huge chunks of money on something that I didn’t need.”

She said selling at trade shows and farmers markets helped her figure out her strategy to begin selling online and wholesale.

“I’m still constantly learning,” she added. “And I also read books every day. Every single day, I wake up and I’m reading some kind of book about this handmade business.”

As her business grew, she hired Pam Kreise and Annie Scott to assist her, thus allowing her to make more soap and expand her product line, she said.

“The only way I’ve been able to even grow (my business) is by hiring,” LeBaron said. “It’s just growing. Now it doesn’t even faze me to pay them because my business is growing. It’s doing good, you know?”

More recently, LeBaron got engaged and is planning a move to LaVerkin, where she will set up shop in her fiance’s three-car garage.

“I plan on growing my business when I get there,” she said. “I want to buy more equipment that will help me streamline my soap-making production more. I’m going to get a big, huge soap cutter and I’m going to get molds that are way bigger.”

In celebration of her upcoming wedding, LeBaron created a new soap she calls “Wedding Bliss,” which she will both sell and pass out as wedding favors.

She hopes to expand her product line to include hand soap and a wider variety of scents for existing products. Additionally, she said she hopes to sell her soap “white label,” which means companies can order her products sans label, allowing them to brand the products themselves.

When asked to give advice to individuals thinking of starting their own business, LeBaron suggested testing potential products at trade shows and farmers markets.

“Make sure that your product is already selling a little bit before you just quit your job,” she said.

Additionally, she said small-business owners can expect to spend a considerable amount of money but that it is necessary to grow a business.

“But if you know your product sells and you have confidence in your work, then don’t be afraid to just take that big leap of faith and do it,” LeBaron said.

Owning a small business has allowed her to grow personally, as well, she said.

“They say that running your own business and being an entrepreneur is the greatest self-development that someone could ever have,” LaBaron said. “Because you learn every aspect of everything.”

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