Looking to simplify your New Year’s resolution for a cleaner, toxin-free lifestyle?
Visit The Soap Factory Midtown, where affordable, ethical, and non-overpowering products meet everyday needs.
Erica Jancelewicz has been a nurse for the past 24 years. She eats a nutritious diet and works out regularly. But when she found herself going through menopause at just 39 years old, Erica began digging deep about how our lifestyles play a role in hormonal health.
“You can do all the blood work tests, but the bottom line is, we don’t know why this is happening to so many women. That’s when I started thinking about the things I do have control over besides exercise and food,” Erica explains.
She began researching the chemicals found in many beauty and household items, discovering their compounding, hormone-disrupting effects.
“I wanted to understand why,” as someone who works in healthcare alongside her husband. “Maybe we can also change the things we put inside and onto our bodies.”
Most commercial laundry companies use optical brighteners in their detergent to make our laundry appear cleaner. “No one is going to tell you that those are hormone disruptors and don’t contribute to the cleaning process,” she says. And those that omit those ingredients often don’t get the job done.
In response, Erica decided to open a franchise of The Soap Factory in Midtown Memphis at the end of November. The family-owned Soap Factory was locally founded in Covington, TN, in 2021 by Gerry and Whitney McLillie, who started making products out of their home using clean, plant-based ingredients, without any added toxins.
“I like to know where my stuff comes from and what the ingredients are. Especially with having kids, that mattered to me.”
The Soap Factory creates all their products in-house and all the scents are fully customizable. Using Erica’s background in wine as a certified sommelier, her team can recreate popular scents, using simple ingredients such as mango and shea butter, offering the same luxurious smells as high-end products, but cleaner and significantly more affordable.
Their most popular item, laundry detergent, contains only five ingredients: baking soda, borax, soda ash, coconut soap, and oxy. Yet the storefront sells much more. Body butters, sugar scrubs, body sprays, hand soaps, bath bombs, shave bars, body oils, room sprays, pet soap, and candles are just a handful of the countless gender-neutral products you can find at The Soap Factory.
Despite opening recently, the storefront is already a hit among locals, notably for its Farmhouse scent, and Erica’s favorites, including Domaine Santal, Bergamot, James 1760, and Après Ski.
“I still work as an aesthetic nurse, so this business is truly a labor of love,” shares Erica. Through her work, she hopes to inspire others towards a chemical-free lifestyle.
Visit The Soap Factory Midtown this January and mention Memphis Health+Fitness Magazine to receive 10% off your purchase.
By Shlomit Ovadia
