Featured Soaper - Demo Soap

We supply hundreds of customers worldwide either directly or through our distribution partners, nothing makes us happier than seeing a customer develop their concept, grow their business and become a real success. It pushes us as a supplier to innovate, support and maintain our high standards of product quality and supply so that our customers can focus on growing their business and refining their brand strategy.

We’ve seen some fantastic small to medium sized businesses grow and develop with creative ideas using our soap base and it’s great when they take the time to share their story to inspire others. Introducing Thomas Tam & Demo Soap Studio.

Thomas shares his soap making story below.

I met 2 friends back in 1999….They were making soap as a hobby and started to sell their soap products in Toronto’s local farmer’s market St. Lawrence Market every Saturday morning. That was the time I got introduced to Stephenson’s soap bases, they were doing well and people loved the quality of the products my friends were creating.

We turned that side business into a boutique shop just north of the market called Solstice. Our soap products were great hits for the locals and we have generated many regular customers within a short period of time. I became more involved in the production and design, which was great.

During the next 2 years the shop expanded into a local fashion and home décor furnishing shop. At the same time I realized that the soap product section was getting smaller and less focused. I had great ideas, great quality and so I decided to open my own company Demo Soap in 2003.

The business started really small, simply selling my soap products every weekend at the up and coming new market place Distillery District, a pretty hip and fashionable area. At the same time I began exhibiting at the One of a Kind show, Canada’s biggest hand crafted show and sales.

After gaining a growing customer base I found a second floor loft space in an old factory building just outside downtown Toronto for all my soap manufacturing. Fortunately not long after that I met my first wholesale client, Premier Skincare which was a great boost for me. This Canadian distributor had just moved to Toronto from Israel and wanted to introduce their Dead Sea product line to Canada. Since then I have worked along side with that company to display my soap at every kiosk, cart and shop locations. During last 10 years they have shipped my soaps all across Canada which has really helped me to grow my business.

Opening up my own retail location has always been the ambition, so I moved from the second floor location to a ground floor space. In a 1200 sq/ft space we managed to have a little store front and continued to hand make all our products in the back. It has grown slowly but at a steady pace with more staff and more regular customers.

There is a basic theme for our soap – Good enough to eat” So we have created a very visually attractive dessert line like the cupcakes, donuts and macarons. We also knew the key to keeping our customers happy is the true quality of our handcrafted soap, we’ve never used any other soap base besides Stephenson’s the quality of the soap bases and the ingredients has without doubt helped us to grow our business whilst maintaining a high quality product.

Our future goal is to expand our retail market. We are revamping our website and introducing a wider range of our products to Europe. We will continue to create more original soap product with great Stephenson’s quality, you can see more about what we do by checking out our video just here.

Thanks and Happy Soaping!

Demo Soap