Today we’d like to introduce you to Regina Baccala.
Hi Regina, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Growing up, I’ve always been a creative person, taking up multiple hobbies from jewelry design, sewing and fashion design, and even creative writing. But nothing stuck to me. As I got older, I wanted to study in the STEM field, with a specialization in biochemistry. However, studying for a specialized field like that just wasn’t in my plans as a new mom. The one thing that did stick out of this field was the making of soap and understanding oils.
When my sister was becoming a mom, I wanted to help make baby shower favors and what came to mind was making soaps. I’ve never done it before, but I was up for the challenge. They were a beeswax melt and pour style soap–meaning it comes in a block premade, and you melt the base and pour into your mold. It was a huge hit at the shower and I really enjoyed creating it! But I didn’t want to just make soap. There was something else out there that I knew was waiting for me to try. That’s when I stepped into the realm of bath and body products.
I started with bath bombs. Everyone from childhood remembers dropping that hard rock concoction into your bath water and it would immediately fizz and bubble, and your whole bathroom would smell like flowers. I thought I could definitely do something like that. So I began my journey by creating bath bombs, sugar scrubs, and face masks. Real simple. Easy to create. Or so I thought…
If soap is a science, bath bombs are quantum physics. Failure after failure of trying to find that perfect balance of mixture of ingredients to the humidity in my home was too much. I had had enough, so instead of giving up, I pivoted to something else. I went back to my roots of soapmaking and began making whipped soaps and sugar scrubs. And they’ve been a hit!
I completely rebranded my company, paying homage to my Italian-American heritage, and created Bolle Bath. “Bolle” (pronounced “Bow-lay”) is Italian for “Bubbles”, a fun take on what I create. Being a handmade business owner has been a complete joy to my life. I create from my home, involve my family in the creation process, whether that’s having my five-year-old pick out the colors for my products, having my fiance hype me up with the fragrances I pick out or create visually aesthetic social media posts and videos of how I make my products. It takes multiple hats to run a handmade business but knowing that my products are created by me for my customers brings me happiness. My products are currently sold in multiple boutiques and shops throughout the Kansas City metro area, including the I Heart Local store in Shawnee, KClayton Studios, and Homers Coffee in downtown Overland Park.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There have been multiple times I wanted to give up or had meltdowns from this journey. The last time I made bath bombs, I had a total meltdown. My batch wasn’t coming out the way I wanted to. I was wasting money on ingredients, and I had enough after attempting to redo it several times in the day. I threw my trash can across the room with bath bomb mix spilled over the floor. After I cleaned up, I said “no more”.
Learning eCommerce has been my biggest struggle. It’s easy to make the products, design your labels, show them off to the world and say “buy my products!” But getting customers to see my website, be seen on impossible social media algorithms, and to stay up to date with all marketing aspects was hard for me. Word of advice: don’t ever ask a Facebook group to give feedback on your website. I would spend hours upon hours trying to perfect my website, get the colors and fonts correctly, adjust my photos, place SEO-optimized wording in my pages, and people would nitpick and harshly critique my website. It brought me to tears because I knew I worked so hard on something only to be told I was doing everything wrong.
I would have “dry” months where no matter how often I would show my products out to the world, I wouldn’t get a single sale. I’ve tried every tactic from presales to giveaways and wouldn’t hear a single chime, and that was a struggle for me to wonder if my products were good enough to the public. As a handmade business owner, you are your own worst enemy. You will have happy moments when sales are high and depressing moments where you don’t think you’re good enough to create the products you want to sell. However, no matter how hard or slow in sales it gets, I never gave up. I never stopped. I just kept pushing through.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I make handmade bath and body products. My products vary from season to season. My year-round products are whipped soaps, whipped sugar scrubs, and wax melts. During the fall/springtime, I add in candles and bubble baths. During the summer, I add in body washes. I have two signature fragrance collections: my Gelato collection and my Bubbly champagne collection. But during the holidays, I add in all of the holiday scents from woodsy scents to the desserts you would imagine baking for the season.
Whipped soaps are a creamy cleanser for your skin with a gentle fragrance. Made with skin-loving oils and detergents to cleanse and moisturize whipped to perfection, its light texture makes you feel like there’s nothing there, yet thick enough to work for shaving cream. Whipped sugar scrubs are made with the same base as my soaps but with added exfoliants varying from fine grain sugar to ground coffee to poppy seeds. Some are less abrasive than others and affect different areas of the skin. The combinations of these soaps with oils I use really complement certain types of skin and how it affects it. Some oils I use are heavier that penetrate deeper into the skin for a more moisturized feel, whereas some oils are very light and absorb into the outer layers of the skin for a shinier feel. Some of my oils are meant for dry to normal skin, where others are meant for oily or sensitive skin. It just depends on how versatile I want my products to feel.
My whipped sugar scrubs are what I’m mostly known for, and they are my best sellers. The mixture of easily identifiable fragrances–such as strawberries, coffee, mint, and peach–and just the right amount of exfoliant to rub off dry, excess skin, combined with a cleanser that will leave your skin with this luxurious feel to the touch makes the customers repeatedly buy more and more. Currently, I have seven different kinds of whipped sugar scrubs, including a facial scrub with poppy seeds and an activated charcoal scrub. I typically complement the oils in my scrubs with the fragrance. For example, my Peach Gelato whipped scrubs are not only scented in a “peaches and cream” note but it’s also made with peach nectar oil, which is a light oil that absorbs into the top layer of the skin with some really nice beneficial properties.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I’ve learned that with Covid-19, it became even more important to people to support the local owners and shop small. It’s so easy to go to Amazon or Walmart and buy from a large corporation that isn’t hurting financially. It’s the mom and pop shops that got hurt the most during the crisis. My sales actually boosted during the lockdown, and I gained a bigger following on my social media.
I also took the time while I had to stay home in lockdown to hyperfocus on my business. I purchased office supplies within my home, bought equipment that would help me with my creations, and even taught myself how to use Adobe Illustrator, which in itself was a struggle to understand without proper instruction.
On the flip side, I pushed myself out there to network and meet other crafters, handmade makers, and other business owners to help support them in their times of need as well. I’m typically a shy person in social situations, but with the Covid-19 crisis, I had an outlet through social media and other Entrepreneur based groups I connected with and made comraderies through support and empowerment with others who were going through the same struggles.
Pricing:
- Whipped Soap and Scrubs: $6-12
- Wax Melts: $5
- Body Washes and Bubble Baths: $12-15
- 8 oz Candles: $25
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.bollebath.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/bollebathllc
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/bollebathllc
Image Credits
Marissa K Webb Photography
