Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Stafford.
Hi Julie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
When my first daughter was born, I left corporate America to stay home with her. The idea of running my own small business was very attractive since it would allow me to still have a “job” but also be home with my daughter. The problem was I had no idea what to do or what I was even good at. At the time, I was getting very interested in more ‘natural living’. It was that whole idea of ‘are we doing the best we can to give our kids the best opportunities in life’ kind of mental shift. Your whole world really does change when you have kids!
A couple years later, we moved to a house with a huge yard where we started gardening, and I started learning more about herbs and natural skin care. Our second daughter was born, and my focus on homegrown foods and cooking from scratch increased even more. She ended up having very sensitive skin like I’ve always had, so looking into skincare that didn’t require prescribed steroids for her eczema became top priority. The biggest turning point in my journey towards my business came when my husband’s aunt sent us some homemade soap for Christmas when our second daughter was about a year old.
This was a game-changer for me! Shortly after switching to using her soap, my sensitive dry skin that had plagued me for as long as I could remember was a thing of the past! I was completely blown away by the difference it made. We went to visit her that next summer and she showed me how to make soap and sent me home with a recipe and everything, and I finally knew what I had to do. It took me a couple years before I was brave enough to even attempt to make my first batch of soap on my own. Being pregnant and then having a newborn can make you rethink your life choices! But finally, about a year after our son was born, I made that first batch of soap. I knew there was no turning back after that. It was so much easier than I anticipated and so much fun!
I took a few years to really understand everything there was about soap making and perfecting my recipes and even how to incorporate the different herbs and botanicals I was growing in the garden. I built up a small inventory and was finally ready to start my business. I opened my Etsy shop on February 1, 2020. Little did I know the world was going to shut down barely a month later! On the plus side, soap was in high demand, and I could run my whole business online! We had a lot more downtime than usual for that next year, so I worked on expanding my product lineup and even added canned grape jelly and pickles from our cucumbers and my dad’s grapes!
Since then, I’ve left Etsy in favor of my own website and also now sell at local markets and shows, at least whenever the kid’s sports schedules allow for it! Though my products, and even my business name, may have evolved some since I first got started, my main mission has stayed constant: using locally sourced ingredients to create sustainable, high-quality products for whole body care.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As I’ve expanded my product offerings, I’ve attempted loads of recipes that just did not turn out right at all. So, working on finding that perfect recipe can be a struggle, but I kind of love that part, the figuring out of the science behind how all the ingredients work together and how to adjust them. So, while it can get frustrating when attempt after attempt fails, I see it as a learning experience overall.
What my true struggles are would be a toss-up between time and marketing, really. Our kids are now 12, 9, and 6. They have more school activities, and all play sports, which my husband and I both coach, so we stay really busy. Plus, we have the garden to keep tended and a small flock of chickens, and the amount of laundry that accumulates in a family of 5 is just astounding! Prioritizing time to work can turn into maybe only 1 hour a day sometimes.
Marketing is definitely my achilles heel. I am a huge introvert, so being confident in how to put myself out there and showcase myself and my products is so far out of my scope of comfort it might as well be on Mars. I’ve taken classes and read books and continually work on it, but it’s a huge struggle still. I honestly don’t know how to talk about something without rambling and providing too much information!
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about Rooted Body Care?
I actually started my business as Stafford’s Homegrown Acres because my mind is very literal. We are the Stafford family, I use homegrown ingredients in my products, and we live on 1.6 acres. I was never in love with the name, it’s just the best I could come up with at the time. I just decided to rebrand with a new name this year and, after MUCH deliberation, landed on Rooted Body Care, which I felt represented me and my products a lot more.
My focus is on locally sourced ingredients for more sustainably made products. I also make all of my products completely from scratch with my own recipes. I do not use any kind of artificial fragrances or fillers and try to stay as simple and natural as possible while still creating a high-quality product that gives the results you expect. As someone who has had problem/sensitive skin her whole life, I’ve tried ALL the products over the years. I now create all my own skincare and test every trial product myself, so if I don’t absolutely love it, I won’t put it out on the market.
Of all the different items I’ve made over the last several years, there is one product that I think I am the most proud of. It has been one of my top-selling soaps since the very beginning, and I get rave reviews about it constantly. It’s one of the items that has the same people coming back to buy it over and over and over again. It was one of the first recipes I put together completely on my own, just knowing what ingredients I needed to create the outcome I wanted. I’ve only made one small change to that original recipe, which actually only made it even better. That soap is my Shaving Soap, which I now offer in both Unscented and Lavender Lemongrass. It’s loved by both men and women alike!
I think the main thing that sets me apart is I don’t specialize in one particular item or even category. I can’t say I do only soap or only skincare. I provide whole-body care, from what you eat to what you put on your skin. Which can make it hard sometimes to answer that question, “What do you do?” Well, I make a lot of different stuff! For instance, my dad grows grapes. I use the juice to make grape jelly, but I also use the pulp strained from the juice in soap! My dad had a bumper crop of beets so we made pickled beets last year. There’s a local raw cow’s milk dairy nearby, so I use their milk in some of my soaps. Cow’s milk soap isn’t nearly as popular as goat’s milk, but it still makes a wonderful soap; it’s locally produced, and buying milk from them is helping out another small family-run business. I don’t think about what items I can make; I figure out what ingredients I have available and create whatever I can with them. That’s what sustainability is all about!
Who else deserves credit in your story?
None of this would have ever happened had my husband’s Aunt Pat not made and gifted me some of her handmade soap. I just never even knew there was a world of homemade soap out there and how amazing it actually was for your skin! If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably still be sitting around wondering what I could do or what I was good at.
My husband has definitely been a big supporter. He understands my need for a personal outlet, something I can do outside the scope of “mom.” He does worry that I’m spreading myself too thin sometimes and asks me more often than he probably should if I really want to keep doing it. But he also doesn’t bat an eye when I ask him to build me a custom work table or soap new molds, or to turn the dining room into a studio space!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rootedbodycare.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/rootedbodycaretx
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/rootedbodycaretx
