This is the fourteenth article in a Vendor Profile Series intended to share the history and diversity of the Market through the stories of our vendors, as we celebrate our 25th Season. This article is written by journalist Barry Courter.
As her children got older, stay-at-home-mom Ashley Willis started thinking about how to use her new found free time to help supplement the family's income, and give her something to do.
She says she was on YouTube, and came across a video on how to make soap. Ashley says she really didn't have a plan or even a particular interest in making soap, but “I went down that rabbit hole.
“At that point it was just more of I need to do something because you can only clean house and binge watch TV so much.”
Not one to simply jump into something, however, Ashley said she spent about a year learning about the chemistry of making soaps, and beard oils, which was a particular request from her husband Dave.
“As far as the soap,” she says, “I wanted to learn all the properties of the oils that you use and what they do and how putting it in soap changes the way it feels, and things like how long the bars last. I didn't particularly like bar soap at that point, so I wanted to get the recipe to where I liked it.”
A football and baseball coach at Signal Mountain Middle High School, Dave plays primarily a support role: “I'm the roadie and beard model,” he says.
He also came up with the company name, Moccasin Bend Soap and Beard Company, and helped develop and name some of the soaps, beard care products, and women’s line.
“Right at the very beginning,” he says, “we were talking about doing this, and we were like, 'Well, what are we going to name this thing?' We didn't want to do something like Ashley Designs or something that would be too feminine or whatever. We needed something that kind of split the balance. And I always liked the (Tennessee) river and Moccasin Bend sounds a little more, you know, it's local and it sounds kind of rugged and stuff. It kind of fits everything.”
The family kitchen became her lab and eventually the master bedroom became the place where she would keep the soaps for weeks while they cured. Today, she has a dedicated room with plenty of shelving and space for the nearly dozen products they make.
Dave says from the beginning he wanted Ashley to create something for men as well as women. “I was using beard products from other places and my beard wasn't growing like I wanted it to. And so when she got going, I was like, 'Hey, look if we're going to make soap, I need some man scents. I can't do lavender and honeysuckle. I need some tobaccos and some good man scents to go along with this too.
“She's got a beard wash that she's made that is amazing.”
They also offer oatmeal and lavendar and lemongrass shampoos for pets.
During the early months, the couple used friends and family as their test audience.
“We didn't want to go into this just to make money, but to make something that we truly enjoyed,” Ashley says.
“And it took us making a lot of batches of soap and throwing them away because we just didn't like it. It took about a year to get there.”
Once they felt good about things, they set up a table at the small weekly market on Signal Mountain and eventually applied for a booth at the Chattanooga Market and set up shop for the final weekend of November in 2018.
As with the products she makes, there was a learning curve regarding how to display them and both Ashley and Dave laugh at the memory of their first booth. Dave says nothing matched as they essentially grabbed whatever they could from around the house.
The couple says they spent the fall and winter of 2018-2019 getting ready for opening day of the Chattanooga Market, focusing on the soaps and oils, but also on the display booth. They realized that booth and shelving have to not only present everything in the best way possible, they have to set up and break down easily and fit in the family vehicle.
“I feel like I'm always loading and unloading the truck,” Dave says. “I load the truck up on the weekend for the market, then Sunday I unload the truck, throw all the football stuff back in forMonday, and then we're unloading that and loading it every day at practice. And then we goFriday, get home, unload the truck, load the truck for the market weekend. It's like every day. It's emptied and refilled.
Moccasin Bend Soap and Beard Company is now a full-time gig for Ashley, and she says when coaching prevents Dave from being there to help, their son, Delaney, or daughter, Makenzie, fill in. They sell at the market and online at moccasinbendsoap.com.
They sell their soaps for $8 and the beard and hair-care products for $15 with discounts for bulk purchases.
“This has turned into something bigger than I ever imagined.”
