INDfamily

Mother, Inventor

by Amanda Bedgood

Happiness comes in a bar of soap

Mother, Inventor
Happiness comes in a bar of soap

By Amanda Bedgood
Nov. 1, 2013

There is perhaps nothing so driven as a mother with a problem. Margo Baker knows this. The creator of Happy Skin Soap faced acommon ailment - a child with eczema. Instead of lamenting, she got to work.

"Our oldest daughter is 3 and has had eczema since 2 months old, and we tried everything," Baker says.

After a year of exhausting every avenue to remedy it, she took a new direction.

"We're going all natural. I mixed up a batch of soap and within about a week her eczema was gone and we never saw it again," Baker says.

For two years now, the family has been whipping up batches of all-natural products.

"Everything is natural. Nothing synthetic," she says.

While products began as a remedy for daughter Savannah, they have expanded to include bug bite soother, laundry detergent, sugar scrub and lip balm. They sell the products online and at the Lafayette Farmers & Artisans Market at the Horse Farm. Beginning this month they can be found at Artesia and have been on hand at Cabelo for months now thanks to salon owner Julie Underwood.

Underwood found them at the Horse Farm market and has been hooked since. She says the sugar scrub is the best on the planet, and she personally uses every product Baker makes. They are products that came from necessity in her own household, Baker says.

"Everything I've made has been based on a family need," she says. "And I've put hours and hours of research into it."

Her efforts have created a detergent that is sensitive enough for her newborn's skin and tough enough for her husband's dirty socks, a lip balm that she says is her personal favorite product and sugar scrubs that leave the skin supple.

Baker makes everything at home in a room off the family home, balancing motherhood and business. Something she never expected.

"This just evolved into a business," she says. "This isn't something I set out to make money doing."

Maybe not. But the recipe for success and the formula for Happy Skin products are looking increasingly alike.