Mooka Bath and Body Studio: how to be green from head to toe!

Alternative Channel's Leaders in Sustainability Series

Leaders In Sustainability is an exclusive series of interviews with those at the fore of the sustainability movement, both in the corporate and non-profit sectors.

By Joanie Bergeron Poudrier

We all enjoy soaking in the bathtub for hours until our toes look like grandmas’! Nothing wrong with that, only if you really know what products you are soaking into! I recently discussed with Carolyn Wyse, Owner of Mooka Bath and Body Studio based in Montreal, about her eco-friendly bath and body product line. Discover how this young woman manages a Green business from the making to the packaging!

JBP- Mooka Bath and Body Studio’s products are environmentally friendly, what exactly are they made of?

CW- The base for our soap is the same our grandmas used to make them. They are made of an oil and water mixture. We don’t use anything synthetic, so no sodium laureth sulfate, no parabens and no petroleum based ingredients. I do try to choose sustainable products all the time, so for instance, I use palm oil but it is sourced from the Philippines from a sustainable farm. So it doesn’t affect the orangutan habitat or anything else. It is important to do my homework when it comes to all my ingredients.

JBP-Where did you get the interest in eco-friendly products?

CW- Helping the environment is something I’ve always been really interested in and finally with Mooka Bath and Body Studio I’ve gotten my chance to make, at least, a little bit of difference.

JBP-Where did you get your recipes to make all your products, do they come from grandma?

CW- No, not at all, it doesn’t seem to run in the family (She giggles!).My grandma is much more of a cake mix kind of women. So I read many books at the library and tried a lot of recipes. It is just like cooking, with a lot of practice you see what kind of combination works and what doesn’t. So at this point I make all my own formulas.

JBP-Was there a turning point that made you decide to produce natural products?

CW- Well, since the beginning of Mooka I wanted it to be eco-friendly. Prior to the bath and body products I used to work in the stained glass industry, and it’s wonderful creatively and artistically but it isn’t safe for the environment and after a while I couldn’t justify continuing to do it. I still wanted to create something that was lovely and that people would get enjoyment out of it, but at that point it had to be something that was green!

JBP-Is it a challenge for a company to use green products, when it is so easy to get cheaper ingredients that are not eco-friendly?

CW- It definitely is a challenge and it requires constant research. Most of the day, when people come into my boutique, they see me sitting at my computer and it may looks like I’m browsing the Internet for fun, but all day long I’m trying to resource materials or ingredients or my packaging is always a huge concern. Also for deliveries there are no green delivery companies, that I know of, so I had have to buy carbon credits to offset that. But it would still be much better if I could, from the beginning, not produce any waste at all.

JBP-You said the packaging for your products is always a huge concern, how can it be environmentally friendly?

CW-At Mooka Bath and Body Studio, I use only a recycled paper band to put around my soaps and a label that is tied on with a raffia string. Cannot be greener than that!

JBP- Is less packaging a new trend?

CW- I have noticed that people appreciate responsible packaging, so for my body butter I put them in a tin container and people ask me why I don’t use glass instead. So my answer is quite simple it’s because of the amount of oil that ends up getting used to transport glass. I have to have them transported to me and when people order them online I also have to ship the glass back out to them, so it ends up being more energy costly for the shipping fuel than just using a tin container that isn’t itself recyclable but uses a bit more energy to have it recycled.

When I first started out, I didn’t package my soap at all, I just left them out naked, but it was a problem and people started requesting that I put at least a label on each and every one of them. I would prefer to leave them naked, but I still managed to answer my costumers’ need in a green way!

JBP- What would you say to other bath and body products companies that tend to over package ?

CW- If every company would try to be environmentally friendly in every step of their business, from the production to the selling and shipping, it would make a big difference. Some of my customers have told me, when they come to buy my products that, in their mind, it’s like making an investment. They say they would much rather want Mooka to be around in 5 years from now, than the big box stores, where it’s poor quality and they don’t care about you. And it is true that if no one was buying from them anymore, they probably wouldn’t be in business and then, the kind of practices that they promote wouldn’t be in business either !

I would also tell them that it is easier to be green than they realize and in some cases it could even bring down some of their costs - the packaging is a good example of that.


JBP- Are you, in your daily life, as environmentally conscious as you are in your business?

CW- Definitely, I don’t own a car, I walk to and from work, I never buy coffees out, unless I have my travel mug. I try not to produce any garbage at all and I try to recycle, reuse and compost everything!

JBP-You are such a good example to follow! Tell me, what is the biggest reward you get from trying to be greener than green?

CW- The reason I studied Anthropology in university was because I wanted to make a difference in the world but I decided that becoming a professor wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted. And now, even though all I’m doing is making soap I feel like I am still making a difference because people do need soap, so might as well be green soap!

JBP- Thanks for your devotion to the environment Carolyn. With more people like you, the world would be greener!

To read more about Mooka Bath and Body Studio visit their website here

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