Scrubbed clean at the market

“Clean hippie.” I'm sorry if this offends any of my hippie friends, but isn't that an oxymoron? Regardless, I saw that phrase tacked to a booth at the Thursday Night Market last week and it made me smile. So I stopped.

The booth was called The Body Emporium and it boasted handcrafted organic skin care products. On display were all manner of soaps—in lots of different colors and scents—along with body butters and sugar scrubs. (I love me a good sugar scrub!) When the crowd died down for a minute, I was able to chat it up with the ladies behind the business, Tori Standke and Cynthia Weems. Lovely ladies.

It turns out their story is quite unique and inspiring. Each of them started out alone—Standke had Clean Hippie Body Care and Weems had Sudsy Sorto Sisters' Soap Co. And they both started out because they found something lacking in the commercial world of body care products.

“I have dry skin, so I started buying sugar scrubs,” Standke said. “There were no commercial products that were working that well for me. So, I started making my own. People liked it, so I started selling it.”

Weems' inspiration was a little different. “I found out what was really in soaps and detergents,” she said. “For example, Dove—it's marketed as a body bar. That's because legally, according to the FDA, they're not allowed to call it soap.”

She was also inspired in coming up with her business name, which still adorns the soaps The Body Emporium sells. “It's a tribute to my sister,” she said. “There were three of us—my maiden name is Sorto—and now there are two.”

In October, Weems plans to create a special purple soap in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and in honor of her sister, Angelica Weems, who was killed last fall.

But Weems and Standke keep business at their booth—and online, find them at www.facebook.com/thebodyemporiumchico—light and fun. “I just love her sense of humor—we really get along well,” Weems said. “We really complement each other.”

Standke agreed, adding that they've both gotten a lot of support from friends and family.

“I like supporting other locals, too,” Weems said. “When there's something I don't make, I'll buy from another local business. We understand how it is to have your own business going.”