Bigfork woman cleans up with handmade soap business

It all comes natural for Malissa Kelly — soap making that is.

Kelly started making castile soap three years ago because of her husband Steven’s dry skin, and the idea took off.

“We tried a bar and it helped him,” she said.

Malissa sells 100-percent olive oil soap at Electric Avenue Gifts in downtown Bigfork. “It’s really a pure, natural soap,” she said. “It’s the most nontoxic, environmentally friendly and biodegradable soap known.”

Malissa remembered her grandmother telling her stories about her great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother cooking soap over a fire in a pot in the front yard of their home in West Virginia. So she did some research and — voilà! Malissa found a recipe and away she went on her business adventure.

“I had never intended on it being a business,” she said. “But I decided to sell some bars here, and it took off. Last fall, we converted our tack room in the barn into a production kitchen.”

She now works three days a week making soap and four days a week selling it and other wares at Electric Avenue Gifts.

Last fall Malissa had so many sales that she ended up hiring a sales representative to sell her soap and other products across Montana, northern Idaho and northern Wyoming. Malissa now has 20 business accounts across Montana, including Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

She teamed up with local artist Eric Thorsen, who made her some grizzly paw- and bison-shaped soap molds. With those Malissa was able to make huckleberry goat’s milk soap. “We are starting a whole line,” she said, noting that she plans on adding an elk-shaped soap soon.

Malissa aims to please with her flavors. She has multiple soap scents including huckleberry, mountain birch, ginger lime, spring lavender, rosemary lavender and cozy cabin—a mixture of cinnamon, clove, orange, pine and vanilla.

She also makes a variety of lip balms: huckleberry, sweet orange, rosemary lime and lemongrass. The lip balms are made with pure essential oils and nothing artificial.

Bath salts are another item on Malissa’s production list.

For more information, call 212-9750.