This week, we met Solène, the founder of the “Ciment’” design soap factory. She came back with us on her journey and the creation of her business!
« Moi, it’s Solène and we founded the Ciment soap factory with my partner Jérémy. I taught for 14 years as a Spanish teacher and besides my job, I always had creative hobbies.
I met Jérémy when I founded a group of knitters in 2008. I was already associated with him for knitted hats. I discovered natural cosmetics a little later, in 2015. It immediately caught my attention and I began to wonder regarding the products that we put on our skin…
I started making cosmetics with simple and equally effective ingredients than those of supermarkets and that’s when I became interested in soap.
Creating patterns, taming materials and imagining designs, I liked everything regarding creating soap. With my girlfriends, around 2017, I started doing soap making workshops and posting our creations on Instagram.
At this same time, Jérémy contacted me once more and offered to create a soap factory with him, I accepted without hesitation! Being a craftsman had always made me dream and I had wanted to leave my job as a teacher for a long time, I had done the trick, I needed a job with more tangible results.
The following winter, I had my first workshop in Nanterre, which allowed me to launch Ciment. Then, we rented our first premises in Paris in 2019, where we are still. In our premises, we find our production laboratory, a shop and a space to host workshops!
In the shop, we sell our cold saponified soaps, which do not dry out the skin and which are handmade from carefully chosen raw materials and organic oils… We saponify the soaps ourselves!
Part of our range is labeled cosmos organicun label bio. We also sell cosmetic products, soap dishes, and just regarding everything that goes with the world of the bathroom.
With Jérémy, we rendered realize that what attracted us at the beginning was the exchange we had around soap making and we found it interesting to offer others to learn how to make soap. The platform Candoowho offers to buy workshops to do at the craftsman, contacted us and we started in the workshops. It’s good to be accompanied to make soap, because there are important safety measures to respect.
At the start of the school year, we release soaps in collaboration with the City of Paris. We have the label made in Paris. The line was nice to work because we thought of a “Paris is a party” collection. Our first “July 14” soap has already been released and it smells very good of cotton flower!
We have also had the same “Cement” store in Bordeaux for a year! »
Last week, we met Nathalie, who gives workshops to learn how to create her own cosmetic products!
+ D’INFOS
Cement soap factory
100 avenue Parmentier
75011 Paris
Photo of one: Jérémy and Solène © Savonnerie Ciment
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