about

citysoap is one-womxn Queer owned and operated in Tkaronto (otherwise known as Toronto) on territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. I was born, raised and educated here - on stolen land. This has been a catalyst for constant questioning of the ethics of natural product production and use of wild and cultivated botanicals in my products.

I’m really all about handmade, natural and safe body goods. I have a thing for bypassing all means of mass production. In many cases when I can’t find a product without the sketchy ingredients or pyramid scheme, I find a way to make it myself. After much research and work, I thought I would share some of these tenderly homemade body goods with you.

My formal education background is in environmental science. I studied this in college, for a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Sustainability and now as a graduate student completing a Master of Applied Science. I am an artist. I stitch and draw and try to make all of my silly ideas and worldview tangible and visible when it is otherwise difficult to articulate. Perhaps this is a project to marry some of these things. Good for the earth, for the people (ecofacism is not welcome here) and maybe beautiful too, depending on what you’re into.

I don’t like the commercial conceptualization of cleansing — of spaces, of minds, of bodies.

This soap is dirty. It is filled with clays and herbs and natural oils. It works with the oils and microbes in our skin rather than stripping them away. Because there is nothing wrong with them and nothing wrong with us. They enter your body and take on a new life without threatening the good stuff that is already there.

Soap making is quite the science and everything I create is carefully formulated and made in small batches. Some products are made individually. There are botanicals in these products I grew myself in my backyard garden. I source the oils from independently owned Canadian suppliers as responsibly as I can and avoid using plastic at every opportunity.

These products are for everyone. All bodies, races, genders, ethnicities, within or outside the bounds of a spectrum. Everyone. Skin is our outermost layer between self and the world and if I can make something that can strengthen the relationship between those two entities I have met many goals. 

I hope using them is as much of a healing process as making them.