What is your name?
Sean Ralston
What is the name of your business?
Honest Apothic, Spruce Up Soap Company, LLC
Where can customers follow your work?
Instagram | Facebook
How did you end up in Buffalo? Are you a Buffalo native?
Buffalo Native
How did you become a ShopCraft member?
Through Instagram!
In what way(s) is your work and/or lifestyle environmentally friendly?
Honest Apothic provides clean ingredient hair, body and skin care solutions. By choosing Honest Apothic you get to select from two of our distinct product brands Spruce Up Soap Co. and BAR Apothic.
BAR Apothic was created with the goal to help reduce packaging waste and overuse of much needed fresh water. With the help of everyone we can reach our goal of saving package waste from entering our eco system and save around 21,679.7 gallons of fresh water.
Spruce Up Soap Co. was created with simple and clean ingredients in mind. We wanted to deliver skin care solutions that you could feel good about putting on your skin while still achieving effective results. Spruce Up Soap Co. thoughtfully creates it’s skin care solutions from the mind, body, and soul and not from the lab. Our solutions are created with the power of natural butters, oils, botanical extracts and herbs.
Describe your creative process in as much detail as possible:
Start off with identifying a problem I want to solve in terms of skin care. Then I think about how I can solve that problem with simple and clean ingredients. Then I start my research and get to “cooking”. For Example: I wanted to solve a personal problem of dry, patchy, reddish looking skin I was starting to get on my body. I knew I wanted the solution to make use of plant-based extracts. So, for this solution I started with the active ingredients Turmeric Root and Chamomile extract. These two active ingredients have incredible skin healing properties. Then I moved to which oils and butters will make for a great balance of making my skin soft and supple but also provide a bit of protection throughout the day. Then, because this is a cream I wanted to add aloe vera leaf juice for its hydrating and soothing properties. Now, the tricky part came… getting the ratio’s just right. After about 2 months of testing and testing we now have our Fortifying Hand Cream. Cleared up my red patchy skin in about 12 days.
What does it mean to you to be a member of an artist collective like ShopCraft?
One word: Community.
How do you order your wings?
Hot and extra crispy with a side of blue cheese.
What is the most meaningful thing a customer/client has said to you about your work?
Multiple customers have said in one form or another how nice it was to have clean ingredient solutions that work.
If you could share a piece of advice with people who think they are ‘not creative’, or don’t think their art is ‘good enough’, what would it be?
You should only ever compete with yourself. Forget about what others are doing as that only serves as a distraction to your own growth.
What about Buffalo inspires you?
That we are truly a fun and loving city that actually cares.
What is your super power?
Perseverance
What is your favorite charitable organization?
Awesome Paws Rescue
Tell us a joke:
This graveyard looks overcrowded. People must be dying to get in there.
What is your most prized possession?
My dogs.
