Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonya Wolf.
Hi Sonya, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Growing up on a farm in Northern Minnesota I was immersed in nature and surrounded by abundant wild beauty.
My love for plants and their natural healing abilities started there on the farm and has blossomed into a lovely natural skincare business I named Just Dandy.
Just Dandy aims to make natural and organic skincare affordable. Using recipes created by our in-house organic certified formulator (yours truly), we take the best of nature’s bounty and blend it into effective botanical skincare.
What started out as a gal making soy candles in her farmhouse kitchen back in 2016 has slowly grown into a fully stocked retail boutique, an on-site lab here on our farm where products are hand-crafted fresh daily and are supported by a strong and loyal customer base! As a registered nurse of 26 years, it is extremely important to me what goes on and into our bodies! In addition to a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, I also hold a diploma in Organic Skincare Formulation with an advanced certificate in Organic Anti-Ageing Skincare Formulation! I have logged thousands of hours of research and product testing before a product reaches my boutique shelves and your home! I take great pride in handcrafting natural products and am pleased to share them with you! I would like to welcome you to my small business! If you are local to the Bemidji area please feel free to stop in, if not, we have a website for you to enjoy from the comforts of your home!
A priority of my business is to reduce my own plastic use and encourage you to reduce yours as well! My husband and I love our earth and enjoy our farm immensely! Our two horses and dog, Tucker, have the run of the place! What would life be without the joy animals and our earth bring us? Let’s all work together to keep our earth beautiful and healthy! By doing our part to reduce and recycle we hope to inspire others to do so as well! I have partnered with TerraCycle and have a recycling station here in the boutique. Bring in your empty bath and beauty plastic packaging and I will recycle it for you! I sell our bar soaps individually hand wrapped in recyclable paper. I have transitioned to recyclable paper packaging for all of my facial bars, shampoo bars, and hair conditioner bars! Our luxury glass candle vessels can all be recycled, up-cycled, and even re-filled! Our botanical salves are manufactured in reusable metal tins! Even our face masks are packaged in reusable glass containers!
Back in 2020, we debuted custom concrete candles handcrafted by my husband right here on site! Not only are they sustainable and recyclable, but they are also so much fun to reuse as succulent containers, make-up brush holders, or whatever your heart desires! We pour our candles using a luxurious and creamy coconut apricot creme wax to create a candle that is clean-burning, long-lasting, and has an exceptional fragrance throw.
Our bar soaps are hand-crafted here in our lab on the farm. Your skin’s natural oil is the best moisturizer you have.
This can be disrupted by harsh chemicals and cleaners. We strive to provide you with a bar that is gentle on your skin, lathers great, and rinses clean. We use a combination of organic coconut oil, organic extra virgin olive oil, organic sunflower oil, organic shea butter, and organic castor oil in our botanically-based recipe. We have a phthalate-free fragrance oil collection of bar soaps for those who love unusual and exotic scents! We also take great pride in our 100% natural and organic soap line that is scented only in USDA organic essential oils and colored with natural clays! We use a method called cold process soap making. This method allows the soap to retain its natural glycerin created during the production process. We add no extra chemicals, sulfates, or detergents during our bar soap processing. We cure our cold process soaps for 6 weeks resulting in an exceptional bar of soap that is gentle on your skin.
Oh…did I mention we also teach classes? We love to share our skills and enjoy welcoming students to our farm studio! Please be sure to check our website for upcoming class dates! (Due to COVID all classes have been placed on hold)
In 2022 my husband and I along with our special friend, Mike, hand-built a new 4,700 square-foot structure here on our 93-acre farm to house the growing business and get it relocated from our home! I had taken over nearly every room in our home and it was time for a change! This new structure houses our retail eco boutique where you can find many plastic-free swaps for your home, a bulk home and body product refillery, and our Just Dandy production laboratory! We would love to have you visit!
Thank you for reading about our small business. We hope you and your family enjoy our products as much as we enjoy making them for you!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our road has had its share of bumps! Since our budget was so tight I had to learn how to build a website and manage it myself. This was hard! I am a registered nurse by trade so learning about e-commerce was not my cup of tea. But, I kept at it and kept at it and today I am proud of our website. I still manage it alone and update it nearly daily!
Another challenge was having two jobs! Running a growing business and holding down a full-time nursing job was a struggle. Luckily for me, nurses are excellent at time management but after four years I did wind up giving up nursing in 2020 to focus on the business full-time.
Then in 2021 we became foster care providers and welcomed Brad into our home. Brad is wheelchair bound so we had to do some modifications to our existing home layout and it was becoming harder and harder to contain the business to the basement. We wound up losing two bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, and the full basement of our house to the business. When Brad arrived we realized we needed to change that. We started to sketch plans for a new structure to house the business and get it out of our home.
Fast forward to 2022 and me selling off my farm to focus on our current farm and business. That allowed us to have the financial ability to begin construction of our new 4,700-square-foot structure and we were pleased to move into it in early November 2022.
Learning how to juggle being a full-time foster mom and running a full-time natural skincare business all from home has been incredibly challenging. With the help of my husband and our local adult day services program, we have been able to create a weekly schedule that works for our entire family!
The struggle is a necessary part of growth and I have learned to embrace it instead of fear it. I like challenges and am looking forward to seeing what 2023 throws our way!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Being left-handed I have been always been the artistic type! Painting, drawing, working with clay, studying plants, learning how the human body works…all of it fascinates me. I believe that is what led me to be successful in this natural skincare business. I create every single day. I love. that. Blending organic botanical oils and butter together to create a luxurious facial cream is so darn fun! Making soap from scratch is intriguing. Watching lye and water and organic oils blend harmoniously into a creamy bubbly bar of soap is so rewarding.
Currently, I am most proud of my organic rose facial regime. The face cream was my final project for my two-year diploma in organic skincare formulation and I just loved learning how to create that unique recipe myself. I loved being able to control and select just the right ingredients to target aging skin! That cream is divine!
I would say what sets me apart from other makers and small business owners is probably my grit. I just don’t give up until I find a solution or a better way of doing something. I am always researching and learning. Every day is such a gift and I don’t take that for granted.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
I feel that I had the best childhood so it’s hard to pick one! My grandparents lived right across the road from me so I spent a great deal of my childhood with my grandma. We spent time together reading, crocheting, baking, and cooking. My father is one of five children so a special memory from my childhood was having the entire family gather every Sunday for a family meal.
All the cousins would be there and we would play outside, ride the horses and build forts in the woods. It was just such a special time filled with laughter and a good home-cooked meal. I felt so safe and loved. It was just a precious way to grow up and I cherish those memories.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thatsjustdandy.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/justdandyboutique/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thatsjustdandy
Image Credits
Sarah Ainsworth Photography and Melanie Rice
