We had the good fortune of connecting with Jessica Culpepper and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jessica, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Bars and Jars Soap Company started with my own, personal skincare journey. As a 30-year-old with acne, eczema, and a host of other skincare sensitivities, mainstream skincare just wasn’t cutting it. With that, I turned to the internet, researching ingredients that I had access to and their properties in skincare and learning through others’ experiences, as well. That’s where I landed on my first skincare recipe – Makeup Melt – a cold cream (old-timey makeup remover) that I used as a cleanser, moisturizer, and everything in between to bring my skin back into balance. While I saw very positive results within a couple of months, finding the optimum formulation took me several years of tweaks and trial and error, including some long pauses, to get to today’s product.

Armed with this knowledge and wanting to better understand what I was putting on my skin, other products naturally came to fruition in the form of cold-process shave and body soaps. Having that new-found control over my external skin health made a significant difference for my family and me, and I learned quickly through sharing with others, that I wasn’t alone in these types of skincare concerns. That realization was the singular moment when the idea of Bars and Jars Soap Company was formed.

From that idea, actually starting the business was pretty straight forward: form an LLC, tax and business licenses, etc. The biggest change from hobby to business, really has been getting organized, planning and managing inventories, and building comfort in marketing myself and my business. Over the year or so Bars and Jars Soap Company has been a formal business, I have learned a lot and I have appreciated the adventure of being pushed outside of my very introverted comfort zone!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Professionally, I have been an integration and test engineer for almost 15 years. Put simply, my job is to figure out how to break things and then use that knowledge to learn how to overcome future problems. My professional experience in finding issues and their solutions has helped me to build a determination to break down walls in all things I seek to do, including my small business!

A parallel within my professional lives of engineering and entrepreneurship is that females don’t have equal representation yet, but we are part of the solution to change that! Being a young female in male-dominated and age-dominated fields has been the most challenging obstacle in my career as an engineer, and an obstacle I’ve been extremely proud to continue to knock down. To overcome this challenge, I found mentors who shared my values and who helped me to build my confidence in myself. Namely, I challenged myself to ask for help! I’ve since been able to pay that critical mentorship forward in helping other young engineers to grow their careers.

I continue to bring that experience into Bars and Jars Soap Company, as well: finding confidence to take risks, establishing a network that supports my business growth, and in-turn supporting other women in business.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Tucson has some amazing gems and is incredibly diverse in opportunities for experiences!

Day 1:
Visit: Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum – library card holders can get two free passes from Pima Public Library!
Hang Out: Scenic drive through Saguaro National Park
Eat: Selena’s El Salvadoran Restaurant – Traditional pupusas and Central American cuisine

Day 2:
Visit: Miniature Time Machine miniatures museum
Eat/Drink: Vivace Italian Cuisine – beautiful city views, great cocktails, and elevated, homecooked Italian

Day 3:
Visit: Franklin Auto Museum – A huge, personal collection of Franklin automobiles
Hang Out: Walk/shop 4th avenue downtown
Eat: Opa’s Grill at 4th Ave – Greek favorites in a fun atmosphere

Day 4:
Visit: Summerhaven at the top of Mount Lemmon – can rent a small cabin or make it a day trip
Hang Out: Hike Mount Lemmon – trail heads all the way up and down the mountain
Eat: Zemam’s Ethiopian Cuisine – delicious, Ethiopian dishes, served traditionally, on injera bread.

Day 5:
Hang Out: Walk and shop the St. Philip’s Plaza Artisan Market (and come visit Bars and Jars Soap Company!)
Eat/Drink: Grab a pie and a cocktail at Proof Pizza, at St. Philip’s Plaza

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would love to shoutout Darcy Myers and the Foothills Community Market, in Tucson. Foothills Community Market is the first weekly market that accepted Bars and Jars Soap Company. That opportunity got the Bars and Jars Soap Company name into the public space and helped me personally to build confidence in myself and the products I sell.

Darcy and her team go to great lengths to put on a great market, in a challenging space. I look forward to seeing even more of their success in the future!

Website: barsandjarssoapco.com

Instagram: barsandjarssoapco

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barsandjarssoapco

Image Credits
Madison Mariah Photography Bars and Jars Soap Company

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutArizona is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.