Farm Friend Feature Interview

Cynthia Ryan, the founder and maker behind Loohoo Luxe!

Today, we are taking a bit of a detour from our monthly farm features to bring you a friend feature. Cynthia Ryan is the founder and brilliant mind behind Loohoo Luxe - a place for your all-natural, handcrafted products for beauty, skincare, and home. She is a regular vendor at Homestead Orchards and the Georgina Farmers Market.

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Tell me about a typical day here on the farm. Walk me through what you do from sunrise to sunset, and what you enjoy most about it.

Well, if it’s a Monday, I’m definitely puttering around the house, taking it easy. After the weekend’s markets, it’s generally a recovery day, especially from the farmers' market that we have here in Georgina. On a regular studio day, my home studio, the day doesn’t really start for me until around 10 o’clock, after I’ve had my breakfast and stuff - very well nourished for the day. I review yesterday’s todo list, what customers are asking for and requesting and make sure I work that in my schedule so that I have those products available for the next market. If I’m making soap, I try to tackle that at the beginning of the week as it’s a multi-day process; there’s the measuring and the mixing and then the pouring. Then on day 2, once everything is solidified, you’re cutting, beveling and stamping each of the soaps before they go to the curing rack. That’s a typical day. It’s sort of a revolving door of soap as soap is a 2 to 3 day process, and then I fit in everything else around that - the body balms, the face products, laundry soap, just sort of fit in around the soap.

The cutting, beveling and stamping bring me the most joy. Each loaf of soap, especially when you’re mixing colours, from mold, even amongst the same batch, you get different looking soaps. You get to see it as you’re cutting and you’re beveling. You get different sorts of swirls and patterns - I’ve found happy faces, in some soaps I’ve found heart shapes. I even found a set of wings in one of my soaps. The way it mirrored on each side of the soap, it looked like a pair of wings. 

What's the biggest change you've seen since you started, and how have you adapted to it?

I’ve been doing this work for almost 22 years now. The soap making I’ve been doing for about 5 years. The rest, yeah, 22 years. Shortly after having my second child, that’s when a lot of the diagnoses came. I had to start leaning in to these more natural things, as the commercially made and available health care and cleaning products were just too filled with chemicals and so, it’s something I started doing in my own kitchen. It’s a process that has sort of evolved ever since. I started sharing what I was making in and around 2012.

The increase and awareness of the chemicals in commercially made products, and the customers asking and having the desire, well, is there something better, is there something more natural and available. 22 years ago, there certainly were natural products out there, they just weren’t as commercially available, and if they were, they were very cost prohibitive. That’s a change I’ve seen. With that comes a lot of great questions, like why this ingredient over that ingredient or what makes your product better or different than the more commercially available ones. Why do I want these more natural products? Lots of awareness and questions.

I started with making these just for myself and then as I brought them to share with the public, they had their own requests - like, oh this is a favourite product of mine, or, I use this all the time, is there a natural version of this available. So, really listening to the customers and what are they using in their homes, what are their routines and personal care products that mean a lot to them. And then trying to offer that, see if I could come up with a viable natural product that they would want to use in their home. 

What is your favourite product and why?

My favourite product is a toss up. For appreciation of daily use and the way it alleviates the burden on the body is deodorant, all natural deodorant. It’s something that you’re using daily, or I hope you’re using daily. It’s one of the products that I had a hard time finding 20+ years ago. One that was natural and affective and that I liked using. So that has got to be one of my favourite products. And then of course the soap. It’s one of my newer products, I’ve only been making it for 5 years. It’s the essential oils, it’s one that my customers love - the essential oil soaps - they have a really nice lather, it cleans without stripping. It’s just a really nice experience between the feel and the smell. So, yeah, it’s a toss up between the natural deodorant and the essential oil soaps.

The demand for locally sourced goods is increasing. How has this trend impacted your business, and do you believe the infrastructure is in place to truly support a thriving local food system across Ontario?

I try to source locally as much as possible, so businesses that are located in Ontario. Because I use a lot of natural products, I will try to find a natural source for that - so like beeswax and honey are at the top of the list for locally sourced products. Customers want to know where the ingredients come from. I try to highlight as much as possible where the ingredients come from. So, like Hiveshare is where I get my honey and beeswax. I try to highlight my local suppliers. For vendors, well, it’s challenging for year round stuff. It would be nice if there were more vending opportunities inside. There are always pop-ups, especially around Christmas, but if there were more opportunities for year round venues for the winter months. (So, like an indoor market that’s only open during the winter months?) Yeah, something like that. There’s a lull after January sure, for everybody, though indoor venues to go to would be lovely. I mean, wholesale right now could be, I would like to be in more local shops. With recent events that is definitely increasing; there are more shop owners interested in more locally made products. Overall, Ontario is moving in the right direction. People are connecting the dots between supporting local and building stronger communities.

What's one quirky superstition you secretly (or not-so-secretly) believe in for a good product?

There’s probably a couple and it really started around the soap. Most of the other products I make are fairly predictable. Soap though is very much NOT predictable. I swear the weather affects how the soap sets up and cures, so I try not to make soap on humid days. There’s so much moisture in the air and I think it just adds to the curing time, it’s a little bit longer for them to harden. The other one is I get a little obsessive about checking the temperature. I have a digital, infrared, instant check thermometer and because soap making is a chemical process, and the temperature of the oils and the lye you use make a difference. If you’re soaping a little too hot, the batter will want to rapidly set, it will accelerate, it will want to firm up before you put it into the mold. So, yeah, I get a little obsessive about checking the temperature and making sure that the soap batter is staying under a certain temperature so you have time to mix, you have time to add in your clays for colour, you have time to add in your essential oils. If the temperature is too hot, you won’t have time for those things. First it will get clumpy, and not go in the mold nicely, then, actually, I’ve seen it harden in my bowl if I’ve soaped too hot.

When you have spare time, what do you like to do to unwind?

I like to unwind with my family, with my sweetest love - my husband. He is so very helpful at all the markets and works very hard at his job and supporting me and my business. I love my downtime with him. That’s my best way to recharge. Probably, the other thing I like to do is come up with new essential oil blends for my soaps. Even on my days off, it doesn’t feel like work. The inspiration will strike and, OH what if we blended this smell and that smell at this ratio and that ratio, and then seeing if it works and translates into soap. So yeah, even in my spare time my brain is on essential oil blends. Other simple things, like sipping tea outside when the weather is nice. My husband really likes coffee - he gets his whole bean blends from a local place called My Indie Coffee.

Also, I love the York Farm Fresh community. Having the opportunity to be a vendor at Homestead Orchards is so wonderful. We shopped there long before we made the business connection. How it happened was that we got invited to a Christmas market they were having and the relationship grew from there. So we go there for their markets and the field-to-table event that happens every year in Georgina. We love the connections that York Farm Fresh offers - like connecting with other members and partners.