A Clean Slate with Heart Song Naturals

 
Maybe there wasn’t a better thing for Audubon Park than The Great Recession. At the market we’ve seen so many vendors who quit their office job to pursue their passion during that time of equal parts crisis and opportunity. Heart Song Naturals is no different. Frustrated by the lack of real soap at the supermarket, Paula Davis had always made her own as a hobby and for personal use. In fact, many of the store-bought brands are barred, as it were, from labeling themselves at soap – instead they must be labeled bath bars, beauty blocks, etc.

In betweens jobs, Paula’s daughter suggested that she go to a Saturday farmer’s market to sell her authentic product, rather than give it away to friends, and so began her entrepreneurship.

As an independent business, Davis enjoys the creative freedom, but still faces the classic time vs. money struggle. True handmade soap is not exactly an EasyMac situation either. From the initial oil measuring stages through a lengthy stint on the curing rack, it will take about four weeks to make a finished product.

Once the curing process is finished Paula puts the soaps with various scent profiles into very clever packaging. For the Heart Song logo, a bass clef over an angled treble clef joins its mirror image to form a beautifully ornate heart shape. The back of the boxes sport oval-shaped openings, allowing the customer to catch a whiff of the bars that most pique their olfactory interest.

Paula finds inspiration for her brand in the musically rich background of her family, drawing parallels between the fundamentals of both music and our keen sense of smell.

“It was natural to see the connection between scents and music,” Paula explains. “Scents and chords are both based on balance of notes – top, middle and bass/base.”

Pouring through the Heart Song catalogue many of the soap titles are inspired by golden oldies and other standards of classic rock. The bars themselves are as visually striking as smells emanating from them. Some of our favs to look at and breathe in are Brown-Eyed Girl, Green-Eyed Lady, Lavender Fields Forever, and Magic Carpet Ride.

In addition to soaps, Davis also makes soy wax candles burning longer and cleaner with no petrochemicals. What’s more, they are consistently-scented throughout, unlike some of the weaker mass-produced brands that are top-loaded with a cloying scent that diminishes throughout the life of the candle.

Paula’s brand, on the other hand, has only gotten better during her 5 year tenure at Audubon Market. (Paula recently made the switch to Heart Song from the previous name, Escentual Harmonies). To find out what she has in store for the next 5 years, Paula is happy to chat with you every Monday from 6pm-10pm at her booth on the northern line of the Audubon Market.