A Vancouver entrepreneur is solidifying the dish soap industry.
Bonnie Yang is the founder of the Make Nice Company.
After searching for zero-waste dish soap alternatives, the apparel designer shifted her attention from duds to suds.
Her enterprise specializes in ultra-concentrated solid dish soap. One small cube is equivalent to roughly three bottles of traditional liquid dish soap. All the soaps are 100 per cent natural, plus they're paraben and palm oil-free.
Yang also crafts accessories like trays and brushes made from reused materials. Her product line aims to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics.
According to Yang, her solid soaps have replaced over 10,000 plastic dish soap bottles since January. Her products are now carried by over 50 retailers across Canada.
Yang describes the origin of her business: "Me and my partner were just using bar soap and using shampoo, conditioners, everything. We wanted to get rid of that plastic. So I was like, I'm done [in] the bathroom, now moving on to the kitchen and I couldn't find anything for washing dishes."
Make Nice recently received $10,000 from Futurpreneur's RBC Rock My Business Start-Up Awards. Yang plans to use the money to expand her studio space.
"We're already running out in this little tiny room and then getting all the help I can get. As a solopreneur, it's a little tough. Last month we just hired our first employee so hopefully, we can continue to grow that," says Yang.
