After surviving breast cancer, Krystal James was inspired to launch Soapy Faith, a family-owned clean beauty & bodycare brand specially formulated for even the most sensitive skin. Natural products don’t have to be boring, so we partnered together to create a visual identity meant to bring the fun to bodycare, while inspiring consumers to reevaluate what they absorb, both physically and mentally.
Soapy Faith was ready for their own ecommerce after successfully building a cult-following D2C but struggled to enter big-box retail due to a lack of strong branding. They needed to create a powerful yet fun brand to help them modernize perceptions of faith-based brands and change consumer behavior toward liquid and synthetic soaps vs. natural bar soap. We helped tackle all three challenges using impactful yet fun visuals and messaging.
Divine Intervention
Has Hit Your Shower
When it comes to our bars, it leaves you smelling good and squeaky clean. And if we can’t pronounce it, we don’t use it. Can we get an amen?
Collaborating with the founders, we dove head-first into strategy and oriented Soapy Faith around three central pillars: fun, vegan, and faith-based. Christian brands are often misunderstood to be cloying or stale, so we playfully positioned the brand as being Godsent, embracing puns, wordplay, and double entendres to break the mold and captivate consumers of all backgrounds. We also allowed the brand’s origin story of the Soapy Sisters’ trial to triumph to shine, empowering the verbal identity with optimism and encouragement. From there, the products helped us do the talking. We showcased their simple and clean (but never boring) formula, introduced the HappySkin guarantee, and championed glycerin as the hero vegan ingredient.
The visual identity needed to elevate Soapy Faith’s color palette and capture their sunny, uplifting brand story. We embraced a soft, swirly, 70s aesthetic as an ode to retro California, bucking the minimalist and neutral design trend in favor of bold and powerful colors that helped categorize the scents and special products such as their Breast Cancer Awareness line in the packaging phase. The relaxing design system was inspired by the brand’s original logo and its playful use of soap bubbles. We added water droplets and brought in typeface Queens to evoke that squeaky clean feeling and give the brand the final regal touch they needed to reign supreme in the bodycare space.
We zigged where others zag by creating a color palette free of green and brown, setting us apart in the vegan and organic product space. Instead, our warm, friendly, and bold colors encompassed joy and allowed the natural skin tones and packaging to elicit the clean nature of the brand. No detail went forgotten; we tackled every brand identity touch point, from the box tape to the 200 quote cards.
We then began planning for the photoshoot. Casting was vital to our success as Soapy Faith was determined to break the glass ceiling of representation in the beauty industry, so we partnered with two gorgeous Black models to be the faces of the campaign.
We were determined to give our leading lady an afro, because hair that grows upward shouldn’t be a political statement!
After scouting our location we decided to blend both studio and on-location photography, with photographer Emilynn Rose shooting lifestyle and Halves shooting products. In-studio, we focused on capturing elegant and natural imagery of skin and bodies. Inspired by the summer sun, we harnessed our warm 70s aesthetic and shot on-location in a vintage California mansion in the heart of the desert!
To be the most fun, inspirational, and all-natural bodycare company that empowers consumers with the naked truth.
Soapy Faith received a sizeable investment to help them scale up in 2022. Their investors, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), told them that they now have a multi-million dollar brand because of their rebrand. Soapy Faith is on their way to mass-market retail and has boosted the size of their team and their craft manufacturing capabilities while continuing to make products by hand in their California factory. They quickly sold out following the brand relaunch and have grown the business substantially to keep up with demand. Fans adore the new Soapy Faith identity and has given them the power they needed to take their brand to the next level and break into big-box retailers.
Thank you to our incredible team for the time and care you gave to this project. Together, we make things shake for our clients, so we’re giving you your flowers! We appreciate your fantastic work and are grateful for your commitment, self-motivation, and talent that truly inspired us all.
Creative Direction:
Shar Biggers
Brand Strategy:
Shar Biggers
Verbal Identity:
Shar Biggers
Design:
Jens Nilsson
Shar Biggers
Rebecca Russell
Copywriting:
Shar Biggers (Brand)
Shawn Binder (Web)
Nicole LeLacheur (Packaging)
Photographers:
Emilynn Rose
James Lyle
Videographer:
Tello Christian
Models:
Milan Dixon
Phoenix Calderon
Aylah Williams
Donnell Blaylock Jr.
Casting:
Shar Biggers
Producer:
Jill Taymany
Set Designer:
Natasha Martin
Makeup:
Skyla Swafford
Hairstylist:
Esther Vasquez
Fashion Stylists:
Oththan Burnside
Shar Biggers
