Meet Nicole Pond of The Soap Bar and The Yellow Bird

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Pond.

Hi Nicole, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Hi! I am Nicole. Wife to Colin and Mom to three girls. Colin and I get to work together at our first business (The Yellow Bird) and now at The Soap Bar. Since we homeschool the girls, they also get to learn about business from the ground up — they are excellent at helping pick stuff for the store, product testing, and packaging.

The Soap Bar started as an idea a couple of years ago. I already owned The Yellow Bird (a natural skin care company, www.theyellowbird.co) and saw how much people enjoyed our products, BUT wouldn’t it be nice to let people refill their empty product bottles?

Also, I get lots of questions about what products smell like, or how they feel, so having a space where they can touch/smell/try products before buying (and where I would get to meet them) sounded like a lot of fun. I knew that I didn’t just want a brick-and-mortar version of our online store. But I wanted to have a place that could ONLY happen in real life. So creating a space where things can be refilled, questions can be answered in real-time, products could be wrapped, and lots of community goods could be featured in the shop were all key features in designing the soap bar.

The name came about mainly as a pun! I wanted to say I owned a bar, and it’s also a play on skincare.

From being a mom and business owner with my husband, I know how special community spaces are– places to hang out and meet people. Also, a place to go when you’re out and about and I really wanted to help create that. So in February of 2022, we decided to move forward with setting up a spot in our little community. We found the perfect little shop, designed and renovated the space, and set up a shop to open in May 2022.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
From knowing I wanted to open a shop (end of January 2022) to actually opening our doors to customers (Beginning of May 2022) it was an insanely fast road. We found a spot in February, began our lease in March, 6 weeks of renovating the shop and building on site all of our shelves plus acquiring inventory and getting the word out on what was going on, and then opened the first week of May.

It was insane. And there were some amazing transformations (seeing drawings of the exterior and interior literally come to life before my eyes) and some really hard times– plans changing, delays in permits, and some overwhelm with all the things that needed to get done! Especially as we neared our opening date– felt like we had already done so much, but the to-do list still felt as long.

Also uncertainty about what to expect! Neither my husband nor I had ever worked in retail (lol, well I did work at Chick Fil A in high school), and we have both been in the e-commerce world for the last 6 years… so brick and mortar definitely hit differently. But the train was already moving (that lease was signed and the website was published and the opening date was advertised) so there was nothing to do but keep going… and I’m so glad we did!

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Soap Bar and The Yellow Bird?
The Soap Bar is a shop in Angier NC that is both a mercantile and refill. Our goal is to cultivate community sustainability — we want to serve the people of Angier, NC, and its surrounding towns, with the amazing resources that are right here in our community.

Whether it’s the physical resources of locally made products with natural ingredients that are good for you, the economic resources of supporting local businesses, artisans, and makers, or even the emotional resources of a community that is there to come alongside you! We love featuring local makers and creating a place where people can know that the ingredients in all the products sold there– from the food to the cleaning supplies to the skin care– have been read and checked!

Since we have been open 3 full months, I can honestly say the COMMUNITY is my favorite part. Enjoying our peaceful space with so many good smelling and good looking products and meeting so many amazing people in our towns… there’s nothing like it. I love that the store has a cohesive look– like a curated store. Where there’s variety but not overwhelming and you don’t have to dig around to find things. And with the. variety of things we have in the store, I love that there’s usually something for everyone! Whether it’s a special gift, or something for yourself or your own home.

I also love that I get to share The Yellow Bird and all of our products with the community. The whole reason I started the Yellow Bird was to solve a problem– to make effective, natural products, that are affordable. With every ingredient (that you can read) serving a purpose. So that is incredibly special– to get to interact with people over our products.

And a huge benefit of being in-stores and online is that we can meet people wherever they are– if they want to try products– they can come in the store. If they have things they’ve bought before and are OBSESSED, they can order them (even subscribe) online and not have to worry about going out to get them. If they need laundry detergent and hand soap, they can come to refill their containers AND meet up with friends, drink a coffee, and have a morning of it! It’s amazing the world we live in.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
If you are local to Raleigh, Holly Springs, Cary, Willow Springs, Fuquay, Angier, etc.

Area– COME SEE US (48 N Broad Street, Angier NC. Open Tuesday- Saturday 10 am – 6 pm). Bring a friend and come enjoy! If you’re a maker, shoot me an email with your wholesale catalog. If you teach classes or want to host an event at the shop, let me know!

You can also all shop at check out our Soap Bar website www.thesoapbar.store or if you are really interested in skin care– check out www.theyellowbird.co.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thesoapbar.store
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thesoapbar.store
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheSoapBarNC
• Other: www.theyellowbird.co

Image Credits
Christi Ann Photography