Blending images of her surroundings into her soaps, a Lake Country woman is bringing a unique Okanagan twist to this year’s Craft Culture Spring Market.
Dawn Larden, owner of Oyama Soap Company, is one of 115 vendors who will set up in the Kelowna Curling Club from April 6 to 7 for the region’s largest spring craft market.
It features crafters and artisans from across Western Canada.
The event offers crafters, artisans, chefs, and farmers a marketplace to sell their wares and offers insight to how creative this community is.
“I wanted to make soap, be creative and have a home-based business,” Larden said.
A former letter carrier, after she was injured, she began to rethink her career path.
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Now she makes roughly 70 soap bars a day, along with candles, sunscreens and lotions that are sold around the Central Okanagan.
Her most popular soap, Kalamalka Beach, blends together the famous blues and sandy beach colours of the lake.
Overlooking both Kalamalka and Wood Lakes in her Oyama home, Larden said the idea came from where she lives, and she likes to put her elements into what she does.
A resident of Oyama for nine years and in the Okanagan for 14, she started researching essential oils and experimenting with her soaps for nine months when she started making soap five years ago.
Selling at her third spring market this weekend, she said it’s a good way to show her wares, but she’s also previously sold products at the winter markets and farmer’s markets.
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“It is good for business and it tends to bring other people who don’t go to the farmer’s market out,” Larden said.
Over the last year, she’s also been making steps to be more eco-friendly with glass candle holders, and a refill program where you can bring candles back to be refilled.
Larden sells her soaps at $6 per bar. Sample her soaps Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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