David Melis, Edgewater Soaps

What is your Mafia name?

Sudsy Siegel

What is your craft?

Making natural soap and bath products

Why do you do your craft?

Because I love it. Because my products make people feel good both physically and emotionally. Because it’s a fascinating combination of art, craft, and science. Because it’s good fodder for cocktail party chat. Because it’s led to me to meet some wonderful people I’d never have met otherwise.

What are your sources of inspiration?

Challenges, whether I make them up for myself or get them from other people. In the beginning, I made them up myself, which was easy because there were a thousand things to try. Ooh, herbal infusions! Ooh, let’s try soap with different colored layers! Ooh, I wonder if you can make a soap using beer instead of water! I still have about 800 things left to try, but I also get great challenges from my customers. They’ve come up with ideas, suggestions, and special orders I’d never have thought of myself. My dog shampoo is a great example of a customer challenge that led to a great new product.

What is your favorite beverage?

It depends on my mood, the time of day, and the environment I’m in, but coffee, good scotch, Diet Dr. Pepper, and ice water would pretty much cover all my beverage needs.

How did you come up with your business name?

Well first, I live in the Edgewater neighborhood, and I like the idea of a business name that’s grounded in and identified with a place. If I still lived in the Logan Square neighborhood, I’d very likely be making Logan Square Soaps. But Edgewater also evokes images of being next to a cool, refreshing body of water. A mountain stream, a woodland lake, the ocean. And soap and water are inextricably linked. You can’t use soap without it. What is your weapon of choice?

What is your weapon of choice ?

There are so many ways to answer that question! Humor. Knowledge. Data. Conviction. My Edgewater Soaps stamp. Watch your step, buster, or you’ll get Edgewater Soaps branded into your forehead!

What would you be doing otherwise?

Playing piano for the love of it. Cleaning house for the need of it.

Do you have any advice for other crafters?

Crafting, to me, is an ongoing process of self-discovery, experimentation, and reinvention, and that process is the true joy. Stay focused on that and success, money, and fame will follow!