EPISODE 089 | Building Social Awareness through Natural Skin Care
Watch Coco Kennell's interview on Human Amplified with Brandi Fleck.
Listen to Coco Kennell’s Story of humanitarian skincare
About Coco Kennell’s Human Amplified Podcast Episode
Today we’re talking with hairstylist and aesthetician turned natural soap maker, Coco Kennell. She’s the founder of St. Louis, Missouri-based skincare company, Soap Life 360.
Coco Kennell is a resourceful DIYer who comes from a long line of problem solvers who’ve ingrained resourcefulness as a core value in her life. That resourcefulness led to the creation of her natural skincare products, which she formulates and makes mostly in her home lab.
Soap Life 360 is all about the natural soap, but it’s so much more than that. As Coco puts it, it’s also about starting a conversation around coming home to community violence while still learning how to love your neighbor.
In this episode, Coco details how her reaction to the civil unrest in Ferguson, MO, in 2014 led to soap-making in the first place - as a form of relief. She details the memory of this all too familiar instance of police brutality, and reveals a personal connection to that event that reopened childhood wounds all over again – it was personal pain layered beneath the pain in her community.
But, there was also inspiration when she looked closely - she saw wounded people taking care of one another. So with her ingredients and packaging, she infuses the characteristics of inspiring community personalities into her products. Then, she tops the product off with a fitting name designed to spark a conversation that bridges gaps between predominantly white and Black communities.
The interesting thing about this episode is, yes, we talk a little business, a little chemistry that goes into soap making, and why natural ingredients are so important for your skin. But we also talk about lessons of acceptance and family ties.
What stands out to me the most is when Coco describes how natural skin care allows your skin to be how it’s meant to be. What a beautiful symbol for undoing the societal conditioning around racism.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode does come with a trigger warning due to the detailing of the murder of teen, Michael Brown, as Coco recalls it and she reflects on how this impacted her emotionally. Listener discretion is advised.
The Highlights of Coco Kennell’s Interview on Human Amplified
Getting to know Coco and SoapLife 360
Learning to make soap becoming a mission-based obsession
The mission: helping people talk about race by connecting happily over soap
Coco’s lived experience of civil unrest sparked by police violence in Ferguson, MO in 2014 - she says it was like a modern day lynching
It was a war zone
Coco found out the victim who was murdered was related to her
She describes the family relationship and long complicated history and the emotions that came up for her during this time
Becoming pregnant at 13
Feelings of rejection
Learning the value of being alone and not feeling alone
How self care ties in when speaking up against police brutality and growing up during the war against drugs
The role of compartmentalizing in self care to keep yourself happy and able to take care of yourself and kids
Learning self care amid community violence
Coco’s realization that a gap needed to be bridged and how it influenced what she put in her soaps and how she named them
What’s in the soap and it’s characteristics - rooted in natural organic herbs with the end result in mind
How volatile ingredients, when mixed with other ingredients, becomes calming and how that’s a metaphor for bridging the gap and how it calms or hurts depending on how it’s used
Why Coco loves markets
Why natural skin care is an important part of self care - how it doesn’t interfere with the skin’s natural processes
The pieces and parts of the family business run out of Coco’s home lab - she formulates all the products
Coco’s approach to problem solving and how her grandmother influenced her use of natural ingredients
Coco explains that it wasn’t until she became an aesthetician that she started using commercial products, and that’s when skin problems started to occur for her
How to become more attuned to your body and listen to it and what it needs
Coco’s journey to acceptance and her mom’s influence while she was a teenage mom
Coco describes the shipping room she was in while we recorded her interview so you can get a picture of her home operation
What’s behind the name Soap Life 360 and Coco’s philosophy on naming in general
How sustainability ties in with recyclable materials - no plastic containers
Coco reminiscing about being surrounding by DIYers as a child and how that influenced her Soap Life 360 journey
More About Coco Kennell and Soap Life 360
Coco Kennell has been an expert in the beauty industry for more than twenty years as an aesthetician and hair stylist with extensive training in color chemistry at Vidal Sassoon in London and the Aveda Institute in Soho, New York.
She began creating natural skincare from botanicals and other natural ingredients when she developed adult acne in her early twenties and would later learn about soap making after her son developed eczema.
It was during the civil unrest in Saint Louis during late 2014 when SoapLife 360 was born. Soap making became a distraction from the crisis our city was in at that time. Inspired by the people in the community, Coco began formulating recipes in her kitchen and naming each soap after their unique personalities and matching characteristics.
Realizing the change that was needed was so big that it would first have to start within. She began by getting out into the community markets and speaking to those who were first curious about the soap names. Second, providing a safe place for people to speak their truth.
The soaps began to invoke thought that would shine a light on stereotypes that persisted in our culture. These conversations brought peace from the surrounding chaos.
We hope to continue to inspire people to reach greater levels of tolerance and remind them to appreciate diversity within our beloved city and throughout the globe.
Coco’s Links
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Pin Coco Kennell’s self care Quotes for Inspiration
A Message from Brandi, the Podcast Host
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CREDITS: INTRO AND OUTRO MUSIC AND EPISODE EDITING BY RYAN SAULS. EPISODE PRODUCTION AND GRAPHICS BY BRANDI FLECK. SOUND EFFECTS FROM ZAPSPLAT.COM. MID-EPISODE MUSIC IS “Synapse” BY SHANE IVERS AT SILVERMAN SOUND STUDIOS. BIO AND PHOTOS PROVIDED BY COCO KENNELL.
About Your Host
Brandi Fleck is a writer, artist, and a recognized communications and interviewing expert. She is also an avid student of human nature who’s overcome past trauma. She found of Human Amplified, where she helps people embrace being their true selves so they can expand more fully into their own humanity without fear of being seen and heard. Brandi hosts the top-rated Human Amplified podcast (formerly the On Being Human podcast.) READ MORE
