Over 20 years ago, Sokko Kong, a Cambodian American woman from Long Beach, received a life-changing gift from her brother—a bar of soap embedded with the shape of a dragonfly.
The bar of soap started her fascination with the concept of natural organic soaps as a teenager, but it was her mother’s death in 2018 that propelled Kong to research her own soap-making and candle recipes.
“Going through grieving and trying to cope with that, I threw myself into soap making,” Kong said.
The result was Soapko Artisan Soaps and More, an eco-friendly small business that has grown into homemade candles, sugar scrubs, skin oils, bath bombs and soaps.
Soap is Kong’s most popular item—her raised honeycomb design—is the most requested and takes a whopping three weeks to make.
Kong mixes the desired ingredients and pours them into a slab mold that measures two feet, resulting in a thick brick of soap. When ready, Kong cuts each bar of soap into creamy blocks, some with patterns, others with natural coloring.
The handmade and hand-poured soaps—which include a turmeric beauty soap bar etched with varying patterns—are made with nourishing butters, oils and goat milk to moisturize skin.
Soapko products are made in Kong’s living room out of natural ingredients such as clay, dried herbs and flowers, oatmeal, coffee and turmeric. They’re also free of phthalates, a chemical usually found in cosmetics.
“It will help lessen our carbon footprint and impact on the environment,” Kong said of the importance of being sustainable, noting that everything from packaging (recyclable shrink wrap for soaps) to labels is low-waste to prevent a negative impact on the environment.
Kong’s care for the environment propelled her to use soy wax for candles as opposed to the more popular paraffin. According to Britannica, paraffin wax is obtained from petroleum byproducts.
“I tell people ‘You don’t have to buy my candles or anything like that, but just be conscious of what you’re using, especially if you’re going to breathe it in,’” she said.
Soy wax candles have been shown to produce less soot than paraffin candles, according to The Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society.
“It has a cleaner burn,” Kong said of her soy wax candles. “It doesn’t burn up with that black smoke, if that black smoke is coming up, you’re basically breathing that into your lungs.”
Some of the scents Soapko offers include grapefruit, amber, gardenia and are made with non-toxic fragrance oils and essential oils.
Soapko’s Christmas candles, which include a frosted berry scent, feature a raised snowflake atop the 100% soy wax candle encased in a glass jar.
A nine-ounce candle has a 50-hour burn time, while a four-ounce candle burns for 25 to 30 hours.
And Kong’s menu of products doesn’t stop at candles. One of her most requested products, even before the genesis of Soapko, is moisturizing body butter she started making six years ago when she lived in Seattle.
“My sister-in-law gifted me some body butter and it was the best thing in the world,” Kong said, noting the need for it because of the cold weather.
Kong spent some time figuring out how to make it and soon co-workers, friends and family back home in Long Beach began offering to pay for the product.
“When I moved back to Long Beach they were like ‘Hey, we need more body butter,’” Kong said of the popularity of the product among friends and family.
Today, Kong offers her signature house special organic body butter at Fair Trade Long Beach.
In 2020, when stores weren’t fully open due to the pandemic, Kong was invited to partake in a sidewalk sale with Fair Trade via social media. That fall she was offered a corner at the shop.
“I feel so blessed to have people reach out to me [on social media],” Kong said. “When people reach out to you online it feels different because they don’t know anything about you, they haven’t met you, but they’re still kind of taking a chance on you.”
Today, you can purchase Soapko’s products such as candles, body butter and soaps through Instagram and Fair Trade located at 4105 N Bellflower Blvd, Unit B.
Soapko will also be one of the vendors at the Second Saturday’s: Polynesian Christmas event on Saturday, Dec. 11.
As a Cambodian American small business owner, who has grown her business out of her home, Kong is excited about her shop’s growth. Intent on continuing that growth, she hopes to expand into her own workspace.
“It’s very humbling,” Kong said. “I’m happy that I am able to do this and being a woman of color, going through the struggles that we had, it shows my kids, or the next generation, or whoever that you can do anything in this world.”
To inquire about pricing and keep up with Soapko, follow them on Instagram @soapko.artisan.soaps.
