Owner of Scruffy’s Scrubs making homemade cosmetics in Cortland
Growing up, Heather Pike’s parents always encouraged her to learn more about the world around her.
“I was a homeschool kid, so my parents were very involved in educating us and how things functioned,” Pike said. “Take something apart to see how it works and investigate to see how something is put together. My mom is a huge health enthusiast and was always looking at labels on products we used as kids. I picked up that same habit with soap labels. I wanted to know what was in soap.”
Pike is the owner of Scruffy’s Scrubs LLC, a handmade soap and cosmetics company in Cortland.
“I came to find out a lot of soaps that we use aren’t true soaps. They’re detergents. Dove, Ivory aren’t real soaps, they’re synthetic detergents,” Pike said.
This discovery inspired Pike to start making her own soap using natural ingredients like shea butter, cocoa butter and goat’s milk, without any additives or parabens.
“I wanted to make soap that had a luxury feel to it, but was affordable,” she said. “Instead of putting all those synthetic detergents on your skin, you’re using something that makes your skin feel good and has an extra glycerine in it so that your skin doesn’t feel dry.”
Even after making soap for the last decade, Pike said she’s still always learning and experimenting with products.
“We just started to make car diffusers last year, and a lot of people really like those,” she said. “They last about three months in the car, and the nice thing with those is that you can tip it every time you want fragrance. It’s like fragrance on demand.
Pike also makes chapstick, lotion, liquid hand soap, exfoliating bath scrubs and laundry detergent, all from her at-home basement soap studio in Cortland.
“My dad actually made homemade laundry detergent ever since I was younger, and it’s not hard to do, but you can make it using homemade soap,” she said. “The fun thing about chemistry is, I can do the same batch of soap 100 times, and there could always be one or two fluky batches. The weather plays a big part in it; sometimes the colors morph. Instead of being nice and bright, sometimes all my colors came out funny. I like to be able to play with different things and see how they work. My mom is where I got my love for learning how to do soap and seeing if I could do it.”
Scruffy’s Scrubs is a member of the Cortland Collaborative.
“Being able to fellowship with other members has been a huge blessing and benefit to me,” Pike said. “Every Wednesday they have membership classes where you’re in a safe space to bounce off like-minded business owners. You can talk to them, get good feedback and angles of things that I never thought of for my own business.”
