FAYOLA K J FRASER
A self-taught “chemist”, a professional soap maker and a client-focused service professional, Brenda Gyton-Baptiste is a businesswoman and entrepreneur making a splash in the soap-making industry. Although she spends her days performing customer service functions at her full-time job, she uncovered her passion for crafting exciting, beautiful and aromatic soaps in 2018, which she has now built into her own small business.
Growing up in a quaint home in Laventille, Gyton-Baptiste found one of her (many) callings early in life, realising that hospitality and cooking were two of her great passions. She pursued this calling, which took her to Hotel School (Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute) to do a chef’s training course, she was then able to grow her love for baking and cooking, subsequently doing internships at hotels, and supervising a bakery. Spending the last 20-plus years in hospitality and service has underpinned Gyton-Baptiste’s dream of eventually owning her own full-service customer service business where she will be able to pass her skills on to younger people in the field.
The way she wound up in soap-making was purely by happenstance. One day, she looked at her bar of soap and thought it was “so boring”. Ruminating on ways she could “lift” her day, she played with the idea of creating a sublime, fresh soap, that would elevate her day from the very beginning. Also considering the effects of ageing, along with the increased harsh impact of the environment, she decided to create a soap that would allay these effects, keeping them at bay.
With these thoughts at the top of her mind, Gyton-Baptiste remembered a few years prior, when she got a recipe from a friend to make soap. Armed with motivation and her recipe, she decided to team up with her mother, Linda Gyton, and try her hand at soap making.
Describing the steep learning curve of soap making, Gyton-Baptiste recalled the dangers of the process of “saponification” of which she had to be well aware. Saponification requires the chemical reaction of lye water, oils and fats, and if the proper precautions are not taken, it can cause blindness or other permanent issues. Gyton-Baptiste employs a “melt-and-pour process”, which allows her to customise and fashion various shapes to cater to her customers’ desires. Through years of learning the process of soap making, she was able to better understand the way that the added ingredients in so many commercial soaps and beauty products can be very detrimental. This encouraged her to ensure that her homemade soaps are natural and organic, with her favourite of all being her tea tree soap, which is multifaceted and has properties to boost the skin.
From this newfound passion, Gyton-Baptiste birthed her company, Curious Shop Caribe, which offers both bar and liquid soaps that suit a variety of needs. Customers, under her advisement, request various combinations of fragrances, with her knowledge of each ingredient’s properties as their guide. Some of her most popular soaps include the apple cider vinegar soap, turmeric soap, coconut soap and even her specially crafted charcoal and coffee soap which helps exfoliate and smooth the skin, reducing the appearance of cellulite for women. She describes her soap making as her “small way” of supporting women as they aim to look, feel and smell their best.
Thinking of soap making as her “art”, Gyton-Baptiste spends significant amounts of time dedicated to improving her “soap art” and developing and honing her techniques. She is pushing the boundaries of what she can create, even venturing into the unique fragrances of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Gyton-Baptiste has begun showcasing her beautiful, fragrant soaps at the vendors’ market at Mode Alive, Valsayn, on Fridays and Saturdays. She continues to find excitement and joy in her craft and flourishing in the entrepreneurial space. Gyton-Baptiste is on Instagram at curiousshopcaribe