What do you do for Mother’s Day, when technically, your mom is your only employee?
“She gets the day off,” chuckled Kayla Morland on Friday.
Morland is the owner of Flower Child Soap Company, a central Alberta business that she started out of her house nearly four years ago and has since expanded into a store.
Like most businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Morland has had to adjust her plans and make it work, taking things day by day like the rest of us.
“I’ve been in business for almost four years. We’ve been doing our Mother’s Day gifts for the last two weeks, just getting the last few orders out this weekend. Any time we do these seasonal gifts, it’s usually pretty busy. That’s good, it makes us happy,” she said.
She explained that in April, with only online orders, they decided to offer free delivery locally (Innisfail, Red Deer, Blackfalds, Sylvan Lake and Penhold) for orders over $25, and in doing so, the business has taken off.
“We’ve had to push everything online. Usually, we do the markets and little gift shops and stuff. So we’ve actually been doing pretty well online. For April, it was amazing,” she said.
Over the past few weeks, it’s been especially hectic, as they put together special boxes for Mother’s Day, something they also try to create for seasonal events.
“We put together four different gift boxes and they each have their own little theme,” Morland said.
The soap life started somewhat by accident when Morland turned a hobby into a business.
She always had a passion for soap, and was inspired to start making products part time, just for herself and a few friends.
Soap quickly morphed into bath bombs and other products, and with that, the business was born.
“It was just kind of my own love for bath products. I was like, ‘I wonder if I can make something on my own?’ Make it more natural and handcrafted, in the way I wanted it to be for my skin,” she said.
“That’s how it started, out of the kitchen, doing little experiments. It just took off overnight. We ended up in a couple of stores. In the first couple of years, it was very, very part time. The last year, we started doing everything full time.”
Morland was set to open a storefront in Olds before the pandemic hit earlier this year.
She said they’re still proceeding, slowly clearing out the soap from her house and moving it to the shop, which she isn’t sure when it will open.
While the future is uncertain, this weekend, she plans to spend time with her mom and have a nice lunch on Sunday, and of course, give her a special gift.
“We’re just going to have some lunch and I’ll probably give her one of my gift boxes, because she really wants one,” Morland said with a laugh.