New Tampa Woman Turns Hobby into Business

Different people have different hobbies. Some play chess. Some knit. Others scuba dive.

Dina Good makes soap.

Yes, that's correct. One of her favorite hobbies was making soap, a curiosity that was spawned when her mother would take her to a shop that sold specialty soaps in Dade City.

Looking to start her own business that she could include daughter Haley and husband Michael in, Good decided to incorporate both her family and her passion, making soap.

"We made our own soaps," Good said. "Not like I do now, but on and off, here and there. It was not an everyday thing, just picked it up through traveling and seeing small soap shops."

The Soap Factory, 17024 Palm Pointe Drive in the Tampa Palms strip mall, looks like a bakery with the different colored loaves. Only those loaves are soap, not bread or pastries.

The soaps are mostly sold by the slice. An inch-thick slice is generally 6 ounces and costs $6.95. Good has dozens of different soaps with scents and fragrances, even custom soaps for men.

"Yes, we have soap for men, it's more musky-scented," Good said.

Good said the store thus far is doing a brisk business, despite being tucked away near a coffeehouse and a craft beer watering hole. Her location is almost perfect because it is right next door to a nail salon, "Happy Nails." Good's target demographic is the same demographic that frequents the nail salon, a busy place itself.

"They send people over here all the time," Good said. "They are awesome about that. Business is all right, especially this time of the year."

All of her soaps are detergent-free and hypoallergenic.

"There are no added chemicals, it's just soap," Good said. "The funny thing is, Dove and all of that, cannot be called 'soap.' Those are beauty bars. The FDA says they have too many ingredients to be called 'soap.'"

The Soap Factory is open weekdays from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sundays noon-5 p.m.