‘Farm-grown skin care’: Wheaton’s MION makes soap from the ‘best things’ nature provides

Editor’s note: This story is part of an occasional series focusing on local businesses inducted into the Illinois Made program by the Illinois Office of Tourism.

As the door opens, a medley of scents seduce customers’ noses.

At the Wheaton location of MION Artisan Soap Co., patrons not only can find soaps and skin care and bath products on the shelves. They can see how the soap is made.

Owner Olga Boldyreva works her magic, mixing her rose and lime soap as she stands before a frame separated into sections like furrows in a field.

She has poured in the different colors and sprinkles in cut dry limes and rose petals. The process, known as saponification, involves taking oil and butters and mixing it with sodium hydroxide in a process, she said.

The next day, she cuts and then sends it to the drying rack, where it is going to cure for more than a month. Eventually, it will be cut into bars with a tool resembling a cheese slicer.

The product has an optical as well as an olfactory appeal — the bar of soap looks good enough to eat. She even had one customer at a farmers market ask if they were selling fudge.

“This is like a natural food,” Boldyreva said. “This is like a farm-grown skin care kind of thing.”

There is a difference, she said, between a commercial soap and her handmade product — it has no artificial or synthetic ingredients or preservatives. She uses high-quality organic brands. The base is mostly coconut oil, palm oil and olive oil. MION also uses such ingredients as mango butter and cocoa butter.

“It is just so much better,” she said. “Just imagine like you have grown your own food and you ate it. The same here. You made your own skin care with the best things that nature has provided us.”

For Boldyreva, who comes from central Ukraine, she is also realizing her American dream. She came to the United States with her husband in 2008, and the two worked regular jobs.

Then, Boldyreva said, she began developing skin care problems and started looking for cleaner alternative ways to care for her skin. This led to her decision to make her own soap. She said she learned the process by reading books and taking online courses.

She not only made it for herself, but also gave it as gifts to friends who suggested she go into business. Boldyreva started selling the soap at farmers markets and received such a positive reception that she moved the operation out of her house and eventually found the location at 204 W. Wesley St., just 5 minutes away from where she lives. And now, she has another store at 78 S. First St. in St. Charles.

The store’s name is an acronym of the names of her family: M for her son Matthew, O for Olga and I and N for her husband’s first and last names, Iulian Nedelea.

Her husband, who used to manage a pizza store, also has joined her full time.

In addition to the soaps, the store sells other products, including bath salts and balms, candles and room sprays, as well as scrubs for hands, face and body and shampoos. After the birth of her daughter, Sophie, she was inspired to branch out into baby products.

Soaps include such varieties as cinnamon and apple, clary sage and lavender, garden mint and honey lemon.

The store produces soaps that are tough on grease and dirt, as well as those that are gentle on sensitive skin, she said.

“Because we make our own soap, we create our own recipes,” Boldyreva said. “So we are able to control how soap is going to feel on your skin.”