Stylish soap is becoming my brand at this point. Hey, I’ll take it.
Review #18 - Soft Services 🧼
What Is It
Soft Services, in the simplest terms, makes body skincare products. However, they consider themselves “more than just a company that makes things”; they’re a service provider, sharing information and tools with people “who are looking for solutions to their skin concerns”.
You know this brand is holding my attention for several reasons, starting with the chic, gender-neutral design and its shared lineage with previous newsletter favorites Crown Affair and Nécessaire. The Buffing Bar, a microcrystal exfoliant soap, is the product on peoples’ lips and therefore in my shower.
Brand / Aesthetic
Their tagline, everything can be different™️, is as apt a place to start as any.
In a literal sense, everything can be different when it comes to your skin: the surprise psoriasis flareups can be managed, the chicken skin (a.k.a. keratosis pilaris) you were told was just “who you were” can actually be smoothed. Your body skin condition can be different. Simple enough.
But if we peel back a layer, everything can be different also means that your clinically-proven, targeted treatments don’t have to be an admission of your embarrassing skin condition. You can treat your body acne and still have a chic skincare shelf. You’re about to get everything can be different™️ overload, but let’s sidebar on design real quick.
A quick glance at their website will tell you that aesthetics are integral to their brand.
Everything they create visually — be it their product packaging, their web layout, their photography, etc. — feels purposeful, like a choice was made. Clean lines, bold imagery, stark contrast. Minimalism with personality. All of this is my personal catnip.
If you’re a ‘brand person’ (no comment) like myself, you already know that design runs in the Glossier family. Once again, Emma Apple Chozick did the dirty work for me when she outlined the company’s finest exports. The TLDR backstory here is that Annie & Rebecca founded Soft Services after their time honing their creative brilliance at Glossier. Other credits for the two include: the boy brow’s eponymous brow, co-host of my favorite podcast, “design power-couple” status and OFFHOURS. I’ll let you do your own research there.
Truthfully, I’m pretty sick of the Glossier veteran worship (coming from someone notorious for it) but the moral of the story is: design is important and it’s no coincidence that the founders of my favorite brands share an alma mater.
Clearly, their design studio (read: brand doula) Decade, did something really epic here, if I may borrow a word from the creative director bro vernacular, by making everything can be different™️ the north star.
We talked about how the phrase applies to consumers, but now think about it from the brand perspective. In Soft Services’s case, they embrace difference by abstaining from the typical playbook (to an extent), giving your products unique backstories and visual identities, and creating sustainable packaging that doesn’t sacrifice share-ability.
I know you’re all just screaming at your phones saying, I thought you say consistency is key?! It is, and I’m going to need you to channel your Rick Rubin for a second. Their commitment to inconsistency is consistency in and of itself. The only constant is change, and all that. I know, you weren’t expecting to get hit with a philosophy lesson when you opened this soap review. To give you a tangible example of what this looks like, take a look at each product’s “mini brand world”.
Sort of like when you see a set of siblings and you say “oh yeah, I can tell how you’re related”. It’s like that. Or, as Decade says, it “thrives in its unpredictability” while still feeling “neat and cohesive”. Whether you speak creative director or not, I think you get the gist: each item has its own flare but still connects to the overarching identity.
It’s also worth noting that the color variation between products is more than a design move, it’s also a sustainable one. Since they’re using post-consumer plastic as opposed to clear, virgin plastic, inconsistency eliminates the need for the manufacturers to “color-match” (a process where facilities will throw away tons of product if it isn’t impeccably accurate). If all of this product development talk interests you, I’d recommend you check out Annie Kreighbaum’s BTS on creating certified cosmetic hits.
The copy gets the job done. It’s difficult to remain approachable and relatable while also positioning yourself as an expert in a field. That’s where the trademarks come in. Speaking of, I wonder who everyone’s patent lawyer is…
Marketing
I’ve said it before, but the lines are blurred between branding and marketing when you’ve created an ever-evolving world — a good thing, might I add. The strongest brands are those that feel all-encompassing and covetable, their products market themselves, their aesthetic is recognizable. I’m about to wax poetic on the strong brand world to community-built marketing flywheel, so if that hits you too hard in the capitalism, keep it moving.
Whether you realize it or not, the brands you love have a special something that makes you want to not only buy their products, but identify as someone who does so. In an online example, this looks like Dieux inspiring their customers to voluntarily post photos of themselves with their eye masks that not only serves as word-of-mouth marketing in smaller circles, but also provides content for them to post on their owned channels. Offline, this looks like being okay — or even proud — to wear the logoed tote bag out in public.
A little while ago, I offhandedly said “the brands we buy make up our identity” in a video I made. As you can imagine, that upset some communist trolls who don’t understand what “tongue-in-cheek” means. It goes without saying that humans are a lot more than the items they spend money on, but if we’re all byproducts of who and what we surround ourselves with, you have to admit they factor into the self-identity formula somewhere. Not to go to battle for brands, but they can also be a medium through which you learn valuable information and make actual friends, so identifying with a company isn’t as tOxiC as you might be led to believe.
All of this is to say, you know a brand is doing something right when you wish you had more body acne so you had an excuse to buy their product and get involved in the world they’ve built.
An integral part of their existence (and therefore marketing) is the Mass Index, a database they’ve created to document skincare concerns and corresponding research.
It’s coupled with the Body Gallery, a library of user-submitted skin images to help expand visibility and research on these taboo but relatively common topics. They essentially took the conversations happening on Reddit into their own hands, and added a touch of WebMD. Genius.
The best part about Mass Index is the solutions section. They give treatment recommendations on each skin concern, and they’re not limited to Soft Services’ own products. Some might say it’s a poor business move to link out to a competing brands’ product page. I’d argue it’s the opposite. It’s a display of confidence, a commitment to their positioning as a service provider. It builds genuine trust with their consumer, a surefire way to bolster community and brand favorability. The ROI on that? Priceless.
Another place where their commitment to providing a service is exemplified: email. This could be the dorkiest thing I’ve said on this newsletter, which is saying something because I’ve said so many dorky things on here, but I actually look forward to reading their emails. More so than some of these substacks I’m subscribed to, if I’m being honest. SORRY!
Some people might say they’re too lengthy to captivate attention (wouldn’t I know) but what they lack in brevity they make up for in utility. Every time I read one of these emails, I learn something new, and my teacher’s pet inner child is soothed. Either that, or I’m genuinely entertained. Wins both ways.
I can feel the clock ticking on your attention span as I’m writing this, now that I think of it, so I’ll wrap it up with a quick shoutout to their Instagram.
It’s a perfect encapsulation of the two things they excel at: stunning design and providing service. That, plus sharing the fun things (read: newspaper ad, ‘Buffing Bananza’) they’re up to offline. Ahh, just like Zuckerberg originally intended.
Efficacy
Here’s where I get to disclose personal medical information! I will now come forward and share that I am a keratosis pilaris warrior myself. Yes, I have those lil bumpies on the back of my thighs, and because they’re not getting in the way of my existence and I didn’t feel like spending money on the copay for a diagnosis, I try to forget they exist outside my shower. That was until I saw the Buffing Bar come onto the scene, which taught me that these things had an actual name, and a cure.
Yes! Now I have a reason to buy a pretty bar of soap! For real though, I was excited.
I’m happy to report that after using this product for 3-ish weeks (my studies are super rigorous if you couldn’t tell), my body skin has never been softer and my KP (this will always be Kim Possible to me) is a lot less… bumpy. Sure, that sounds right. I know that it takes continued use over an extended period of time to completely eliminate it, so I can confidently say I’m on the right track.
Skin concerns aside, this Buffing Bar is an incredible exfoliator for anyone who has that masochistic urge towards a physical sensation for shedding dead skin but knows that microbeads are a no-no. Plus, the cobalt blue is striking and I love the way it looks amongst my shower potions and gizmos. So much so that I might need to commit to giving it a more permanent home.
Overall Thoughts
You can tell when the people behind a brand actually care about your experience with the product and it really shows here. To give you a peak behind the curtain, I had the chance to listen to Rebecca in conversation with the wonderful Erika Veurink last week, and she shared a story that I won’t disclose about how she prioritized the perfection of the product over the pressure from a retailer. It’s this commitment to the consumer and a confidence — not to be confused with cockiness — in the quality of their products that shines through in everything they do.
I’ll step off my soapbox (you knew I had to say it once) and let the rating tell you what you need to know.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
In Other News…
Ulta customers don’t care about clean beauty. Not surprised.
A sad day for subscription vitamin enthusiasts
That’s all for now. If there’s a product you want reviewed or just want to chat, reply to this email. :)
also a KP warrior and apparently need this buffing bar!!
okay would love you to do this for topicals. they play in a similar space but with very different branding and approach