If you’re looking for a softer laundry detergent for your young family, look no further than Brookfield.
Residents Courtney Kayiza and Miloš Koćalo are the founders of Beba Bubbles, a homemade laundry detergent business formulated to be gentle on the skin of babies.
“We were expecting our son, Luka, in January of this year. Upon his arrival, we were being more conscious — [Miloš] has always been this way, very conscious of the foods he eats, the different fabrics he wears. After meeting him and getting pregnant with our son, I started to become a lot more of that way,” Kayiza said.
She said she initially felt a distaste toward commercial laundry detergent products, worrying they would be harsh on her newborn’s skin “because there were a bunch of chemicals on the back that I couldn’t pronounce,” she said.
After seeing a woman online who made her own laundry detergent at home “at a fraction of the cost with way cleaner ingredients,” Kayiza said she was inspired to follow suit.
“I noticed that some of the ingredients [she used] were still a bit harsh, and I wanted to have a good option for my son’s skin,” she said. “I decided to take the base recipe that I saw online and substitute it for a few other ingredients that I felt were a lot safer for sensitive skin after doing a lot of research.”
Using just three ingredients — a homemade coconut oil-based soap that’s grated up, washing soda and oxygen bleach — Kayiza created the recipe that is the basis of the Beba Bubbles detergent powder she and husband Koćalo sell online and locally.
For those wondering, the name Beba Bubbles comes from the Serbian word for baby, reflecting Koćalo’s heritage, Kayiza said.
She said she noticed the difference on her son’s skin when she had to use a commercial detergent one time.
“I didn’t have enough detergent, so I ran to the store, and I used Dreft detergent. Fingers crossed, nothing bad would happen, but, unfortunately, [Luka] started to have patches on his skin and a lot of bumps on his chest. The only thing I could associate that with was using a detergent that had a bunch of additives and stuff in it,” she said. “I made some more of the detergent I was using before, rewashed all his clothes again, and, ever since then, his skin has been doing really great.”
The business of Beba Bubbles only began in April, Kayiza said, during her delayed maternity leave from her full-time job.
“During that time, naturally, I had a lot of free time. When he would take a nap, I tried to get a bunch of cleaning down, which allowed me the time to really focus on making sure that his detergent was as great as it could be,” she said. “One day, I was sitting with Miloš. We were talking, and he was like, ‘I think we should sell this. This is a really great product,’ and we got to work.”
Since then, the couple has mainly sold their product online through Shopify, though they’ve also made some headway through local word of mouth.
“We’ve been to a few events. Recently, we had an event at St. Nikola church, where we sold some products and got the word out a bunch,” she said. “We have partnered with a local laundry service company called Bubble Buddies. They now feature our detergent as their number one option for an all-natural laundry detergent option.”
Going forward, Kayiza said she hopes Beba Bubbles can be one step in helping people opt to use “cleaner and safer” products.
“We hope that Beba Bubbles will be an effective and accessible option so that people can have a cleaner laundry experience,” she said.
