Meet Mera McGrew | Founder and CEO of Soapply

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mera McGrew and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mera, we’d love for you to start things off by telling us something about your industry that we and others not in the industry might be unaware of?
Most “soaps” on store shelves are not actually soap; they are just detergents. If you’re lathering up thoroughly and often but not using a true soap, you might find your hands get dry, irritated, and in need of lotion. Handwashing doesn’t need to leave your hands in dire straits but using the right soap is key. Detergent soaps can strip the natural oils in your skin. True soaps (like Soapply) are made using natural fats (in our case, plant-based, food-grade, organic oils). These oils help cleanse your skin without stripping it of its natural hydration.

The soap industry isn’t exactly clean.
Big brands often market scientific-sounding ingredients, synthetic extracts, and expensive packaging as “luxury.” Many of these same companies are capitalizing on words like “organic” and “natural” to connote safety and quality while still using toxic fillers and ingredients with questionable health and safety concerns. At Soapply, we know that natural and organic isn’t enough. Even organic ingredients can be produced with potentially toxic elements or preserved with harmful chemicals that go undisclosed. As we strive to provide individuals with the cleanest, purest, safest, and most sustainable ingredients, we are proudly MADE SAFE certified. MADE SAFE (a non-profit that is entirely independent) did a 360-degree laboratory screening and confirmed our ingredients and product are free from any chemicals or toxins with questionable health or safety concerns for you or the environment. Soapply’s ingredients will not bioaccumulate; persist in the water, sediment, or soil; contribute to air pollution; or cause harm to aquatic or terrestrial wildlife.

What should our readers know about your business?
There is soap, and then there’s Soapply. This is not your average watered-down soap bottled in single use plastic. As our refillable glass bottle boldly states, Soapply is more than soap. Soapply is quality you can feel, formulated to leave your skin refreshed and cleansed, designed with the planet in mind, and created to fund lifesaving water, sanitation, and hygiene initiatives around the globe.

Simply put, we started Soapply to create the best soap for your skin and our planet with the ultimate goal of selling a better, elevated, essential that we could use the sale of to fund solutions to essential problems.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Soapply is based in NYC. To state the obvious, it’s impossible to list all the amazing museums, galleries, restaurants, venues, parks, shopping, and things to do in NYC! So rather than a week-long itinerary, here’s a glimpse of how I spend a Saturday (out of town guests in toe or not) in TriBeCa, which is the neighborhood I call home.

I try to sleep in on the weekend but my internal alarm clock has me up and out before 9am.

I am one of those weird people who love to run. NYC has countless good running routes (I won’t be the first person to tell you a Central Park run is a must at least once in your life), but my go-to local route is along the Hudson River up the West Side Highway. Weekend morning runs along the river are scenic and make for excellent (sweaty) people watching too. I love seeing countless New Yorkers fitting in their daily dose of exercise, parents hurring their kids to sports practice or a playdate, friends catching up on the happenings from the night before, and couples clinching their recently acquired coffees weaving through each other along the path.

Post-sweat and pre-shower, I head to Laughing Man Coffee. Hugh Jackman is one of the owners and he donates his portion of the profits, which is what initially drew me there when I moved to the neighborhood years ago. Now, they sell Soapply and my group of neighborhood friends (we call ourselves “The Village”) meet there every morning for coffee. So, if you ever find yourself at Laughing Man for your morning cup of joe, say hi (I’ll be the one with the “I was a handwasher before it was cool” t-shirt on or carrying the Soapply clean freak tote :))!

When I’ve finished my coffee and loose plans with “The Village” have been made to reunite later, I slip away to find a bit of quiet within a city that’s anything but. I like to incorporate any new products from fellow founders or clean beauty retail partners into my routine on weekends when I have more time. I’ll read up about the company and product, whether it’s an exfoliating scrub, waterless shampoo, new lotion, or zero waste makeup product, to learn the “why” behind it, which makes me really appreciate the product and the experience of using it. I know how much goes into putting a mindful product into the world so having time to appreciate the details is important to me when someone has trusted me as one of the first users.

No concrete plan and no stress are the name of the game on weekend afternoons. I love to read the physical newspaper, my partner likes to catch up on news on his tablet, and we both love taking in a museum exhibit. We’ll usually head to pier 26 to read outside before wandering uptown to The Whitney for a few hours. (We loved the Edward Hopper exhibit last year so much that the coffee table book from the exhibit is now a permanent fixture in our home).

My phone usually starts to buzz with “The Village” plans. Texts deciding between a late afternoon beer and panini at our favorite hole-in-the-wall, Puffys, or something a little more special— a farm-to-table meal outside in the heart of TriBeCa at One White Street complete with a bottle (or two) of wine for the group. Inevitably the group decides to treat ourselves and we head to One White Street, which full disclosure makes me extra happy because they have Soapply sink-side. Great food, good drinks, and the best friends mean a whole lot of laughs late into the night. If we split a second bottle of wine, we might end up deciding to head to The Comedy Cellar to catch a late night show before finally calling it a day.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I wouldn’t be where I am, and Soapply wouldn’t be what it is, without so many people—my mom, brother, partner, friends, and of course the team of people making everything possible day in and day out. But, if I had to give a single shoutout, it wouldn’t be to my immediate community, it would be to the inspirational communities across the globe that drive my sense of purpose.

Soapply started with a single idea – what if we could sell soap that could get soap in the hands that need it, and ultimately save lives.

There are countless communities around the world where having soap and a place to wash up is still a luxury that’s out of reach. It’s the mothers that worry about their children’s health, the siblings getting sick from dysentery and respiratory disease with nowhere to wash up, and the schoolchildren grieving the preventable loss of a friend who motivated me to start Soapply and drive me forward every day.

We all need soap. We need soap to keep us clean, but more importantly, we need soap to keep us healthy. Soapply empowers conscious consumers to fund lifesaving water, sanitation, and hygiene projects around the globe. I won’t stop until everyone, everywhere has access to soap, water, and a place to wash up. Every wash counts and our growing community of handwashers who care is proving that doing the right thing can also be good for business.

Website: soapplybox.com

Instagram: @soapply

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soapply

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soapply/?ref=hl

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxy5wuThU2QkkYWYl30StQQ