Chemical engineer Gili Zilca has turned kitchen-cooked concoctions into a pleasantly scented profit-earner.
Luisa New York, an all-natural soap store, is the latest addition at the Rose Hill Shopping Center in Thornwood and the Israeli native”™s second storefront.
Zilca spent about $50,000 to refurbish the retail location. She turned the space into a warm, earthy escape that reflects the colors of nature and the ingredients she uses to make her soaps.
“I said, ”˜OK, I need a room for all of my ingredients and I need another section to make my products and for lessons and then the front would be my store,” Zilca said as she divided the store into thirds mid-air with her hands.
She smiled broadly.
“I have always liked to create things,” she said. “People want healthy, natural products and something that will be good for their families.”
Zilca moved to the United States from Israel in 2001 after her husband, a research scientist, found work at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights.
Having worked as a chemical engineer performing hazardous material audits for an environmental company in Israel, Zilca was used to presenting information to an audience.
“I didn”™t know I”™d be good with customers,” she said. “I was pregnant with my son in 2002 and I had bought some books on how to make your own soaps and fragrances, and I started with olive oil soap.”
Zilca began formulaic tests in her kitchen, which proved difficult at first because it”™s “hard to find the combination so the soap stays hard all the way through until you finish it,” a common qualm with handmade soap.
Zilca sold her products through a website, but stepping over soaps and packaging in her Briarcliff basement made her realize that it was time to turn to retail.
Her first store, adjacent to the Pleasantville Starbucks, was a pop-up shop in a space vacated by a frame store that landlord Diamond Properties was looking to fill.
“I set up my products and I brought folding tables, but I didn”™t have a cash register,” Zilca said. “But people were curious. They”™d come in to get coffee and they”™d smell all the soaps and there was so much traffic.”
In a matter of two weeks, the space that Zilca was offered a temporary lease on for free had sparked tenant interest and was filled by a nail salon.
Though she closed her first start-up last spring, she scouted sites and happened upon the Rose Hill Shopping Center in Thornwood, where she just opened her new store.
Growth has been organic, but she has distributed her products in regional retailers like Connie”™s Bakery and General Store at Northern Westchester Hospital and Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
Could natural retailer Whole Foods be next?
Zilca smiled.
“The ingredients are very expensive and all handmade, so the profit to sell it wholesale is not so good for me,” she said. “But my vision is ”“ I see big machines making my products one day. But not so soon.”
