Helen Luo II COM201 II Professor Anderson II 2016
Feature Profile on Helene Matteson, founder of Urban Kitchen Handmade
Tucked away in Allston, MA, on the second floor of the factory-esque Braintree Street Reality LLC, lies Helene Matteson’s studio for developing organic personal care products – Urban Kitchen Handmade. Aromatic smells – be it floral, earthy, or fruity –overwhelm your senses the moment you step in. It’s as if you were a child entering a candy store, only rather than satisfying your sweet tooth, mixtures of fresh, nice-smelling scents inundate you. The studio itself is just the right size with a small set of displays exhibiting Matteson’s products – ranging from the best-selling soaps to perfumes, air fresheners, lip balms, and more – at the entrance calling your attention. A couch rests on your right, with boxes and other supplies piled atop it, garnering no space to sit. A wooden table with four chairs rest beside the couch, creating a makeshift workspace for Matteson to sit and work on her laptop. Most of the studio contains large metal racks holding trays of cured and curing soap, finished and drying candles, and other supplies. Kitchen counters line the walls, where Matteson spends most of her time making her products. This haphazardly organized studio complex is where the magic happens – an extension of the actual headquarters for Urban Kitchen Handmade, which is Matteson’s own kitchen.
Dry skin and an itch for change led Helene Matteson to the founding of Urban Kitchen Handmade. After a Google search and a soap-making class, Matteson unknowingly held the ingredients to jumpstart her newest business endeavor in her very own kitchen! Now in her 50s, Matteson and her husband, James, have expanded the business in both size and types of products offered. Starting with soap, Urban Kitchen Handmade now sells candles, perfume, air fresheners, pillow sachets, spa salts, and a range of other personal care products. Customers can purchase the products both at local open markets or Matteson’s Etsy store online. She also welcomes customers to visit her studio in Allston and watch her work-process in action!
About 5’1 with light brown and white streaks running through her frizzy hair, Matteson clocks in early to work at her studio. A pair of brown floral-printed reading glasses, an inside-out-white-t-shirt over her own clothes, and a hair clip taming her locks seems to be the unofficial uniform of this soaper. With the occasional company of customers or friends, Matteson normally spends the mornings in her studio listening to National Public Radio (NPR) as she makes new batches of soaps, candles, and other products before filling out Etsy orders or ‘favors’ (customized orders submitted by customers via her website).
“I’m here at like seven in the morning and out by the afternoon because it gets so hot in here –plus there’s just always something else to do” says Matteson. She loves being her own boss, enjoying the flexibility of the schedule and the room for creative freedom.
Matteson founded Urban Kitchen Handmade in May of 2006 in the kitchen of her Boston home and expanded to a small studio in Allston about six years ago with the businesses success. Having gone from a part-time hobby to her brainchild, Urban Kitchen Handmade is now a locally well-known name among regulars at the New England Open Market (SOWA). Co-partnering with her husband James, Matteson says “I make the product and he makes it look good…the marketing, branding, he’s good at that – I just focus on what I do best.”
Barbara Curcio, a regular of Matteson’s, says, “My personal favorite is the Coconut Cream Handmade Soap. It not only smells lovely but is wrapped beautifully – I remember my first time meeting Helene at SOWA, she’d popped out behind one of the displays and told me to smell the different soaps, saying I’d definitely find one I’d like – and I did.”
Matteson had not always been in the soap and personal-care-product business. In fact, she’d job-hopped quite a bit in her early years. After graduating from college with a business degree in New York, Matteson was ready for a change.
“I really didn’t want to stay in New York. It was just too big, expensive, crowded, and had horrible traffic…you could be out for an hour and still be stuck in traffic and I just didn’t like that.” She says. Boston was the next best thing – cosmopolitan but also with nature’s comforts like the North and South Shores.
Having moved to Boston 30 years ago, Matteson dabbled in various jobs ranging from working in the food industry, banking field, to computer administration before settling down with Urban Kitchen Handmade. Regardless of her job-hopping, one thing was constant: Matteson pursued the things she enjoyed doing. She studied Business because it’s what “she likes to do,” says Matteson. Her degree then led to her working in a bank for a bit, before she took a second job at a restaurant because she “really likes food.” Her passion for the culinary arts took Matteson back to school. After studying culinary arts, Matteson returned to the workforce cooking and running a catering business with some friends. But running a catering business, according to Matteson, was very time- consuming and draining.
“It was just so many hours, so much of my life, and I wanted a change,” says Matteson, “So I sold it.” After selling her business, Matteson went back to school to learn about the computers.
Jokingly remarking, “Oh I’m dating myself – but this change came at the same time computers and email were just coming out. The early 90s, and if you were in your late 30s like me, you’d have never seen a computer and you had no idea how to use it. So you had to learn it.”
After getting a certified, Matteson took on an admin job; however, she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to run a business again. At first Matteson contemplated going back into the food industry, but she realized the impracticality of the idea. A certified kitchen was required if she were to start her own restaurant and at the time Matteson just didn’t have the money needed for the start-up.
At around the same time, Matteson was frustrated with the dryness of her skin. Jumpstarted by a Google search she realized that people made home-made soap and so she took a class. It was then Matteson became a soaper. Making soap reminded Matteson of cooking – it was cooking for your skin.
“A lot of the ingredients and the way I look at it to simplify it is the same. instead of using the ingredients for your body, it’s using it for your skin,” says Matteson. At first, soap making was only something Matteson did on the side while she worked in the customer service division at a local bank. It wasn’t until a friend invited her to sell at a craft show that the business kicked-up.
“At first I said nah, I’m not ready. But she said, ‘yes you are,’ so I’m like ok. And I loved it. Made 50 bucks and I loved having 50 bucks in my wallet” says Matteson. From there, Matteson began to attend more craft shows and made soap to sell in her own kitchen; hence, the name: Urban Kitchen Handmade.
The process consisted of many trial-and-errors, online research, and commitment. Though Matteson was undeterred, as her husband James describes, “Helene really loves what she does…sometimes working together can be challenging, but she’s very driven to make the business a success. She’s headstrong and very determined.” Matteson tested many things out in order to find the best possible methods to create her products and strived to provide quality products at an affordable price. She wouldn’t sell anything she doesn’t use herself.
“You want good ingredients to be absorbed into your skin, so it’s healthy,” says Matteson. All of her products are made with natural ingredients such as olive oil, Shea butter, coconut oil, caster oil, cocoa butter, natural scents, and Micah for natural coloring. Now, Matteson usually attends the SOWA open market and other craft shows to sell her products while simultaneously managing her online Etsy store. There are, however, still some shows that disappoint.
Just last weekend Matteson attended a fundraising craft show in Rhode Island for Breast cancer. The hall was not only smelly and “disgusting,” Matteson describes, but also a “waste of her time” since the event planner hadn’t bothered to publicize the event. According to Matteson, there were maybe five people.
Instead, Matteson enjoys her attending SOWA much more. Not only does she get to catch up with her regulars, but also fellow vendors who are close-friends. Matteson describes that the business becomes your whole life, so a lot of your friends are people who’ve dedicated their lives to their businesses as well.
Matteson also has a good reputation on her online platform Etsy. With most of her customers satisfied and five-star-ratings donning her reviews. Matteson personally packages each order, providing a small gift sample and a hand-written thank-you note as well. For Matteson, she believes in connecting with her customers, that the only way to improve is to listen to them and get their feedback. Many of her new products, such as the popular lavender room-spray, came about from customer requests.
Lisa says, “The soaps have such a fresh, clean, and long-lasting – its addicting!” her personal favorite being the Boston by the Sea Soap bar.
When asked where Matteson sees her business in the future, Matteson says, “I’ve thought about expanding, but I like how personal it is now. Honestly if I was 20 years younger, I’d absolutely expand further, but at this age, I like the way it is now.” Instead of expanding the business, however, Matteson wants to start teaching. During off-seasons post-Christmas and on weekends, Matteson is working on providing a place where people can come and learn to make natural by-care products themselves.
Matteson is not just a soaper, but also a political enthusiast, you can often find her shaking her head or nodding along to NPR with occasional bursts of comments such as “I hate trump by the way –“ escaping. One of her downfalls, she jokes, is spending too much time following political news when she should instead be promoting her business on her social platforms.
“I like being independent, being my own boss with no one telling me what to do,’ says Matteson, “and yeah I was afraid at first taking the first step, but what’s your choice? You have no choice. I just do it and never second guess myself.”
It’s never too late to follow your passions – to start your own business. Just as Matteson says, everyone is afraid, it’s all about just doing it and taking the first step. Then, who knows, you might just have a successful business on your hands.
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