photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Jasmine Hyde, the owner of Lawrence Eco-friendly Sustainability Shop, is pictured at the store Thursday, April 28, 2022. Hyde opened the shop — called L.E.S.S. for short — for the first time last Friday.

About five years ago, Jasmine Hyde moved from Alabama, where she was born and raised, to Lawrence.

The way Hyde tells it, she wasn’t expecting that she’d have opened a new storefront in downtown Lawrence five years later — Lawrence Eco-friendly Sustainability Shop, or “L.E.S.S.” for short.

The story of L.E.S.S. — where the main products on offer are nontoxic, natural and organic household and personal products like laundry detergent and lotion — starts a bit closer to the present, though, years after Hyde decided to move to Lawrence. Of all settings, it was at a New Year’s party a little over a year ago. Hyde was chatting with a friend, who was talking about how Lawrence could use a shop like L.E.S.S.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The main products on offer at L.E.S.S. are nontoxic, natural and organic household and personal products, like soaps and laundry detergents. Customers can fill up reusable containers with their soap of choice and are charged by the ounce.

“As soon as she said the idea, I don’t know, the light bulb just went off and I thought, ‘I think I could do that,'” Hyde said.

In fact, Hyde was so interested in the idea that she promptly began putting together a business plan, a first for her as she had never owned a business. She showed that plan to some friends, Ben Poff and Sheree Miller Poff, in search of feedback.

But they took it a step further and decided to invest. Coincidentally, those same friends helped Hyde decide to move to Lawrence. From there, Hyde said, it “snowballed very quickly.” Those friends are now also her business partners.

“I went from ‘I think I can do this,’ to ‘Holy crap, I’m doing this,'” Hyde said.

Hyde spoke with the Journal-World at the shop, located at 745 New Hampshire St. in the indoor retail space right next to The Bottleneck, a little less than a week after its soft opening. That took place last Friday, and it was largely attended by Hyde’s friends and family. She said it was well-received.

“So this week, I decided to just sneak open and see what happened,” Hyde said. “… The first day I was open, I had like one customer, and then (Wednesday) I had 10. We’re slowly working on getting the word out.”

Another downtown business, Global Cafe, posted about L.E.S.S. on social media earlier this week, which helped with that jump in visitors.

The store’s concept is based around eliminating single-use plastic waste in favor of environmentally friendly alternatives. One wall in the store is filled with shelves holding bulk containers of eco-friendly cleaning liquids. Taking those products home is as simple as bringing in your own container to fill, Hyde said; the store also sells recyclable aluminum containers that fit with the mission of avoiding plastic waste. Refills are priced by the ounce, minus the weight of the container customers use. Eventually, Hyde said the hope is that L.E.S.S. will have a donation area where people can drop off containers they don’t use anymore that can then be used for refills.

Most of the store’s refill products are part of a “closed loop” system, Hyde said, which means that even the plastic containers used to hold those products in-store can be sent back to the companies that supply them to be reused, or the refills are sent in bags that can be reused the same way.

Soap isn’t the only product for sale, though. The middle of the store is stocked with what Hyde described as “sustainable, plastic-free alternatives to everyday essentials” — think toiletry items like bamboo toothbrushes or kitchen products.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Soaps and detergents aren’t the only sustainable products on offer at L.E.S.S. The middle of the store is stocked with other household items, like bamboo toothbrushes and kitchen tools, that are designed as sustainable alternatives.

“It’s important to think about the end of life for a product,” Hyde said. “For instance, I have a bamboo hairbrush, but most people would have like a plastic hairbrush at home. Eventually, when someone decides to get a new hairbrush, the plastic one will just go in the trash. But something like a bamboo hairbrush is totally compostable; it’s not just going to end up in a landfill or polluting the ocean.”

On that front, many of the store’s products are sourced somewhat locally; L.E.S.S. will soon carry ceramic soap containers and dishes from Tierney Cacioppo’s Muddy Waters Studio and recycled cotton plant hangers crafted by Alecia Coday, both Lawrence artists. Other items will come from a bit closer to Hyde’s native home; her grandfather and his wife contributed cutting boards carved from trees leveled by hurricanes in Alabama.

Hyde said she could see a few different types making up the store’s customer base. On the one hand, she said younger people generally tend to be aware and eco-conscious with their product choices, so she would expect some interest from that demographic. Plus, Hyde said Lawrence already has something of a “hippie” vibe to it — meant as a compliment, she clarified — and she would expect there to be a market of older clientele who might be excited to have an option like L.E.S.S. available locally.

It also helps that some other local businesses are interested in sustainable living.

“We have a good community vibe here, like with The Merc and everything like that,” Hyde said. “It was already kind of there.”

The concept behind L.E.S.S. does exist in other communities. Hyde mentioned there’s one somewhat nearby; Soap Refill Station in Kansas City, Missouri, offers the same kind of by-the-ounce eco-friendly soap refill service. L.E.S.S. even carries that store’s brand of soap and detergent, House, as one of its products.

“If this is successful, it means the community really cares and they really want to make those (sustainable) changes,” Hyde said. “… It’s hard to think an individual can make a difference, because people say it’s really the corporations that have to make the changes and stuff like that. If the community makes this successful, I mean yes, it is a group effort, but those are individuals working together.”