Mom hopes soap business inspired by her kids leads them to take chances of their own
- Cresha Drayden started making her own soaps years ago to help her children get through a skin condition. Today, she helps others feel their best at her Central Market York stand, Our Sons and Daughters.
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Cresha Drayden is a giver. She steps into Central Market York on a Tuesday morning with a smile on her face. Her customers would never know she just finished an overnight shift working to support people with intellectual disabilities.
“I do a lot of things,” she says, laughing. “It all adds up to pieces of me. And I like to share the best parts of myself with people.”
Cresha was a stay-at-home mom nearly a decade ago when her kids suffered from the skin condition eczema. She wanted to relieve their itchy, irritated skin, so she started playing around with different oils and soaps at home.
Her three children, now ranging in age from 14 to 22, saw how much care their mom put into her hobby all those years ago. As they venture into adulthood, they encouraged Cresha to do something for herself: start her own business.
“In some ways, I always wanted this for myself,” she says. “I just had to do it when the time was right.”
‘Things that make me happy’
Our Sons and Daughters opened at Central Market York just before Christmas 2020. It gave Cresha a creative outlet in the pandemic. It was a place where she could experiment with fragrances and products and offer them to a client base who was interested in seeing her succeed.
The Christmas shopping season helped her gain momentum, and it’s been growing ever since.
On her shelves are colorful bars of soap, tubes of body wash, jars of candles, and glass bottles of oil. Her personality can be seen in the clever label names, from the fruity “Monkey Farts” to the clean “Egyptian Sheets.”
But she also incorporates things that are important to her, such as natural health and wellness. She has sage for burning and sage-scented spray for smaller spaces, like a car. The practice of burning sage, also known as smudging, is a spiritual practice rooted in indigenous traditions to cleanse a space.
Cresha has slowly been expanding her holistic products, which now include crystals, and she hopes her market stand is a gateway to one day opening a holistic health studio.
“All of these things put me in my flow,” she says. “These are things that make me happy, that I consider to be part of me.”
With an ear to what her customers want, Cresha is also watchful of her three, nearly grown children who see their mother going after her business goals.
“They inspired me, but I hope they learn from this, too,” she says. “I want them to see what can be gained from taking the chance.”