Columbus Shopping Guide: Three Local Bath and Soap Stores You Need to Check Out
Find fun, handcrafted products—and plenty of wonderful scents—at these brick-and-mortar outlets.
If you’re lucky enough to stop by Tiki Botanicals when they’re pouring a batch of their signature soy candles, you’re in for an olfactory treat. The business, owned by Jim and Candyce Thieken, also offers a selection of handcrafted bath and body products, including colorful bar soaps, foaming hand soaps, scrubs, hair care, beard balm and aromatherapy shower steamers. Tiki Botanicals has shops in Powell, Upper Arlington and German Village, where most items are made.
Foaming soaps are the star attraction at Glenn Avenue Soap Co., which crafts a variety of personal care products at its Grandview shop. Numerous local restaurants, breweries and hotels use its hand soap; if you find one you like and it’s not labeled, shop employees are happy to look it up. Fun collaborations with local breweries yield Elvis Juice items with BrewDog, as well as beer soaps themed to Seventh Son, Wolf’s Ridge and others. You can’t go wrong with the bandit’s oil, citrus blossom, or peppermint and tea tree soaps—or one of the whipped body butters for a more indulgent treat.
Quirky Clean puts an offbeat spin on body products with an assortment of sparkly bath bombs in fun shapes like unicorns and peace signs, as well as craft soaps, lip gloss, eyeshadows, beard oil (choose from Lumberjack, 5 O’clock Shadow or Nightcap scents), sugar scrubs and the like. At press time, the business was in the midst of a relocation from its longtime home in Franklinton to 700 Bryden Road in Olde Towne East. The new location is expected to begin hosting open studio nights on May 13.
This story is from the Where to Shop Now package in the May 2023 issue of Columbus Monthly.