Nettlesome Pantry is a personal care brand founded in Ogden, Utah, in 2021.
The natural products were the problem. Kathryn Pagano was studying herbal medicine when she traced her own dry skin to the "natural" products she was using. Her first batch of soap, lemongrass, came out of her kitchen in Salt Lake City. That kitchen habit is now Nettlesome Pantry, an herbal soap studio in Ogden.
In 2020 Pagano had just moved to Ogden when Covid hit, and she was suddenly a single mom at home with two kids. "I needed something to inspire me and keep my spirits up," she told VoyageUtah. Nettlesome Pantry opened in the spring of 2021, selling mostly to friends and family before it moved into local festivals.
Nothing about the process hurries. Each cold process batch takes about an hour, and every bar then cures for four to six weeks before it is sold. Scent comes only from essential oils, and palm oil and seed oils stay out. Pagano says she is comfortable washing her dishes with it. The line runs to about two dozen bars, some of them seasonal. Most cost $14 to $16.
The bar called The Traveler is lemongrass, the same scent as that first kitchen batch.
Nettlesome Pantry says the question customers ask most often at local markets is whether its soap is edible.
