Hotel Suppliers reporter sits for an interview with Lisa Hicks A.K.A Lady SNOAP, Founder of SNOAP. 
Talk to me about how SNOAP started.
The idea for SNOAP came to me during the very first Covid-19 lockdown of March 2020. Suddenly, my husband, myself and our three children were all at home and the amount of rubbish we were producing was evident.
Seeing how much single-use plastic we were discarding, I set out to make some serious changes to reduce my family’s impact on the environment.
We made loads of sustainable changes in our household – but one area we really struggled with was converting to solid soap for hand and body washing, and solid shampoo. My daughter didn’t want to touch the bar once my sons had used it, the bar would get gunky and hairy, it just didn’t prove practical for us as a family.
We almost converted back to liquids – but before doing so I conducted a bit of research into the impact that these bottled products were having on the planet. I was shocked to find out that in the UK alone 686 million hand wash bottles, 617 million shower gel bottles and 520 million shampoo bottles were being discarded each year.
I wanted the convenience of a dispenser but the eco-friendly, cost-saving qualities of a solid – so I set out to design one.
What is SNOAP?
SNOAP is a revolutionary solid soap dispenser. Two bars go into the dispenser and you turn the top clockwise to dispense a powder reminiscent of snow, hence the name: SNOAP!
SNOAP can be wall-mounted or counter-mounted. We do soaps which work on your hands and body and solid shampoo, and we help save the planet from those 1.8 billion plastic bottles.
Tell me more about your sustainability efforts.
Obviously, SNOAP is sustainable because it is refillable- but aside from this, its plastic material ensures its longevity. The plastic also ensures that costs are kept down so that we can spread our sustainability and make it more accessible.
Aside from this, our soaps have little to no chemicals, our packaging is FSC approved and biodegradable and our carbon footprint is less than 10% of that emitted by liquid hand wash.
We’ve all seen these eco-friendly refill shops that are now popping up everywhere, where you take your jars and bottles to the shop. SNOAP makes this process even easier because we send the refill straight to your home or hotel.
How is SNOAP elevating the luxury experience for hotel guests?
Lots of hand and body washes cannot, technically speaking, be categorised as soaps. They are scented, coloured detergents packaged as hand and body wash.
We elevate the luxury experience with our natural soaps and shampoos because they still contain the moisturising, conditioning element within the soap as it was years ago. We’ve gone back to basics- but with a luxury feel.
Why else should hoteliers opt for solid soaps as opposed to liquid hand wash?
We’re currently carrying out a case study on a rather big hotel for our own records. We’ve found that many hotels give miniature toiletries- two to five per room. These miniatures smell nice but as explained are basically detergents which strip the natural barriers off the skin – they also produce a lot of single use plastic waste. It’s estimated that 2.9m tonnes of plastic is discarded across the hospitality sector in the UK annually.
Another reason hoteliers should opt for our solid soaps is due to wastewater. In order for hoteliers to reach their sustainability targets it’s really important that they regulate not just what’s coming into the business- but also what’s coming out. Our solid soap changes the category of waste water as it does not pollute outgoing water like liquid handwash does. Additionally, there is no actual product waste at the end of use as the SNOAP dispenser grinds the entire bar.
SNOAP also significantly minimises storage use and cost as well as frequency of replenishment, and time taken to replenish, SNOAP is a no-brainer for hoteliers.
Are you working on anything new at the moment?
We are currently working on a tamper-proof band that will sit over the bottom of the dispenser to stop people from opening the door and removing the soap or removing the SNOAP Dispenser from the wall bracket. This also presents hoteliers with the opportunity to have their own branding on the dispenser which is really exciting.
What’s your greatest achievement at SNOAP?
That’s a difficult one because we’ve had so many great achievements. But every time we convert someone into a SNOAPY, I think that’s the greatest achievement of all. Whether the buyer is a business or an individual- each bar replaces ten single-use plastic bottles- so we’ve saved 7,000 from the environment so far which is something we’re really proud of.
Visit SNOAP’s profile page to learn more about their revolutionary hotel dispenser solutions.
