SPINSTER SISTERS / GOLDEN, COLORADO
COMPANIES I ADMIRE BY ROB URBAN
Soap.
Sisterhood.
Something to share.
A first batch for friends.
A company with room for care.
Spinster Sisters’ 2023 impact report includes a day spent preparing planting beds.
To mark eleven years in business, the team joined a Denver Urban Gardens food-forest preparation event. The company’s account describes work for fruit trees and vegetables to support Denver Public Schools.
I like finding that scene in the story of a soap company. People whose working days involve making and sending products found another way to put their hands to use.
It gives the company’s sense of care a local, human setting.
There is a similar warmth in how Spinster Sisters began: with something Kelly Perkins made to give away.
A gift, then a booth.
The company’s published history places her first batch of soap in 1993, as holiday gifts for family and friends. Later that year, Kelly and her sister sold products together at a craft fair.
They named the booth Spinster Sisters, taking a word associated with unmarried women and making it their own.
That name has a cheerfulness I enjoy. It holds onto the relationship between the sisters and the pleasure of doing something together. The company now describes that spirit more broadly as women supporting women.
A gift is a personal beginning for a product. You make something, put it into another person’s hands and hope it adds a little pleasure to their day.
Even as the scale changes, that is an origin worth remembering.
An idea
can take
its time.
The path from that first batch to full-time work took years.
Spinster Sisters records Kelly leaving her corporate travel job in 2012, hiring her first full-time employee that year, opening a branded shop and production space in downtown Golden in 2014, and moving into a larger Microsoapery in 2017.
I find the pace of that history encouraging. A meaningful idea can have a long life before it becomes the center of someone’s working day.
It leaves room for people whose own ambitions are developing gradually. Making something once, returning to it and eventually building a team around it are different experiences.
The full chronology lets us appreciate each of them.
Could it be a bar?
One later chapter concerned the form of the products themselves.
In its account of the Free From collection, the company describes expanding from solid hair-care products into bars for other parts of a personal-care routine, including body butter and sugar scrub.
The idea was to offer concentrated products in a form that could use different packaging. The article discusses the difficulty of relying on a container being recycled after purchase.
What interests me is the willingness to reconsider an everyday object. A familiar routine can make a bottle feel inevitable. A maker can ask whether the product might take another shape.
I appreciate that kind of curiosity because people can encounter the result in something ordinary: an item on a bathroom shelf, held in a hand, used as part of a day.
The ambition becomes tangible.
The people
around the products.
The 2023 report also gives a view of the people around the products.
It describes a team hike in the Golden foothills with Carly Moree and Rocky Mountain Hiking Company during a warehouse move. The day included lunch at a local restaurant.
Alongside that outing and the garden work, the report describes a partnership with VALE Academy, including business-pitch activities and hosting a student to learn practical skills.
These accounts make me think about what a growing company can share: time, experience, an introduction to a profession or simply a day outdoors together.
A founder’s idea creates work for other people. Those people, in turn, create a life around the business.
I am glad the company’s own account has room for them.
Care has many forms.
There is a public record of its broader commitments as well. B Lab lists Spinster Sisters as certified since March 2022, with an assessment covering areas including workers, community and environment.
That gives readers a named framework to explore alongside the company’s own report. The report remains a record of its period, and its dates matter.
For me, the most engaging details are still the human ones: sisters at a craft fair, a founder making a larger commitment, colleagues on a trail, a team preparing a place for things to grow.
Spinster Sisters makes everyday products. The story behind them shows how much care and imagination an everyday category can hold.
Explore more Companies I Admire. If the people and decisions behind your products deserve a fuller story, I would be glad to hear it.
Rob Urban
The story’s dates.
Who founded Spinster Sisters?
Kelly Perkins is the founder. The company dates her first gift batch and a craft-fair booth with her sister to 1993, and her move into running the business full time to 2012.
Which impact report informs this article?
The community, team and student-program examples come from Spinster Sisters’ 2023 impact report. They describe that reporting period and are not presented as a current program schedule.
Is Spinster Sisters listed as a Certified B Corporation?
Yes. B Lab’s directory, reviewed September 29, 2026, lists Spinster Sisters as certified since March 2022. Readers can consult the directory for the assessment and certification record.