Our Story
The founder, Aaron Probert, is a business management graduate and social entrepreneur who has worked on impact ventures for four years. In his second year of University, he heard a homeless woman's story whose usual spot was across the road from him.
It was a story of domestic abuse which led to alcohol escapism and becoming isolated from her support network due to her abuser. Then her kidneys failed and she was faced with a decision - her partner, consumption and death, or a life on the streets. She chose the streets. After hearing this, Aaron wrote his dissertation based on a business model and decided to make it come to life.
He placed soap and other cosmetics at the centre of revenue streams because he wanted a solution everyone could join in on - and what better way to do this than your daily wash and care routine? So, he trained how to formulate cosmetics and studied skincare.
This led to Labre's Hope coming to life after a three year journey which involved countless consultations to maximise impact and testing product to ensure they are able to transform people's skin.
Our artisan process
Here at Labre's Hope, we have perfected hot-process soap crafting to bring you bars unlike you have seen before. We combine plant oils like Avocado Oil and Shea Butter with a base to begin the saponification process. We then blend our soap batter until we finish the process of turning oils in to soap molecules. Following on from this, we infuse natural essential oils like Lavender and Geranium Rose into our products to give you a truly natural aromatherapeutic scent. For the finishing touch, we imbue our soaps with natural colourants which help keep our bars 100% biodegradable while giving you all the added skin benefits like the impurity-removing Activated Charcoal.
The Journey
People who are at risk of homelessness or on a recent journey out of homelessness that are ready for employment, are referred to Labre’s Hope through other homelessness charities and
organisations such as Crisis, Shiloh, Shelter, Rush House, or the SYHA. We hire these people to make handcrafted, planet-friendly soap on both a full-time and part time basis, providing a stable and secure salary that equates to the London Living Wage.
Meet the Team
Labre’s Hope’s journey started back in 2019 in the form of Aaron’s university dissertation. Ultimately, Labre’s Hope would not be here today, striving to end homelessness if it was not for Aaron’s persistence, dedication, resilience and unceasing hard work to make this project happen. Aaron’s role within Labre’s Hope encompasses everything. He oversees all operations, formulates new products, plots the future of the business and sets the tone of positivity in progression here at Labre’s Hope.
Aaron strongly believes that it takes a community to help a community, and has therefore placed community at the centre of Labre’s Hope’s ethos.
Joash is responsible for the weekly delivery of our partners-Crisis’ well-being sessions, and the SYHA’s one-to-one employment coaching classes. It is essential to the proper running of Labre’s Hope, that our beneficiaries receive these services, but also that our fantastic partners are happy, and feel they can deliver their sessions in the appropriate environment.
Joash feels that general perceptions surrounding homelessness need to change. Homelessness encompasses a wider range of individuals than commonly thought, such as couch surfers and people in temporary accommodation. It is important to recognise that homelessness is a much larger issue than it may seem, and so needs even more of a collective effort to fight it!
Craig is Labre’s Hope’s Head of Communications, and is responsible for marketing our soap, and putting it into the hands of any future customers! With his immense digital marketing experience, Craig runs all of Labre’s Hope’s social media outlets, making sure all of our followers see plenty of great content we have to display.
Craig has worked in the fight against homelessness before, starting and running a successful company that collected and distributed sleeping bags and clothes among the homeless in South Yorkshire. We’re honoured and blessed to have him on board!
Chloe is our Customer Engagement Administrator and is responsible for making sure all of our customers are kept happy and satisfied through excellent customer care. Chloe definitely brings a level of much-needed organization to Labre’s Hope, along with bags of experience in an array of different professional spheres.
Chloe believes that to tackle homelessness, both regionally and on a much wider scale, it takes a communal effort. There is no ‘too small a thing’ anyone can do to join the fight. Whether this is buying food for someone you may pass on the street, or simply following homelessness charities and organizations on social media, every effort goes a long way!