NorthumberlandNews.Com : Northumberland businesses pivoted to address PPE, hand sanitizer shortages

With more residents seeking to buy local products and more retailers selling them, K. Dee Howard has been increasingly busy making deliveries.

During a recent stopover at the Happenstance Coffee Pub in downtown Port Hope, where she dropped off a supply of hand sanitizer while grabbing a coffee, Howard spoke about Sootsoap Supply Co. Ltd., a company she co-founded and for which she serves as president.

The company specializes in natural personal care products, first manufacturing and distributing a detoxifying and deodorizing line, and now making hand sanitizer.

“Our products were initially developed to help protect our firefighters from cancer-causing toxin exposure and we have now released our premium hand sanitizer,” she said. “The hand sanitizer is kind of exploding a little bit. It’s getting a lot of attention and is being sold at some retailers in town, which is great to see.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Howard said her company worked to apply and received Health Canada approval for their pharmaceutical-grade hand sanitizer.

“We were hearing our customers’ frustrations with the availability of approved, high-quality, well-priced hand sanitizer and knew we could help,” she said. “We worked quickly with our lab to switch gears and develop a hand sanitizer that could not only help solve availability issues, but also address complaints with other products on the market.”

Sootsoap hand sanitizer gel not only kills bacteria with a 70 per cent pharmaceutical-grade ethyl alcohol formula, it will leave your hands silky soft thanks to its smooth consistency and moisturizing aloe and will keep the alcohol smell at bay with just a hint of peppermint, she said.