Our dog, Nea, in the old shop window.
About 10 years ago Susan Ryhanen retired from 30 years of teaching and started tinkering with handmade olive oil soap. In the basement. With a shoebox as a mold.
Since then, Sarah and Eric moved to New York, got jobs, quit jobs, and began helping Susan take her incredible handmade soap on the road. After establishing scores of wholesale clients around the world, Saipua was bound to settle down with a storefront. They opened their first shop in July of 2006 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Simultaneously, Sarah purchased an old Mystic Beverage cooler and decided that Saipua would also be flower shop.
Three years later, Saipua gets a new studio and storefront on a quiet sidestreet around the corner. Longtime friend and architect, Jeremy Barbour of Tacklebox designed the new storefront. With a larger workshop and a more ideally designed storefront, Sarah and Eric are able to make everything under one roof and be happy doing it most of the time.