Casey Kelly spent 20 years in the beauty industry, focusing on products and their specific ingredients. In 2022, while sitting around the kitchen table, Casey and her sister, Cara, talked it over and decided they wanted to create everyday products that not only smelled great but also worked and were made without “all the unnecessary extras.”
“So, we started making our own,” Casey Kelly said.
Thus, Wash & Cloth was born. It continues to be a family affair as the sisters create formulas, test products, package orders, work in the stores, grow the brand and plan for the future — together.
“Since then, we’ve continued to grow by doing what we did from the very beginning: creating, testing, listening to our customers and constantly thinking about what we can make better or do differently,” Casey Kelly said. “The exciting part is that we still feel like we’re just getting started. We’re always formulating something new, trying new ideas and evolving the brand. Honestly, that’s one of my favorite parts of what we’re building.”
The company’s cleaning products are among its bestsellers.
“Customers love how good their laundry smells, even right out of the dryer, and with so many scents to choose from, everyone seems to find their favorite. We hear all the time that it actually makes people excited to do laundry, which we love,” Casey Kelly said. “Sink Wash is another product that really represents what we do because it takes something incredibly ordinary — cleaning your sink — and turns it into something you actually enjoy using.”
Casey Kelly’s personal favorite is the company’s Nourish Face Oil.
“I’ve struggled with breakouts even into my 40s, and this is the first face oil I’ve found that soaks right in, keeps my skin clear and gives me that glow without leaving my face feeling oily. I honestly don’t want to be without it,” she said.
Other products include dryer ball spray, a bamboo wide-tooth comb, tallow solid body butter, therapy rollers, a bamboo travel soap dish, clean-scent car diffusers and konjac sponges.
Plant-based ingredients include lavender oil, apricot kernel oil, cocoa and shea butters, certified organic golden jojoba oil, beet sugar, rosehip seed oil and Epsom salt.
Casey and Cara focus on nature when deciding on ingredients and try to use as few ingredients as possible. The products are brainstormed, tested and created in a nature-based kitchen in Apollo Beach.
“We test everything on our friends and families first, and then we take it to our customers. The Sarasota Farmers Market is actually one of our favorite places to do that because we get to talk directly to so many people who use our products,” Casey Kelly said. “We can let them try something new, hear what they think and use that feedback before we officially launch it online and in our stores.”
Wash & Cloth adheres to the standards of Proposition 65, officially known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, a California law enacted in the 1980s that requires businesses to provide warnings about significant exposure to chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. The owners have also instituted their own Clean Scent Promise.
“We’re really thoughtful about what we choose to leave out, too. Our fragrances are phthalate-free, and we avoid things like parabens, formaldehyde and other unnecessary additives we don’t feel belong in our products,” Casey Kelly said. “We love scent and want our products to smell amazing. We just believe you can have both: beautiful fragrance and ingredients you can feel good about bringing into your home.”
Wash & Cloth products — the company’s name comes from the simple ideas of washing and a washcloth — are sold at the Sarasota Farmers Market every Saturday, at the company’s newly opened Apollo Beach location and at its shared Siesta Key location with CandleHaus. Products can also be found at select locations in Tampa; St. Louis, Missouri; and Bradford, Pennsylvania.
“Siesta Key gave us an opportunity to introduce both brands to people from all over the country while still being part of the Sarasota community we already knew and loved,” Casey Kelly said of the partnership with CandleHaus that began 15 months ago. “We had already spent time in Sarasota through the UTC Mall and the Sarasota Farmers Market, so Siesta Key felt like a natural next step.”
The two businesses have plenty in common, including their behind-the-scenes operations, a passion for delivering a positive customer experience, careful attention to ingredients and, of course, scent.
“You can spend the day at the beach, come in and discover a body oil or laundry soap from us and a candle from CandleHaus, and those scents can become connected to your time here. Then you go home to the Northeast, the Midwest or wherever home happens to be, use that body oil or light that candle months later and suddenly you’re thinking about Siesta Key again,” Casey Kelly said.
“At the same time, Sarasota isn’t just a tourist market for us. We have an incredibly strong local customer base, too, and the Sarasota Farmers Market has been a huge part of building that. We see people week after week who come back to restock the products they use at home. We love when someone discovers us while visiting Siesta Key, but we really love when someone comes back because they finished something and need another one. That’s when you know you’ve made something that has become part of someone’s actual routine.”
Wash & Cloth is located at 5221 Ocean Blvd., Unit 4, on Siesta Key. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The store is closed Sundays. For more information, visit washandcloth.com.
