Photography by Ann White
La'Crassia Wilderness of Butter Love
La'Crassia Wilderness
Flanked by Teatopia to the east and Restyled by Izzy to the west, Butter Love Skin is the newest shop to open on Cherokee Street. In 2014, owner La’Crassia Wilderness launched her business from home, building a studio there and organizing a series of pop up events. Last year, she moved Butter Love’s e-commerce operations to Tech Artista in The Grove. Now, after a grand opening celebration on June 10, she’s bringing retail, office space, as well as the company’s production facilities all under one roof. We spoke to Wilderness to learn more about this new exciting chapter in her career.
What was the impetus for the move?
I’ve been thinking about it for eight years. It’s been eight years of growth, eight years of trial and error, eight years of learning about what we really want to do with Butter Love. We grew up with a great fan base and customer base here in St. Louis and beyond and, for the past three years, I’ve been looking for a space that I could afford. I don’t know what was going on during the pandemic but everything went up unreasonably and I was struggling to find a space that fit our budget.
Photography by Ann White
What were you looking for and what made this space the right one?
We wanted a space large enough to make every product in-house. We have a line of 14 SKUs and we want to showcase what we have, create a hub for our customers to have an experience. All of our friends are on Cherokee. This area is how I started Butter Love, how we grew our company through pop ups and people here promoting it. The community is so excited that I'm here and I’m excited to be here, too. The love is real and I figured that out quickly. From the moment we moved in, we just took off. Fresh Thyme [the grocery store chain] reached out to us the first week we moved in, saying that they wanted us in all their Midwest store locations. That’s just major growth. We had to hunker down, order our materials, and get a lot of products made because they ordered two cases of every SKU, which is bananas. It was probably the most stressful week but we got it all done and it worked out. Our grand opening was great. We maxed out our RSVPs. We had so many people here and it was just really beautiful.
What can you tell us about the look of the shop?
We’re staying true to what Butter Love is at its core. I don’t want to forget my roots and how I started, which was in my home. So when you walk into the store, I want people to feel like they’re home. I took my time to bring in pieces from my home to make the shop look as natural and safe and comfortable as possible. We have a couch, a record player, plants everywhere. When people walk in, I want them to feel the love.
Photography by Ann White
What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered as you move toward this next phase of your business?
Right now our biggest challenge is having body butter [one of the company’s core products] available in the summertime. It melts due to the heat so it looks like melted butter. But we’ve found a solution to that, which are our lightweight body oils. They're super hydrating, smell amazing, and add natural vitamins and nutrients to your skin. They make your skin glow. Our body butter will still be available but we’re pushing the body oils for the summer months.
Address: 2608 Cherokee
Store hours: Thursday and Friday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 12 to 4 p.m.
