New shop in Kennebunk has a mission: Help customers 'tread lightly on the Earth'

KENNEBUNK, Maine — Cyndy Camp and Sarah Holden-Remick are so committed to the vision of their new, environment-friendly shop at 68 Main Street that they even brought care and creativity to what they named the place.

Tip Toe Eco Marketplace.

You no doubt understand the “Eco” part as shorthand for the environment. But where did they get the idea for Tip Toe?

“Tread lightly on the Earth,” Holden-Remick said.

In other words, reducing the carbon footprint you leave on the planet. Tip-toeing.

Creativity abounds throughout the store on the shelves, which offer natural goods from local consigners, and in the shop’s kitchen and workshop. Customers soon will be able to watch Holden-Remick make her bath-and-body products and take classes.

Tip Toe had a soft opening in mid-February and is slated to have its official grand opening on April 1. Between now and then, however, there will be a one-day course on silk-scarf painting on Saturday, March 25, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kennebunk-Kennebunkport-Arundel Chamber of Commerce on Friday, March 31.

Currently, the store is open Thursday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Come May 1, the shop will keep those hours seven days a week.

Holden-Remick describes Tip Toe as a “hub for all things eco-friendly, natural and sustainable,” while Camp calls the place “one-stop shopping for everything to make it easy for people to be sustainable.”

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Teaming up to create Tip Toe Eco Marketplace

Holden-Remick and Camp met each other at the farmers’ markets where they have sold their products in recent years. Once they started talking, they learned they both had the same goal.

“We both wanted to open a shop one day and not have plastic and have a refill area,” Holden-Remick said.

Each thought the idea would be daunting to pursue on her own. So, they teamed up.

Currently, the shop is a home for goods created by more than 20 consigners throughout Southern Maine and New England – goods that include bath-and-body items, such as soaps, shampoos and lotions, salsa, artwork, stained glass, birdhouses, and much more.

“We’re really happy,” Camp said. “Several of the consigners have really gone the extra yard to switch out their own packaging so that they can be here with us ... We’ve eliminated the need for plastic wrap and several other things like that.”

More consigners are on the way. A beekeeper in Eliot, for example, soon will be selling his honey.

Camp and Holden-Remick said the workshop at the back of the shop should be finished within days, in time for that silk-scarf painting class, which Dawn Burns, the owner of The Creative Soul in Kennebunk, will teach on the 25th. From there, other classes will focus not just on product making but also on physical and mental well-being.

“One of our consultants wants to do a Reiki class,” Holden-Remick said. “We have a consigner who wants to teach an herbal medicine class.”

Holden-Remick came to the United States from England in 2014 and started her own business, Sarandipity Soap Company, and started making her own bath-and-body products that same year.

Throughout her career, Camp has worked in various fields, including government, education and tourism, all to “learn lots of different angles.” In the past three years, she has been the owner of Leave No Trace Refillery. Rather than throw out their containers once they’re finished with a product, Camp’s customers contact her and ask her to visit and refill them.

Camp said she models her role on the milkman of years gone by. Instead of milk, though, Camp brings cleaning vinegar, hand sanitizer, makeup remover, and other products for refilling.

“My store has been my van,” Camp said. “I go door-to-door, and I refill my customers’ containers with the Earth-friendly products that I’ve researched so that they can cut down on their single-use packaging.”

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Products not offered anywhere else in Kennebunk

In an effort not to “step on the toes” of other businesses in town, Holden-Remick and Camp said they ask all their consigners not to sell their wares anywhere else in Kennebunk.

“That’s so we’re not competing with each other and to keep us unique,” Camp said. “We’re just trying our best to help everybody.”

Camp said the people of Kennebunk have been receptive to their new business.

“The welcome here has been remarkable, really warm,” she said.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Tip Toe Eco Marketplace: New shop a hub for all things eco-friendly