Every first Friday of the month, Roosevelt Row comes alive. The street and surrounding area is covered with tents, food trucks and people.
First Friday was created by a local nonprofit organization Artlink in the mid-90s. The event started out with only a handful of participants, but now has hundreds of vendors and artists, all coming together to showcase their products.
Bathtub Potions & Lotions
Gem Mittenberg, the owner of Bathtub Potions & Lotions greets anyone who walks by, encouraging people to smell the bars of soap and her other bath products.
Mittenberg started her business after retiring from massage therapy and esthetics. She first made only soap, but then expanded her store.
“It absolutely started out with soap, that’s where we all start, and then— but the world of body products is so large, and you want to try new things, and you can’t always depend on soap,” Mittenberg said. “A lot of people are, you know, ‘I’ve got 20 bars at home. I don’t need any more bars.’ OK, cool. So as a small business owner, you’ve got to kind of branch out while still keeping the quality good.”
Mittenberg maintains the quality of her products by creating only small batches.
“My body butters, my body candles, you’ll never see more than 10 of them because it keeps the quality control and I know every batch intimately,” Mittenberg said. “And you’ve got to know because you’re selling it to the public, saying ‘Hey, put this all over yourself. It’s fine.’ And I think keeping it small keeps it intimate.”
Mittenberg uses her experience as a massage therapist and esthetician to help her customers.
“If you tell me, you have sensitive skin, and I don’t have an unscented bar on the table, you’re not going to buy,” Mittenberg said. “I want my business name to be good, but I also want you to have a great experience. I want you to go ‘That was fabulous.’”
Roślinki
Every First Friday, Marz Debowski, the owner of Roślinki, wears his sun hat and fills his tent with bright lights and plants. There are juniper procumbent bonsai trees on one table, cacti in wooden crates on another and a small stack of rose of Jericho in between the two.
Debowski has had a long love for plants and turned his passion into a business by working as a landscape designer and running Roślinki. He originally started selling bonsai trees after getting interested in the artform and wanted to share it with others.
“I think, just as a kid, I was on YouTube and watched some videos. I found it very meditative, and that was probably over 10 years ago,” Debowski said. “And then eventually I wanted to share that passion with others but found that online you can’t really find a very good, affordable quality kit to get started. So I decided to start my own.”
The Roślinki bonsai kit comes with a three-year-old juniper procumbens tree, a pot for the tree, wire pruners, fertilizer, and an online tutorial. Debowski grows the trees in his own home, occasionally supplementing his supply with trees from his partners in California. The juniper procumbens tree, a tree native to Japan, is suitable for the Phoenix climate because it can tolerate hot and dry conditions.
“I actually grow these myself from mother plants; larger, older, mature bonsai trees that I take clippings from, and then I’ll root them myself,” Debowski said. “My house is a little bit like a miniature forest.”
Timid Designs
In a tent down the road from Bathtub Potions & Lotions and Roślinki, is a table with wire baskets filled with fuzzy crocheted stuffed animals and stickers. Owner of Timid Designs, Dayanera Disch warmly welcomes anyone who walks by.
Disch started crocheting in high school after being bedridden for two weeks.
“I just needed a way to cope with the anxiety and depression that came with being bedridden and so I picked up so many different hobbies,” Disch added, “but crochet just stuck, and it was more of a serotonin boost and it made me feel happy.”
After she started crocheting, she decided to share the happiness it gave her with others. That mentality is clear when she interacts with passersby.
“Even if they’re getting something or not, seeing people come up and just be like— you can’t help but see it on their face, where they’re like ‘I want to touch it. I want to squish,’” Disch said. “And I’m like ‘Please do, please do!”
She also used her business to support a cause she believes in, such as selling stickers and uterus plushies to support Planned Parenthood.
“I’ve had my fair share of moments where like; I’ve had to rely on help like that. And it just having that ripped away from just anybody because it’s not just what’s going on right now. It’s such an active resource for people just to have and for that to be taken away — because it doesn’t just affect women. It affects men and it affects everybody.”
Disch’s ultimate goal is to spread happiness among anyone who walks by.
“I started being like, you know what, I want to spread the serotonin and bring joy because I can’t help but look at a plush and just be like ‘aw,’” Disch said. “Just like the noises and the faces that people make when they walk up. You’re just like yeah, that’s the feeling.
Contact the reporter at icaro@asu.edu
