Khadeejah Honesty embodies the spirit of Sōultry. It’s the Arlington designer’s one-stop shop for the soul, and it’s filled with her handmade clay earrings, skin care products and a burgeoning collection of apparel designed to nurture your entire being.
“The name means the attractiveness of one’s soul,” says Honesty of her biz, which will celebrate its two-year anniversary this spring. “We’re attracted to a lot physically, but what about the soul? And what type of people are you attracting based on who you are?”
The idea came from her journey. The DC native earned her bachelor’s in marketing and management at the former Art Institute in Rosslyn. She interned at Anthropologie in Georgetown, ran an Old Navy store under Gap and was on the path forward. Then, she got pregnant. With little help from her family and suffering from stress, she had daughter Zion (now 5) prematurely—at 23 weeks. Zion weighed one pound.
“She was a miracle,” says Honesty. The two spent six months at Inova Fairfax Hospital; soon after, they experienced homelessness. “I had to choose between my career and daughter.”
Arlington-based Doorways for Women and Families helped her quickly transition into her own apartment. More challenges followed—a year off to care for Zion, a stint at marketing firm LMO before it downsized and a gig at South Moon Under.
All the while, the concept of Sōultry was forming. Honesty adapted her lifestyle, rethought what she put in and on her body and learned about aromatherapy. She also began developing her own products: Why buy sugar scrub when you can make it?
Then, a leap of faith. She left South Moon Under and balanced driving for Instacart, cultivating her business and being a mom. Her first labels were on computer paper she’d laminate with shipping tape. “They looked good,” she says. “They were bootleg, but I was a creative.” She peddled her wares at the Courthouse farmers market. ose early shoppers were her focus group. In fact, the people of NoVA still provide inspiration, from the shape, size and design of her earrings to her body care goods.
Today, Honesty has moved online due to the pandemic, but it’s been a small blessing. She’s had a tremendous increase in sales on a national level—though her Arlington County clients are the most loyal, she says.
She earned their trust with her whipped shea butter, which she sources from South Africa; they come back for the lip balm or the facial mask. She sources ingredients (lemongrass essential oils, beeswax and more) for her small-batch, 100% natural products from Whole Foods or MOM’s Organic Market.
Earring collections debut once or twice monthly. Each piece is one of a kind, with abstract aesthetics influenced by her travel bucket list and her faith, her passion for exploring new cultures and her goal of inspiring others. Recent lines have names that are community-focused, like Joy, to offer encouragement. “I get feedback from the women who purchase from me,” she says. “They talk about the compliments they get … The goal is to make you feel beautiful just the way you are. The earrings create an avenue to constantly feel beautiful in your day.”
Then there was Exclusively You, a charitable collab with DC-based The Rooted Life (a Black-owned Christian lifestyle brand) to raise $5,000 for Amirah, a nonprofit that aids women impacted by sexual exploitation.
Honesty hopes to one day use Soultry to support Doorways for Women. “It’s an expression of gratitude,” she says. “I want people to know that the work they do is real.”
Also on her wish list: opening a brick-andmortar store. She’s been researching spaces in the region, and her goal is to provide an incubator where people can shop, sip coffee—or even get the same opportunity she needed, whether it’s a job or charitable assistance. Because, after all, Soultry is about a feeling. “You can sense it online, and it was amazing to create that virtually,” she says. “But I want to give that to the community in a real way.”
(Khadeejah Honesty photo by Christin Boggs Peyper)
This story originally ran in our February issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.
