Jessie Whittington, 40, was a bus driver for the George County School District for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced her to stay at home with her two kids, who were 9 and 12 years old at the time.
She started making goat-milk soap as a side hobby in July 2020 under the business name Country Lather Soap Works. She advertised it by word of mouth, Facebook and Instagram, but she said she did not gain much traction. A friend encouraged her to post soap-making videos on TikTok.
Whittington started posting videos under the username @countrylater2020 and went from 400 followers to 3,000 followers within two months after one of her videos amassed thousands of views in 2020. She then “was forced” to create a website to sell her products due to increased demand from her TikTok followers.
“You’re never going to grow as a person if you don’t make those little baby steps to get past your comfort zone, get past your bubble,” Whittington said at a TikTok creator event in Jackson, Miss., on July 30.
Whittington went back to driving her bus part-time in 2021, and she made soap and posted TikTok videos in her free time. She noted that she created content on TikTok regularly to build and engage her audience. Her business took off and that year, she quit her bus route and ran Country Lather Soap Works full time.
“I do miss driving the school bus, but I’m in a much better place now because of TikTok,” Whittington said at the creator event. “I get up every single day, and I get to make soap, and that is what I love to do.”
At the time, she made soap out of her modest-sized house, but her business started booming, and she moved her workspace to its own building specifically created for her.
Jessie Whittington had more than 83,000 followers as of Nov. 12, 2024, and her followers and customers hail from locations across the U.S. and beyond. Since 2020, she has shipped out more than 5,000 orders. Most of her videos feature Whittington making soap, cutting it into individual squares, demonstrating her products and showcasing the various scents. She sprinkles humor into every video and will sometimes post short, humorous videos about her personal life.
Whittington felt her reach expand when she was attending a soap-making convention in Hartford, Conn., and met many of her followers who started their own soap business after watching Whittington’s TikTok videos.
“If I could sum up TikTok in one word, it’s ‘community,’” she said at the TikTok creator event, mentioning two friends she met because of the app that she finally got to meet in person at the convention after three years of online friendship.
The creator accredited her TikTok success to her thick Mississippi accent and down-to-earth personality, which are consistent both on- and off-camera. She has not changed her demeanor or content as her account and storefront have grown.
“I’m the same now as I am at the house. I don’t change at all,” Whittington told the Mississippi Free Press. “People see how realistic I am, and there’s no show to it. I’m the same here as I am when I go to church on Sunday, and people are attracted to that.”
