About Us

I’m Liz, the owner of Bear Minimum Refillery & Sustainable Goods Marketplace.

Ever since starting a family over 6 years, I became overly conscious about ingredients of basically everything that came into the home. Body care, hair care, medicines, food, materials of housewares and toys, and the list goes on and on and on. I found myself obsessed with learning about all of the toxins we are in contact with in our every day lives, and how to best eliminate them as much as possible. This journey led me to not just caring about what's in my home, but what's best for this earth. 

Rewind to when I graduated high school in 2006, and landed my first full time job working at a private optometrist's office. I didn't have plans to attend college, and this job provided me a way to make my own money and really helped me understand my own capabilities within the "real world". I worked there for 7 years, and in that time I decided to pursue an optician's license to take my knowledge and skills further. For not being a "school" person, I excelled and was on the dean's list every semester. I was finding my passion within the healthcare industry and it felt so fulfilling. I planned my wedding in 2012 and ended up taking a semester off to free up some time to do so, because full time job & full time school was a lot (as many know all too well). I got married in 2013, and ended up never returning to school. I took a new position for a change of pace, but still within the same industry, worked there for 3 years, and then went back to a private practice for another 5 years. So if you're adding that all up, I spent 15 years in the same field. The last few years of my career in healthcare took the passion and wind out of my sails. Between becoming a mother, and feeling less fulfilled in my own personal journey in life, I often looked down the road of life wanting to feel that fire within me again. 

The pandemic hit, I was furloughed, and I remember a few months prior to the lockdown, I read an article that stuck with me. It was an article about a woman who opened a refillery store, the first one of its kind in New Jersey. (Shout out to Deanna @ Good Bottle Refill Shop in Maplewood, this is about you.) I instantly had a vision of a life I felt passionate about. I felt inspired by this woman’s own risk, and wanted to take my own. I started researching and reading everything I could about sustainable shops & refillery’s across the world. I talked about it from sun up to sun down to anyone that would listen. One of those ears listened more intently than anyone else. That ear was my original business partner. I remember the phone call I received from him that he had found the perfect shop for this dream of mine to be built. So with fear and excitement in my voice, when he asked if I was in, I said YES. He helped me build this dream of mine, into a reality. And for that I am forever grateful for. 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

& I look forward to meeting you in the store!

🐻🌿✌️