Soapology, a bath and body brand specializing in natural, handmade products, boasts a concise but thoughtfully designed website that I found captivating. The home page, in particular, impressed me with its airy but engaging layout, complete with a trackable shopping cart, a search tool, and secure account access, all of which made accessibility a breeze.
The content blocks that thoughtfully separated each category were more than just a design choice — they helped me quickly hone in on exactly what I needed without getting lost in a sea of options. Additionally, the ability to sort items out alphabetically, by price from low to high, or according to best sellers, made my search for the perfect soap effortless.
The desktop website felt like a breath of fresh air, with its airy design and floating menu making navigation effortless. Although I appreciated the simplicity of the layout, I felt like the images on the home page were a touch too big. As a result, I found myself scrolling more than I would have liked to view the full images and categories.
On the shopping pages, I appreciated the hover feature, where images would shift to show a different angle of the product — a delightful touch that felt like unwrapping a gift. However, the inconsistency of this was noticeable; not all product images offered this feature, and some images even appeared grainy and unpolished, detracting from the overall desktop experience.
The mobile website won me over with its linear menu, which was neatly tucked behind a hamburger icon for convenience. Here, drop-down options were indicated with plus symbols, which made them easier to identify, and navigating these options felt more intuitive. I also loved that the menu included social media icons for easy connection.
However, the categories' carousel feature on the home page didn't quite hit the mark for me. While I appreciated that the images did not require excessive scrolling, I found myself wishing for a grid-like presentation to see all my options. That said, the home page performance score of 35/100 on Google's PageSpeed Insights was a bit of a surprise, but the 86/100 accessibility score was reassuring.