Dirty Grl Soap Cleans Up on Instagram and IRL
The world of Liberty Leben is a pastel update on the 90s culture of cute, with influences that range from troll dolls to gummy bears. Equal parts Parsons student and bona fide businesswoman, Liberty creates rainbow-colored, sparkly soaps under the cheeky banner “Dirty Grl.” Her aesthetic translates seamlessly from Instagram to IRL: online, her images are a stream of sequins and strategically placed soaps; in person, Liberty is bubbly with hair the color of a baby’s birthday cake (light purple, pink or sometimes green).
Liberty has built her personal taste into a brand over the past year, combining learnings from her classes and real-world experience as creative director of her boyfriend Matt Starr’s art experiences. Last year, she produced “The Limited Fucking 2,” a fantastical tween-themed party in a gutted Curry Hill apartment. More recently she helped Starr pull off “Diet,” a faux lifestyle brand that dominated a Soho DKNY-sponsored group show. While she relished the creative environment, assisting Starr didn’t give Liberty everything she wanted. “I was like, ‘I need my own thing I can do,” she says over a granola breakfast on Graham Ave.
After The Limited Fucking 2, she started making the choker necklaces we all used to buy at Claire’s. When a friend suggested she sell them, Liberty needed a way to package them that would be both original and sustainable. “I remembered making soap when I was little and putting clothes in it,” she says. “I was like, ‘This has so much potential! Why isn’t anyone doing anything with this?’ I thought, ‘I’ll have to do this or I’ll regret it.’”
She made a Dirty Grl shop on Big Cartel, and the attention was immediate. Nylon asked if they could feature her on their shop, and stores contacted Liberty to see if she could support wholesale orders. Regardless of the preparation time it would take, Liberty knew she had to say yes. She explains, “I got my LLC, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll just do it.’ I just put everything I can into it.”
She may be new to running a business, but Liberty’s very familiar with striking out on her own. In high school, her aunt and uncle offered to send Liberty and her twin sister to the college of their choice, if they relocated from Kansas to Austin, Texas. They both refused initially: in Kansas, Liberty was captain of her high school’s cheerleading team. Standing at a lithe 5’2”, she was the one tossed in the air, doing the splits while smiling wide. She’s become more introverted as she’s learned to live in New York City, but in moments of enthusiasm it’s easy to imagine her bouncy personality standing out at a pep rally.
Her junior year of high school, cheerleading spirits lowered when the team’s coaches kept quitting, and Liberty reconsidered her aunt and uncle’s offer. None of her friends believed Liberty would ever actually move. The way she tells it, “When I was 10, I remember I would say, ‘I’m going to New York and I’m majoring in fashion design.’ And all my little friends would say, ‘No, you’re going to go to KU like everyone else.’”
Liberty spent her junior year as the new girl in Austin; senior year she got into Parsons. She’ll graduate next year with a degree in communications design. Her thesis presentation showcased Dirty Grl through a social trading card game called “Save As.” To house the game, Liberty constructed a pop-up shop where she asked people to pay for products with attention. At an iPad register, customers were asked to follow Liberty on Instagram and like a number of her photos in order to receive a soap. The soaps were filled with Save As trading cards, physical Instagrams from people who have paid attention to Liberty in past. Some packs featured collaborators like Art Baby Girl, others included friends like cyborg Moon Ribas and Canadian blog stars the Beckermans.
When a customer pays with attention, they also enter the game. An Instagram card is automatically printed from their profile and added to a stack of cards to be packaged in soap. Liberty will be restocking her shop throughout her thesis, ensuring an ever-larger pool of participants. Liberty hopes the printed materials will eventually flow back to their online origins when people take photos of their trading cards: “If someone posts your card, you’re supposed to repost that picture,” she explains. “So it’s getting everyone attention, helping break this power system of social media, or like this competition for attention. I’m creating my own power system within another system, which is Instagram.”
Save As portrays the growing community around Dirty Grl while manufacturing a version of our increasingly dominant attention economy. But Liberty’s game attempts to divert from its real-life inspiration when it asks players to agree to reciprocity. Long gone are the days when “follow for follow” meant something. Anyone really trying to be an influencer online knows to pay attention to the sacred ratio, where follower count should be double or more that of “following.” If Liberty succeeds in creating a version of the attention economy where we’re all active collaborators and generous attention-givers rather than competitive like-hoarders, she will have made much more than a digital impression.
Photos: Shy Adelman
