From journalist, speechwriter... to soap maker??

To think less than two years ago, I was making soaps in our kitchen. I was writing speeches for the Foreign and Trade Ministers by day and by night I was experimenting with a new type of creativity that involved scent and texture - it was the start of a love affair with natural plant oils for the skin.

My partner and I had talked for a while about starting a business - still not sure how a doctor and a journalist by training ended up in the soap business... but it kind of all just happened. Like most people we didn't really think that much about soap but once we started making it and I started researching it, I think I had a light bulb moment where I realised how fundamental soap was to our modern lives and yet how unethical the whole production of commercially available soap was. Not to mention, how bad it actually was for your skin.

The journalist in me did an incredible amount of research on skin care and plant oils (It's also handy having a doctor as my right-hand man who has an incredible understanding of chemistry and skin). Most of my research focussed on Australian oils. I had a hunch that these oils would be great for the skin. Having travelled the country as a journalist with SBS and having written a lot of speeches on our first rate agricultural sector, I was biased.

We also started sharing our concoctions with family and friends and the response was so positive that I started believing that there was a business in this...

Emma