The History of The Kentish Soap Company

Today I thought I'd take you back to the beginning of The Kentish Soap Company. Back to 2011...

I was a very shy 16 year old with a very bad looking "emo fringe" (what was I thinking?). I knew very little of the wrongs and rights of commercial soaps and eco friendly packaging back then.

My mum (Jayne) however was the queen of soap making in my family and had been making soap for 5 years previous. Family and friends would come to her for all their soap needs and she would happily stock them up with bar after bar of freebies. Eventually however their cupboards began to burst at the seams as their supplies over took their needs and it was then my mum had to make a choice; stop making or start selling? Of course her love of the craft made her choose start selling and after a lot of paper work she received her safety assessments, The Kentish Soap Company was born!

A few weeks after I was unknowingly volunteered (teenager remember) to help with our first fair at the Weald of Kent school in Tonbridge. It was the beginning of December and the Christmas festivities had already invaded the world. I won't lie to you, we were nervous! Would people like our products? Would they sell?

Over the hours we were there we received great interest and sold most of the stock we had with us so we called that a SUCCESS!

As I was at school (and then eventually college) I watched as my mum (Jayne) then went on to do more and more fairs, markets and festivals, researching and developing the products as she went to create the all natural, beautiful soaps we have today. I was still active in helping out at most of our events which helped me in getting over my shyness and developed skills that I use today such as photography and marketing.

<<< Pictured here are some of our early bars of soap

Eventually the business grew too big for one person to handle alone so being a family business my dad (John), who had already been helping out every now and then, became part time in his main job and volunteered his spare time to help mum develop our wholesale list and grow our website allowing our products to become more widely available to our customers. We currently stock a range of shops from gift shops to farm shops.

Earlier this year (2018) I officially joined the company and that brings us to now with me writing my second blog post; now 22 and the proud first employee of The Kentish Soap Company.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped us become the company we are today. Whether you've helped us out at a fair, given us your opinion on a product or even just liked one of our posts you have given us the tools we have needed to create The Kentish Soap Company we have today!

Now together as a family we will continue to grow our business and improve our products range in years to come so stick with us for more exciting things coming soon!