Working with Nature - Our History

Welcome,

People often ask me how I started out making soap, it all came about as a reason to use up our surplus goats milk. In 1997 I was living on a little smallholding in Bellingham, Northumberland with my (now ex)husband, our four children, six cats, two dogs, a sheep, twenty hens and my two beloved goats.

Lottie our nanny goat was a prolific milker, we had more milk than we knew what to do with, I made goat cheese & yogurt, poured it on cereal, mixed custards, gave pints to the cats but we still had loads left. I wondered what else I could do with it so I popped onto the internet for ideas and found goats milk soap and thought I would love to do that!

Lottie the Saanen

Maisie the mixed up kid!

I soon got stuck into researching methods of soap making, at first I used information found on a website in the USA, it was an "old timers" cold kettle recipe, it got me started but I wanted to know how to make up my own. So, after a long process of trial, error and careful calculation I formulated an olive, palm & coconut base and began to make all kinds of soap for my friends and family using the milk and herbs from my garden.

My kitchen table in Bellingham

At the end of 1999 I thought I'd better start selling some of the bars piling up all over the house to fund my addiction and the Bellingham Soap Company was born. After rigorous checks with trading standards I started out selling at the newly formed Hexham Farmers market, I think took about £30 on the day, talk about cock-a-hoop! I went straight to Safeway and spent it on more soapmaking ingredients before I even got home...a confirmed soap junkie!

Hexham

Farmers Market

in 2001

I kept my stall at Hexham, sold to some nice shops and regularly did craft fairs for 3 years until the business grew too big to work from my home. We had converted part of our house into a soaperie but it wasn't nearly big enough, we had no scope to extend so I looked for premises and moved into the "Kirkharle Courtyard" a craft workshop complex near Kirkwhelpington, I had a pleasant modern work space inside a lovely old stone barn, twice the size of my workshop at home with a shop at the front.

Stone barn under restoration

After 4 happy years I decided to concentrate on the trade side of my business which had grown far more than the retail, this meant closing the shop. Sadly I couldn't stay at Kirkharle without keeping the shop open so I had to move out in May last year.

I'm now living with my partner Derek and my two youngest children in a house with a three roomed workshop that I found in the South Tyne valley just outside of Plenmeller near Haltwhistle...I love working from home again, I have just as much space as I did at Kirkharle. My trade customers often pop in for a cup of tea and a natter when picking up orders and I'm onsite if my family needs me. I'm busier than I have ever been and couldn't be happier.

My soap recipes have come a long way since the early days, lot's of tweaking and honing of skills have gone on, I still love it as much now as I did then when it was all new, soapmaking is my passion...I hope it shows in my product.

Regards,

Allyson x