This week, Gabriel visits a eco friendly soap making business.
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00:00 Hello and welcome to Made in Kent live on KMTV. I'm Sophia Akin and in this show where
00:24 we highlight producers and manufacturers across Kent. On today's show we're looking at soap,
00:29 particularly sustainable bars and how they're good for the planet as well as your skin.
00:34 We'll also catch up with Zach's Kombucha. His company has recently been awarded a great
00:39 taste award for some of his products. And we'll also catch up with our sister station
00:43 KMFM who have just donated thousands of tins to local food banks. But first, it's something
00:49 we use every day but how many of us know what goes into our soap? One Kent business is trying
00:54 to change that. My Cottage Cosmetics says all their products are sustainable and are
00:59 completely natural. Our reporter Gabriel Morris went along to see exactly how soap is made.
01:06 Soap. It's one thing we hope everyone uses. And there are a range of attractive scents
01:12 some of us might go for. But have you ever thought what goes into the bar? Well many
01:18 contain unnatural chemicals and one Kent cosmetic company says it doesn't necessarily have to
01:25 be that way. I just felt that the way that people are feeling and the way that I was
01:29 thinking the amount of rubbish that we throw out at the end of the week and the dust we
01:33 may come to collect, we don't want to be adding to that. It needs to be natural. So it was
01:38 sort of working on those lines and trying to get down to a basic level that we're not
01:44 harming the environment, we are helping it and that people can see that these things
01:48 will work equally well. You don't need the chemicals that go into things for you to be
01:53 smelling nice and fresh. So how do you make soap that's sustainable? For Helen it starts
01:59 with olive oil. That adds the moisturiser. Then comes essential oils and it all has to
02:05 be weighed and tested. All the different variations of the soaps that I've got, everything goes
02:12 off along with all the documents that come with every single ingredient. That all goes
02:18 off to a toxicologist and then they can check and make sure that you're using it in the
02:21 right percentages and it's all perfectly safe for the public to use. Now that the oils are
02:26 prepared comes the butter. Coconut and shea are the cleansers in the soap. That's then
02:31 melted, added to the oil alongside a catalyst and it's mixed together. Some is then decanted
02:37 into jugs where other ingredients are added to make the different flavours and scents.
02:43 The base is then poured into the mould with the contents of the other jugs being layered
02:48 on top. It's then all swirled together to give it the attractive look. It's soap at
02:54 that point but I don't sell it at that point. I leave it then for six weeks. It needs to
02:58 cure, it needs the water to evaporate so you get a nice firm but otherwise it would last
03:05 a week and that would be it. So that's how you make natural soap but surely that must
03:10 come at a cost. There are certain scents as well. So for example sandalwood is very, very
03:15 expensive so that I use in very small amounts but it is balancing up the fact that it's
03:21 not going to be in plastic, it is going to be in glass but I spend a lot of time looking
03:26 at packaging and trying to make it as economical as possible so that it is a product that is
03:31 affordable for everybody. And there we go, that's Helen's Soap Cave. Some really, truly
03:35 amazing different flavours she has and they certainly smell nice as well. Gabriel Morris
03:39 for KMTV, Leeds. Well we're now joined with Helen just to tell us a little bit more about
03:44 her business. Thanks so much for joining us and for bringing so many of your soaps. So
03:49 firstly I'd just like to know where did this all begin? Why did you want to start a soap
03:53 business? It wasn't so much wanting to start a soap business but wanting to do something
04:00 creative, do something different. I started originally while I was living in Spain. I
04:06 was out there with my son who is a tennis player and I couldn't work out there. I used
04:11 to make cakes when I was in the UK and I needed to do something whilst he was out playing
04:15 tennis or doing his schoolwork or something. And then I decided it was a topic that I'd
04:21 never tried before and I thought I would just go through the process and see what it's like
04:24 and it just snowballed from there. I can imagine it's quite therapeutic, sort of making the
04:29 soaps and that whole process. Would you say it's quite relaxing? Yeah, I thoroughly enjoy
04:33 it and because I use all plant based colours, scents and ingredients, it's got that extra
04:40 sort of ethical background to it as well. It's interesting seeing how they turn out
04:46 because of course they're made by hand so even if I'm using all the same ingredients
04:51 they do end up looking very slightly different every single time so it's great. I guess that's
04:56 kind of part of the appeal isn't it, is that no two products will be the same, they all
05:00 look different so each customer feels like they're getting a unique experience. But so
05:05 many people have very sensitive skin or might have allergies or such so how do you ensure
05:11 that you're accommodating to that? So we are very heavily regulated and all the allergens
05:17 have to be listed on the back of the soap. I was quite surprised actually, we all go
05:22 into the supermarket and we just pick soap off the shelf and we don't even look to see
05:25 what it's made of, you just use it because it's soap. So when I've been putting these
05:30 together I do put them together being mindful of what sort of formulation property the soap
05:35 would have so that it is moisturising, that it's not going to affect people with sensitive
05:41 skin but they all do have a potential to have allergens and so that is something that on
05:48 the back it says and so people can check to make sure that they're safe for them. And
05:52 they're all very sustainable as well aren't they? And this is really interesting, the
05:58 bobbles, it almost looks like it could be quite exfoliating. Yeah it's massaging so
06:02 that when you're having a shower, obviously the soap eventually does wear down but whilst
06:07 you've got the bobbles there it's nice. And we've got some hand cream here as well, this
06:14 is Vitamin E and Aloe Vera isn't it? Yes and it has lavender and chamomile, it pulls off.
06:24 It's stubborn isn't it? Right let's give that a try, oh it smells nice. I like lavender
06:31 a lot, I've quite recently got into it, I find it quite relaxing for bedtime and things
06:36 like that. But it's not just soap you've got here, you've got hand cream, you've got body
06:41 butter, so what's some of those other products that we can see here as well? So I've got
06:47 my little soap stacks which I make from the main body of the soaps and then I have kombucha
06:51 lotion, so I make the kombucha tea myself using lavender and once the tea has fermented
06:59 and it's ready to be used then I can start making the kombucha lotion and that gets added
07:03 in and it's stored in the purple jars to keep the kombucha active so that it's very good
07:08 for your skin as well as drinking it. And I notice you've got somebody else talking
07:11 about kombucha later. It's interesting you mentioned kombucha because we do have a kombucha
07:15 guest coming on later so we'll look forward to talking with him a little bit more about
07:19 that as well. So you also have a men's range as well that I think is important because
07:25 men are also into skincare so how does that differ from your women's range? We shouldn't
07:30 put genders on it should we really? No, I mean they can be used across the genders and
07:34 particularly the kombucha lotions I've got some that you'd use for your feet, well men's
07:37 feet and ladies feet are exactly the same so that's fine, but there are certain things
07:42 I've got a solid cologne with eco marine algae added to it which is very good for sort of
07:47 an irritant potentially after they've shaved it's very good to use after that but most
07:52 of the things are very similar, the moisturiser that I use for men is very similar to the
07:59 ladies but it's just got a few added extra actives that will help their skin so looking
08:04 at them specifically. And do you ever find, because we were just saying then you shouldn't
08:09 necessarily put genders on it, do you ever find that you sort of have people of all genders
08:14 going for the different ranges you've got? I have to admit the men's kombucha that they
08:19 do use for shaving I love the scent of that. I was going to say I can imagine men would
08:24 like this, people of all genders would like that as well. Now how much is it for you I
08:30 guess to sort of be making this, if people perhaps wanted to get into the hobby of soap
08:34 making or things like that I can imagine it would come at a cost wouldn't it? It does,
08:39 if it's a hobby it's fine but when you get to the point where you're starting to sell
08:42 it that's the problem because it is regulated and everything has to be toxicologically tested
08:48 so it has to go along to a chemist for them to check through first to make sure the formulation
08:53 is safe, make sure that anything you've put in it is going to be safe for someone to use
08:57 and then anything that has water added to it and I use the spring water from the North
09:01 Downs for quite a lot of my products it has to go to the laboratory as well to make sure
09:05 that my natural preservative has the strength to be able to be robust and not grow anything
09:09 so it's not a cheap hobby to do if you think you're going to go on to sell. So I guess
09:16 people should sort of look into it before they wanted to be like you as we can see on
09:20 the screen. So what kind of goes into that process of actually where does it start, you
09:26 say you get water from the North Downs but where does it, how do you turn it from sort
09:30 of the ingredients to what we can see, the creations in front of us? So particularly
09:35 for the soap I have various oils and butters that I'll melt down and then I add them together
09:40 and then we use lye which is sodium hydroxide and that is the catalyst that turns the oils
09:47 into soap. In the olden days they would use potash which is made from the embers of a
09:55 charcoal fire and they would use that to make soap but in today's days when you've got to
10:01 be very careful about what you're using it all has to be properly regulated so that's
10:05 what I use in the soap and the other things it involves emulsifying using various ingredients
10:11 and actives to create the creams and things that I'm wanting to create and then the scents,
10:16 the Royal Essential Oils but again it's trying to marry up two or three together that will
10:20 make a really good scent that people will want to buy. Yeah and we can see this basket
10:25 here, does this come as a gift sir? Yes. You've got a shampoo bar which is unusual but it's
10:30 quite popular now isn't it? It is. And it's meant to be more sustainable isn't it because
10:35 you haven't got that single use plastic in a bottle or something? That's it, I wanted
10:38 to create a shampoo, I don't use any plastic, I didn't want to use glass in a bathroom,
10:45 that's not a great idea so the first port of call was a solid bar. It does take a bit
10:50 of a technique and I sell it in Greenwich, I go to a market store there, trying to encourage
10:55 people to have a go at it is not easy but it works, it works equally well, it doesn't
10:59 have to come out of a bottle. Yeah and also I've never tried it, I don't know why I haven't,
11:03 I think people don't really like change do they but it would be interesting to try it
11:07 definitely and so you were just talking about how you sort of marry the scents together
11:12 so what actually goes into that, it's quite an art isn't it because you could mix two
11:16 scents and they don't go well together so what actually goes into it? So on a few of
11:20 the soaps such as this one here which is the one I was making on the video, the Woodland
11:25 Spice I put in bergamot, cypress and patchouli and that's one of the ones I've blended
11:32 myself which has worked really well, I've been very pleased with that. There have been
11:35 a few catastrophes along the way so what I tend to do with ones that I know I'm not
11:41 going to be able to blend well together, the chamomile and lavender worked well, I use
11:46 a company that has natural essential oils that they've pre-blended so that I'm not
11:50 having huge expenses and making a mistake with some of them. Great, well thank you so
11:54 much for joining us, we've run out of time but so lovely to meet you and we'll see
11:58 you after this break. Thank you.
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15:05 Hello and welcome back to Made in Kent live on KMTV. Now you might remember earlier this
15:12 year we met Zac from Why and his Kombucha range, while two of his beverages have just
15:17 won the prestigious Great Taste Awards. We'll catch up with Zac in just a moment but first
15:22 let's take a look back at when we met him, we went to see him earlier this year.
15:26 Have you ever heard of Kombucha? Well if you haven't it's a fermented tea beverage and
15:33 here at Zac's shed in Why he brews the drink. Now it started for him as a lockdown project
15:40 but now it's a bustling business. But how do you brew Kombucha? Well let's find out.
15:46 Firstly today we're brewing the sparkling oolong so this is just a really high quality
15:52 sustainable tea. This is forest friendly oolong tea from Thailand so it's actually some of
15:57 the most sustainable tea you can get. And then we just have organic cane sugars. Essentially
16:02 brew a giant cup of tea in this huge tank. So you basically just brew that sweetened
16:11 tea in there, let it cool down, add the starter culture which is previously fermented Kombucha.
16:18 It's then jarred up and put in a warm room to ferment.
16:22 This is where the magic happens, this is where the babies are born, they're otherwise known
16:27 as the scobies. I call them pelicules but I won't get into that, it's very boring. But
16:32 basically it's part of the process that is quite synonymous with Kombucha and people
16:37 that have had a go at it at home they know about and often freaks people out is these
16:43 growths on the top which people call scobies. So basically it's a sort of cellulose mat
16:49 if you like that's produced by the living yeast and bacteria that are present in the
16:54 Kombucha fermenting away.
16:56 Once it's ready it's then bottled up and it's ready to go on sale.
17:01 And now the process is finished I'm going to try the fig leaf. That's one of the flavours
17:06 that's currently on offer. That is very refreshing, I love it, 10 out of 10.
17:13 Zach's been keen to keep the business eco-friendly and encourages his buyers to use the bottle
17:20 return system.
17:21 These are all of our current bottle returns from just this week so we're trying to make
17:27 a closed loop bottle system here so the whole concept is on returning these bottles, incentivising
17:35 the return of them and so I offer discounts both direct to my customers and to all my
17:42 stockists, all the companies that I work with. Everyone gets money back for returning these
17:47 empties to me which helps to keep them in circulation and they all get washed, sterilised,
17:53 sanitised and then refilled and put back into the system.
17:57 There are plenty of flavours to choose from and a 750ml bottle costs around £12.
18:04 Gabriel Morris for KMTV, in Wye.
18:07 Well, Zach joins me now. I think firstly congratulations are in order. Congratulations as I said and
18:15 which of the products was it that won these awards?
18:18 Yes, so the ginger and turmeric, which I bought a bottle here. Ginger and turmeric from Butcher
18:24 is what won the two star on the Great Taste as well as silver in the Taste of Kent Awards
18:31 a couple of months back as well. And then we had the fig leaf which Gabriel actually
18:36 tried on that interview. That won one star on the Great Taste Awards as well.
18:43 Oh, brilliant. And yeah, I remember trying some of those as well when you came here.
18:47 What's this going to mean for the company though? This has surely got to be good news.
18:52 Yeah, it's great news. Obviously, these awards are lovely and they help show proof of concept.
19:00 The Great Taste Awards is one of the biggest worldwide recognised judging type things for
19:09 food and drink. So, it's a really amazing accolade which will really, really help my
19:13 business. But the most important thing really is customer reviews and I have tons of those
19:20 which is great. So, yeah, all in all, all of that stuff just really, really obviously helps.
19:28 Brilliant. Well, what's next for you? You say how it's going to be great for the business.
19:34 So, I guess, where is it going to take you next?
19:37 We're just continuing to sort of grow at our sustainable rate. Things have been crazy this
19:45 year. Summer is always pretty hectic. But it's our second proper summer and last year
19:52 was a little bit more busy. This year is just like a different level. We're producing at
19:57 least four times as much as we were last summer. And I'm hoping to reach a certain point,
20:05 I'm sort of aiming for a certain point, which will have a really sustainable production,
20:10 a really sustainable income to support my team as we grow. I'm not looking to sort of
20:16 infinitely grow. I'm looking to reach a really lovely sort of sustainable point where we
20:21 have a nice flow, we are at our capacity and just continuing to produce the absolute best
20:27 quality product we possibly can, which is what it's all about and the principles are
20:32 all based on.
20:33 So, you say it's sort of been your second summer of the business. It's been quite different
20:38 from last summer, hasn't it, in terms of weather alone? And we know that's had an impact on
20:42 so many producers and businesses. So, how has that sort of impacted you?
20:49 Definitely. I mean, being a cold beverage, summer is obviously kind of our peak time,
20:55 especially mostly with our wholesale customers being like coffee shops and those kind of
21:00 things. Obviously, people start opting for cold drinks more at a coffee shop in summer.
21:05 So, yeah, with the colder summer, it definitely slowed things down a little bit. You notice
21:10 a little bit of a lull when we have those cold weeks, which we have had a lot of, and
21:15 it definitely ramps up when the sun's been out. But thankfully, I'm not on the customer
21:21 facing side of things. I'm not directly hit too much by that and things still continue
21:28 to carry on because although it's lovely to have a hot day, it's also just lovely to have
21:32 a warm day. My customers, they're not just drinking it as a cold drink, but it helps,
21:39 but it's not everything.
21:42 And we saw your classic flavours there and I got the chance and Gabriel got the chance
21:46 to try them a few months ago. But have you got any new flavours in the pipeline? Any
21:51 new ideas you've got?
21:52 Yeah, it's been a really actually interesting time for R&D. I'm always sort of testing out
22:00 new recipes, new ideas. I've had some really cool, interesting ones. One of my favourites
22:05 is a port of bottle here, huacate, it's a really fun thing to say. It's also known as
22:12 Peruvian black mint. It's actually a marigold, it's a long story, but it's grown by a friend
22:16 of mine literally two miles down the road. It's an amazing, beautiful leaf. It's got
22:20 crazy tropical pineapple flavours. It's really cool. It's got hoppy as well. And then we've
22:26 also working on, I've got the first batch of tomato leaf, which is really cool. It sounds
22:31 crazy, actually tastes like cucumber. And it also just kind of tastes like being in
22:35 an English summer greenhouse. It's really cool. And there's some other cool ones I've
22:40 been working on and some cool collaborative projects as well. But yeah, I'll release some
22:45 more about that on my social media soon.
22:48 Perfect. Well, you've painted the picture for us quite well there because we don't have
22:53 the benefit of what we had last time of being able to try them. So you've kind of taken
22:57 me to that tropical sort of place that you were explaining. So thank you for joining
23:01 us. It's great to catch up with you and I'm sure we'll keep our eyes peeled as you said.
23:05 Thanks, Zach.
23:06 And finally, seven tonnes of tins for Kent's most vulnerable. Nearly 200,000 KMFM listeners
23:14 were invited to donate non-perishable items to our sister station. It's part of a tonnes
23:19 of tins campaign to give back to 18 food banks. Abbey Hook went to see them last week and
23:26 find out why they launched this mission and how much of a success it's been.
23:30 Teaming up to transport seven tonnes of tins to those who need it most.
23:36 Our sister station have raised thousands of pounds and collected thousands of items to
23:45 donate to food banks in Kent. People could either drop donations off, donate online or
23:51 get their food shop delivered to KMFM HQ.
23:55 I think the thing with food is that if you just took a minute to go, what would it be
24:01 like today if you didn't have anything in the cupboard and you had no money to go and
24:07 buy something? And I think that if you put it like that, added to it that there are so
24:13 many people using food banks right now, including people that you probably know.
24:18 The partnership with UK Harvest and Southern Water aims to provide as many tonnes of non-perishable
24:24 food as possible. But the team couldn't have imagined the response they got.
24:29 It's really, when you do things like this at a radio station, you've got to remember
24:34 we're sat in a room, we don't see anybody there. But when you're saying to somebody
24:39 'please can you help us with something?' you have no idea where that's going to go.
24:45 And so I was on a breakfast show with Chelsea and we opened the mics at like ten past nine
24:51 one morning and I said 'look, this is what's going on, this is what's happening, if you
24:57 can just give us a couple of quid and then just give him Paige.'
25:01 Went through the roof and they raised £5,018 in total. That money funded a huge food shop
25:10 across Kent supermarkets and is still arriving at charities doors, ready to feed the three
25:15 million UK households who have used a food bank in the past year. And Rob knows himself
25:21 what an impact it can have.
25:23 I've been donating personally to food banks since just before the pandemic because somebody
25:28 I know who's got a full-time job was having to use them to feed his family. And I was
25:33 like this is just insane. So hopefully it's encouraged people to think about filling up
25:39 even just the front bit of the trolley with a couple of tins every week and if you've
25:42 got the money to do it.
25:44 So after weeks of asking 191,000 listeners, KMFM have managed to gather up nearly seven
25:51 tonnes of food to donate to local food banks. They say it's crucial to helping families
25:56 struggling through the cost of living crisis and they've managed to gain so much support
26:00 because of their huge reach here in Kent.
26:03 Abbey Hook for KMTV at KMFM.
26:08 Well that's all from us here at KMTV. You've been watching Made in Kent. In the meantime
26:13 you can check out our other programmes. We've got Kent Tonight, the Kent Politics Show and
26:17 Kent on Climate. You can check those out on our website, kmtv.co.uk. And if you own an
26:23 independent business in Kent and you'd like to be a guest on our show, you can email us
26:27 on madeinkent@kmtv.co.uk. Gabriel Morris will be back at 8pm for your evening news bulletin
26:34 and I'll be back at the same time next week, 6pm. Thank you very much for watching us here
26:39 at KMTV. Have a lovely evening and good night.
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