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It's a wrap!

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Thank you for an amazing 2018 Phew! Now that all of the making craziness is over and all Xmas orders have been shipped, I wanted to take a moment and say a very big thank you to all of my customers that have supported me since relaunching in August this year. I’ve hit milestones I really didn’t expect to reach so soon and found my rhythm with making again; reminding myself how much I freaking LOVE soap. It’s pure joy to be able to do something I love so dearly as a business and I want to thank my amazing customers for this honour. Especially the ones that have been with me since the start, even sharing photos of their retro Sailor Mouth Soap stashes with me. You're legends! It gives me great joy to think of how many people are out there, giving gifts of Sailor Mouth Soaps for Xmas and how many more of you have jealously guarded them for yourself! I’m sure a lot of visiting family will have a good laugh (or freakout) when they see what’s sitting on your sink. So, what's next

Packaging and the Environment

As an ethical business and consumer, I’m very cautious about the products I purchase; especially packaging. This blog post seeks to anticipate and answer some of your questions about the packaging I use, especially in preparation for some new product releases coming out this year and next. When I began soap making nearly 10 years ago, we were in much less enlightened times, especially about the plastic waste problem we have globally. It was pretty naĂŻve, but I genuinely assumed that most people were like me - avoiding excessive packaging, carefully recycling and that our councils were actually recycling what was put in our recycling bin.  But as we’ve sadly found out, plastic waste is a massive global problem and our world leaders have no clue how to or any inclination on how to solve it. It’s only been in the last, say five years that eco-friendly packaging options have become available for small and micro businesses like mine so while I’m regretful about previous choices, I’m

Part 3 of "Where I've been since 2013"

Continuing on from Part Two After I'd been on maternity leave for around 6 months, I realised the thought of going back to work at Lush, made me anxious. Having had distance from the job, I realised in many ways it was entirely unsuitable for me and my skills and opinions would never be valued there. I wasn't one of the cool kids and therefore missed out on every opportunity for travel and further developing my skills with the international teams. I constantly had demeaning tasks allocated to me and was subject to bullying on more occasions than I can count. I have to be careful about the level of detail I go into here because honestly, it's so upsetting to even think about it, so instead I'll focus on what didn't make me feel at all welcome to come back.  For starters, my bosses didn't call or message me or send flowers when I had the baby which struck me as very odd because we did flowers, card and cake for every birthday and when someone left the busines

Part 2 of Where I've been since 2013

Continued on from  And she's back! Getting that job at Lush was exciting but problematic because you see, my fiancĂ© and I had just bought a house that year, which we loved dearly, and his job was firmly Brisbane based. So, the plan was, I’d move down there, find somewhere super cheap (haha, it was Sydney, as if that was ever going to happen) give it six months and if I wasn’t into it, I’d quit and come back. Unsurprisingly, considering my career path so far, I actually enjoyed it for the most part (although it was stressful in a way that I hadn’t predicted) and when that six-month mark came around, another promotion had come up and I began to co-manage the entire Brand Communication team. I was so fortunate that my partner in crime turned out to be one of the best people on the planet, so I was loath to leave because even when the work wasn’t fun at least I got to work with a dear friend. And plus, it was really exciting work at the time. Building it from the ground up, e

And she's back! Where have you been? Part 1 of probably a dozen posts

Why, hello! It’s with such pleasure that I can officially announce that Sailor Mouth Soaps is returning in 2018! I’m sure many of you are like…”wuuuurt, you disappeared in 2013 and we’ve not heard a thing from you since!”. Yes, that is true. Some of you may know but I began working for Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics in 2010, around a year after I had started Sailor Mouth Soaps. It was just a retail job I told myself, not actually intending to get involved for too long because I hadn’t actually settled on a career path yet. Prior to that I’d been a Hairdresser but after breaking my ankle pretty badly playing Roller Derby (Brisbane City Rollers forever!) I just couldn’t do the 12 hour days on my feet and playing with bath bombs all day and pampering people on short shifts during the Christmas rush seemed like a good temporary option and I needed a job so…that’s how it happened. But, different opportunities kept coming up and I kept applying for them and getting them. Eventua