About Us

Little Soap Company was accidentally established by Emma Heathcote-James, a thirty something writer and lover of green beauty who likes the finer things in life some four and a half years ago. It was decided a 'hobby' was needed to help slow down a bit and release some excessive creative juices and provide a distraction from the madness of her Media PR Consultancy. Getting her hands mucky and having a genuine excuse to close the lid on the laptop to disappear into the workshop seemed just the tonic...

...which it was - sort of! The distraction bit certainly met its aim. Within six months the first hand made bars lined the shelves of the nearest Warner Budgens, followed soon after by eight Waitrose stores, then the National Trust, posh farmshops, boutique hotels and soon creating own brand and bespoke soaps for other clients.

Then started the Little Soap School - luxury one-on-one and small group day courses where we let you loose in the Little workshop, teach you how to make soap (and also days where we teach Organic Creams and Balms too) then let you play with our oils to your hearts content, making your own batches all afternoon to take home, cure and use. Soap School soon collected more strings to its bow catering for bee keepers wanting to develop honey soaps with their wares, brewery's wanting to dabble with their beers and gardeners learning how to infuse oils and use botanical in soaps, aromatherapists, people with sensitive skin wanting to create their own skincare... the list goes on!

In 2011 we were chuffed to bits to receive the Environment Award for CSR and also the Gloucestershire Enterprise Legacy Award. Both true accolades for what had really been an awful lot of fun (and a lot of hard work)! 

The Little workshop moved 12 minutes down the road from Bretforton in June 2012 to the idyllic village of Ebrington which sits on the South Worcestershire, North Gloucestershire and Warwickshire border nestling in the heart of the rural Cotswolds Hills. Real peace and quiet - oh and with an amazing CAMRA Pub of the Year with 2 AA Rosettes a few doors up, it's totally perfect for Little Soap School lunch breaks!

For a good year or so before the move we had realised there was a cap on what we could physically handmake ourselves so hit a stumbling block with demand, solving it by creating our new organic range - we commissioned England's oldest soap factory with our recipes, retained all our present suppliers and by making in the tens of thousands of bars at a time were able to get the cost down further and use certified organic oils and bring the consumer price down too - a complete result all round! These hit the shelves of 45 Tesco stores over 10 counties in August 2012 and the range is fast gathering pace with new outlets as we speak.... 

 

We also emergency board Guide Dog puppies and in our first year of trading we fostered Umber the guide dog puppy who too spent his first year with us before he left for training school . He was a bit of a celeb' with a monthly column we wrote on his progress in Dogs Monthly magazine amid others. It was his penchant for mud and other things unmentionable that inadvertantly helped us create The Little Beast Bar so his legacy lives on!

The Little cottage, gardens and workshop are shared with the inquisitive chickens who sing and chatter in the background as we work and Mr Mutley, the failed (but very gorgeous) gundog and Harry the not so miniature black schnautzer. The boys are naturally equal partners in the business trying and testing the Little Beast Bars and insisting on "them" time for walks and games as we wait for oil and lye temperatures to drop and the soap to cure for the Handmade Range - what we originally began life as and still continue to make and sell alongside today. Then, finally we have Little Doris, a black ragdoll cross who blends in with the uniform too. Suffice to say, like all cats, she kinda rules the roost...

.....now, finally, the main thing LITTLE strives and achieves is that the workshop is an utterly stress free environment. Thankfully there isn't much signal in the village or workshop meaning mobiles are futile, wifi is nonexistant and laptops are also are banned along with any grumbles, stresses and deadlines which normally govern life outside of us being Little! Taking the holistic approach, we believe this in turn positively fills both us and our soap with lovlieness and goodness...

 

Little Founder: Emma Heathcote-James

The Organic Range

The Handmade Range