Home 7

Harvest for the day.
Over 100 bananas. Yep, think we will go a bit bananas

This will become peanut butter. Busy roasting the nuts in the oven.
A very slow roast at 100 degrees Celsius.
Taking them out every 20 mins to check if they are done.
This gives me an excellent excuse to keep on tasting

It's all about that soap.

In 2012 I started making soap for hubby and a friend. Both used an olive oil bar that was bought at the supermarket. Then the retailer stopped stocking the soap.

They both have fairly dry and very sensitive skins. The wrong soap would just make it worse.

I did some research and started making soap. My first mould was a window box tray. The world really is you mould when you start. The first soaps were olive oil with a hint of coconut. The next batch was olive oil. I was hooked and never looked back.

I made soap with olive oil, tallow, lard, palm and palm kernel. I made bars and liquid. I learnt the hard way which oils will make the perfect liquid and which oils will not. Which oils will give a perfect hard bar and which ones will stay mushy or develop DOS. Dreaded orange spots.

I learnt about lye heavy and superfat. I learnt about KOH and NaOH.

I learnt about fragrance oils and essential oils. My soaps had to smell nice. I used essential oils as fragrance oils caused irritation.

I was fairly consumed and obsessed. Not too much. Just enough to give everyone I know and didn't know, some soap.

Even though I say I; it was never just me. Hubby made moulds. He tested endless bars till we got it right for his skin. Friends and family were willing (that's what they say) guinea pigs. They even had to try the dog soap first. One friend helped with printing labels. The same friend bought me a book on soapmaking. They always gave honest feedback. Not always what I wanted to hear, but I ended up making better soap because of it.

Right now we have a team of three building the Home 7 brand. The idea started with the soap, but we want to do more.

Our aim is to build a brand where our products are made sustainably and ethically. We do not want to harm the environment or people. We want our customers to trust our products and know that they will always have an excellent product at an affordable price.