Soap Suds & Oils

Nicole Botica has been thinking about one ingredient for more than 25 years. That is how long, by her own account, the Margaret River soap maker has researched the use of hemp seed oil in cosmetics, and every product in the Soap Suds & Oils range is built on it.

The interest goes back to the early 1990s, when she worked for The Body Shop. Her site recounts that in that job she discussed hemp seed oil's use in cosmetics with the company's late founder, some time before The Body Shop launched its own hemp range in the UK. It is a good story to have behind a main ingredient.

She has also put years into the crop itself, not only what can be made from it. Nicole has served for three years as a committee member of iHempWA, the Industrial Hemp Association of WA. When HempGro was formed in April 2018, described on her site as the first hemp co-operative in Australia, she was voted its Chairperson. So the person making the soap has also been in the room where WA's hemp growers organised themselves.

The products are made with Australian hemp seed oil, using traditional soap-making methods. The range covers bar soaps, shampoo bars, exfoliating bars, body butters, a face and body balm and a facial serum. Other oils and butters come in depending on the product: coconut oil and olive oil in the soap on a rope, shea butter in a shampoo bar, cocoa butter and green clay in a vanilla soap.

That vanilla soap belongs to the Hemp and Vanilla Spa collection, a body butter, a soap bar and a serum that share one vanilla scent, so they are easy to use or give as a set.

Soap Suds & Oils sells through its website and does not publish a street address.