About Us

We fell into soap making due to a sad departure of a good friend of mine. For years I traded at events next to my friend who made and sold her beautiful handmade soaps (and I was selling my jewellery and my husbands artwork), we shared many hours together on our stalls laughing and joking between customers. And when we weren't at an event together we would walk our dogs together on the local heath land.

Sadly tho in December 2022 after 4 years of fighting with cancer my friend lost the battle suddenly and without warning. I was devastated to loose my friend and her funeral was a very emotional day.

The next day her Aunt contacted me and asked if I would like all her soap making "stuff", I gladly accepted the offer (not knowing then how addicted I would become to making soaps!) With it came all of her recipes, ingredients, moulds, and equipment. So I set about learning how to make soap! (Ali and I always talked about teaching each other how to do our crafts - I am also a jeweller, using silver and copper wire and gemstones - but it's something we never got around to. I wish we had known we only had a short time left together, and made the time to do it now. I have had a steep learning curve and had to learn a lot quickly, I had a million questions I wanted to ask her!

My first attempt was a complete disaster! I had it all, a nasty colour, gel rings, glycerine rivers, soda ash, it cracked and my straight cuts were not impressive.

So after a lot more research and trial and error, I started to get better. As I also work part time, I handed out many samples for my colleagues to try and asked them to let me know what they thought. Everyone loved them and couldn't believe how soft they made their skin feel.

There's a lot involved to start a Soap making business, I couldn't just carry on where my friend had left off. Some of the recipes were incomplete, so I had to experiment with colours, clay's and swirling techniques. And I also needed to get the recipes checked by a chemist and put in my name.

I struggled for a long time on what I should call my business. I wanted to honour Ali and her business - Daisy Age Soaps - but I also didn't want it to seem like I was jumping on her bandwagon, because I am not Ali. So I decided I would go with what was a common interest with us - our dogs - I lost my old dog in February 2019 and she was like my 3rd child, so I named the business after her - ROWAN'S.

When I'm making my soaps, I imagine Ali stood behind me, guiding me. I hope I can do it justice and make her proud.