013. Wildwood Paper
The joys of growing slowly and enjoying the view.
From a tiny cabin overlooking the River Wye, Founder Julie and her team craft pots of healing balms and soap bars using the herbs in their garden.
Here’s a peek into their world.
Where it all began.
After years of making our own home cleaning products, we decided to step into the world of soap making.
Our story began in a small cabin outside of Bristol, with oats, honey and nervous anticipation.
As our cupboards grew to burst with more soap than we knew what to do with, we decided to take our products to market.
Touting our commitment to simple beauty regimes up and down the country, Wild Sage was born, always with our ethos in mind that skin care should be simple, good, and derived from ingredients found in nature.
Our little team.
Our Team is comprised of friends and family (and recently our Postie had to join us!), and so we’re quite a close knit group of women.
We take it in turns to make lunch each day and so we spend an hour putting the world to rights, sharing stories or simply laughing together in Julies flower garden, with big mugs of tea and coffee to keep us warm in the winter months.
A shed with a view.
With views of the river wye and our ever expanding herb garden, our soap making shed is a tiny oasis hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the wider world.
With Radio 4 or a podcast thrumming in the background we potter around between the soap making and soap wrapping shed with anywhere between 1 to 4 of ladies working at any one time – but always the two cats to keep us company.
Adopting traditional methods.
We use the Cold Process Method, a practice that is steeped in the age old tradition of soap making, and unlike commercial soaps, our bars are packed full of their natural glycerine.
Where corporate soap companies will extract the glycerine to sell on to cosmetic companies, we prefer to leave it where it belongs.
For us, Soap making is about learning from the old sages and herbalists who passed on knowledge of the potency of plants.
It’s about getting back to our ancestry, our roots, back into the garden to turn the soil and watch as these wondrous herbs grow.
Enjoying where we are.
We don’t have any plans to expand at the moment, I think there is something really important about keeping within your means and taking up only as much as is needed – especially in this world of constant demand for growth which is unsustainable.
We’re happy where we are as long as our customers are too!
This next year we will be focusing on our raw oil range and providing our customers with recipes and ideas to try their hand at making their own skin care.
Knowledge shared is far more valuable.
I first stumbled across Wild Sage + Co in a tiny independent gift store and I was so impressed with the heady scents of their balms that I couldn’t believe it was all natural.
Follow us for more insights into the lives of artisans like Julie, who not only craft products but cultivate a lifestyle that harmonises with the world around us, proving that sometimes, the most profound growth happens when we decide to stay just where we are, flourishing in the sunlight of contentment and community.
-Lyndsey
The joys of growing slowly and enjoying the view.
From a kitchen table to global stockists, the inspiring story of a one woman business.
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