About Really Wild Soap & Skincare

Julia first made soap over 20 years ago, when she lived in the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons National Park. She lived in an ancient Grade 1 listed house, where she intentionally chose not to have electricity in some of the rooms and did as much as she could traditionally. When she was researching old Still Room techniques Julia decided to try making soap as they would have when the house was in its heyday – dripping water through wood ash and then mixing the resulting liquid (lye) with tallow. With a fairly disgusting and sludgy, though admittedly ‘soapy’, outcome in her initial attempts, Julia soon moved on to experimenting with cold process soap recipes, eventually coming up with her own. With a small new company called ‘Naturiol’ (Welsh for 'Naturally') and producing traditional still-room products including soap, Julia was successful in supplying outlets throughout the UK, including Cadw’s historic buildings in Wales and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London (plus traditional laundry soap for washing their costumes). In 2002 Julia moved to Pembrokeshire and had a very long break from soap-making. Now she lives in the smallest city in Great Britain, St Davids, which sits within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, a spectacular, spiritual and inspirational place to live and work. Julia now runs 'The Really Wild Soap & Skincare Company' and offers a range of skincare products, as well as soaps, using ingredients that are wild and natural. Read their story