The end of the financial year, and a few things I want you to know

There's something about the end of June that makes me want to stop and write something real. Not a sale email. Not a countdown. Just an honest account of where we're at — and where we're going.

This has been a hard year. Not just for us. For a lot of small businesses, and honestly, for a lot of the people buying from them. Costs are up across the board — energy, freight, ingredients, packaging. Everything that goes into making a bar of soap and getting it to your door costs more than it did twelve months ago. And I know that on your end, the weekly shop is heavier, the discretionary spend is tighter, and every purchase is getting a second look.

I see that. I think about it a lot.

I don't say this enough, and I should.

Every order that comes through is a choice. You could buy something cheaper. You could buy something faster. You could grab something in a plastic bottle from a supermarket shelf without thinking twice about it. You didn't. You chose us, and you kept choosing us, and that is not something I take lightly.

Some of you have been buying from us for years. Some of you buy enough bulk soap that I genuinely think about you when we're packing orders. You are the reason this business is still here — and the reason it's growing. I wanted to say that plainly, before anything else.

When costs started climbing, the obvious move — the one a lot of brands make — is to quietly adjust. Swap an ingredient for a cheaper one. Shorten the cure time. Reduce the weight of the bar. Do it gradually enough that no one really notices.

We didn't do that.

The bars are still the same weight. The cure is still four to six weeks. The oils are still the same quality, still predominantly Australian-sourced, still cold process start to finish. The packaging is still home compostable. Nothing in the formulation has moved.

That's not me looking for credit. It's just where we've landed after a year of absorbing what we could.

Here's the part I want to be straight with you about.

Prices are rising after the EOFY sale ends. Not dramatically, but meaningfully. And I'd rather tell you that clearly now than have you notice quietly later.

The costs that have gone up aren't abstract. They're ingredients, freight, energy — and wages. That last one I want to say something about, because it's the one brands usually leave out.

We make soap in Melbourne. Our team are Melbourne people, with Melbourne rents and Melbourne lives. Their wages have gone up, as they should. We support that — genuinely, not as a line in a values statement. Paying people properly is part of what it means to run a business with integrity. It's part of what you're buying when you choose us over a $4 supermarket bar made somewhere with different standards.

But it means the numbers have to move eventually. We've held the line for as long as we reasonably could. The EOFY sale is the best price we can offer before they do — and if you've been thinking about stocking up, on your regular bars, on bulk packs, on anything you've been meaning to try, this is the window. Stock up now, at these prices, and you won't need to think about it for months.

The prices will move. That part is coming.

The soap won't. Same oils. Same process. Same people making it in Melbourne. Same refusal to put anything in the bar that your skin doesn't need.

We started this business in 2013 because we believed that what you put on your skin every single day actually matters. Thirteen years later, that hasn't shifted. Neither has the way we make the soap.

You've trusted us with something that matters — what goes on your body, what sits in your bathroom, what you hand to your kids or give to someone you love. We don't take that lightly. We never have, and we're not about to start now.

Thank you for being here. It genuinely means everything.

Soapy hugs,

Emma xx