About College Green

Hello, I'm Rachael, the person behind College Green.

I make home fragrance with pure essential oils in my small studio near Stroud in the Cotswolds.

College Green didn't actually begin as a business. I started making traditional cold-process soap in 2012 after buying a soap-making kit as a rainy-day activity with my children. I became fascinated by the process and began experimenting with my own recipes.

I was making soap for family and friends, and I wanted to know exactly what was going into the products I was making. From the beginning I chose essential oils for fragrance, and over time I became increasingly interested in the oils themselves and how they could be blended together.

A chance conversation with the owner of Made in Stroud eventually led to me launching College Green in 2017. I started by selling my soaps there and at Stroud Farmers' Market.

From soap to home fragrance

As College Green developed, so did my interest in essential oil blending. I began experimenting with bath soaks, pillow and room sprays, candles and reed diffusers, learning how different oils work together and how a fragrance changes depending on the product it's used in.

Today, home fragrance is at the heart of College Green. I develop my own essential oil blends and use them across my pillow mists, room sprays, reed diffusers, candles and bath soaks.

Sleep Easy is probably the best example of how I work. It grew from one of my earliest lavender and patchouli soap blends. As I learnt more about fragrance and top, middle and base notes, I developed it further, eventually adding neroli and chamomile. That four-oil blend is still the Sleep Easy fragrance I make today.

Why essential oils?

People often ask me at markets whether my products are made with essential oils. The answer is yes.

I like knowing where the fragrance in my products comes from and I love working with oils derived from plants, flowers, leaves and woods. Blending them is one of my favourite parts of making College Green products.

It can take quite a bit of experimenting to get a blend right. Some combinations work immediately, while others don't behave quite as expected, particularly in candles. I keep testing and adjusting until I'm happy with both the fragrance and the finished product.

Everything is made by me in small batches, so I'm involved from developing the original blend to making, bottling and labelling the finished product.

College Green today

You can find College Green at Stroud Farmers' Market, where I have a stall on the fourth Saturday of the month, as well as at selected independent shops in and around the Cotswolds.

I'm also proud to be a Surfers Against Sewage Plastic Free Champion. I avoid single-use plastic wherever I can, use glass bottles and jars, and reuse packaging rather than automatically buying new.

College Green has changed considerably since I made that first batch of soap, but the basic idea behind it hasn't. I still want to know what's in the products I'm making, I still enjoy experimenting with essential oils, and I still make everything in small batches myself.

And the name?

College Green is a tribute to my grandma, Peggy Theaker, who lived in College Green in Gloucester for more than 30 years.