A KINCARDINE businesswoman is celebrating International Women's Day as she looks forward to the fourth anniversary of her soap-making venture.

Lisa McWatt, an ex-police officer, started SuperflySoap in 2018 after falling in love with the idea of creating vegan, plastic-free soaps that were inspired by her favourite foods.

And the enterprise really started to pick up as she moved into other areas of skincare.

She said: "I was still working when I first started and then was able to get away from my old job.

"It will be three years in September that I started this full-time.

"I had the opportunity to go to Croatia and teach soap-making and couldn't turn it down.

"I started at a time when people were getting conscious about plastics.

"I started with soaps and lip balms, but now I am focusing on skincare too – facial creams, hair oil, things like that."

During the pandemic, Lisa found herself surrounded by new brands following in her footsteps, and knew it was time to expand her business.

She said: "A lot of people started making soap during Covid, so I always have to be thinking one step ahead.

"I liked using handmade soaps and decided that was what I wanted to do. I went to a course in Huddersfield and then started making my own formulation.

"I do well on direct sales and have had 23,000 sales on Etsy. I sell to shops as well, but had to scale that back during the pandemic.

"Shops have come to me on social media asking to stock my products, and then a lot of people seem to buy things in shops then come to me directly for the full range."

Lisa runs her business by herself, despite the high demand for her products.

"I am not very good at delegating," she jokes. "I do find it hard to take holidays as there is nobody there doing the orders and had thought about doing one of the government schemes which would allow me to teach a young person.

"The next thing is different shampoo bars; mine are very popular, but at the moment they are just like a soap bar. I want to do a different kind, but it is early days."

Recently, she was one of the early Plastic-Free Champions for the Plastic-Free Dunfermline group for her focus on creating eco-friendly products.

International Women's Day will be celebrated worldwide next Tuesday.