ONE Bolton woman left her job to take care of her parents, but in her precious spare time she has managed turn her lifelong passion for homegrown horticulture to create a successful environmentally-friendly soap business.

Vicky Urmston, a 57-year-old mum of two from Horwich, left her job at a cafe three years ago to care full-time for both of her parents. In the midst of her new duties, she turned to a longtime love of soap-making for a crucial break.

Ms Urmston said: “I’ve been making soap for about 17 years not as a business, it was something I always did for myself. Somebody bought me a soap book and away I went. It was a way of making a nice simple and practical gift in a society where we have everything we need.

After becoming a carer, she found soap-making was a hobby that could give her a “different focus”. Ms Urmston decided to make her favourite pastime into a business to have a project of her own, as friends began to reject popular soap brands in favour of her "kitchen-made" products.

She said: “When I get home, I can focus on my business. Where I am in my life right now, it’s probably the right time to do it. It’s a nice pace, it’s not more than I can handle right now because my main priority is my parents.”

In just 18 months, Ms Urmston’s soap line, Olive&, has gone from strength to strength maintaining an eco-friendly ethos she has personally championed for years.

Not only does she use plants grown in her garden and the local community allotment in Horwich, she uses olive oil to make her eight varieties of soap. Each soap is combined with a different plant, including lavender, geranium, patchouli and more, and then moulded by using discarded plastic mushroom punnets.

The businesswoman says her simple, care-filled approach means the end products are as "kind to the environment as they are on the skin".

Ms Urmston said: “My soap is very much sustainable. One of the reasons I use 100 per cent olive oil is because it comes from Spain which is a lot closer than where other oils come from. Palm oil is a concern for a lot of people.

"It’s as close as you can get to totally homegrown. I want to experiment oils that are made in Britain too.

“It’s supporting the local economy, I’m not into being a major product. I’m trying to make it as accessible to as many people as possible."

The soaps are stocked on the Olive& website, www.oliveand.co.uk, and at eight locations. The shops include The Kitchen on Great Moor Street, Flowersmiths in Horwich and A Small Good Thing in Bolton.