Eps 14 Second Nature Botanicals: A conversation with Kate Sturmey

This is the second in a series of community podcasts about the people who live in Matua, Tauranga, New Zealand. The idea is to highlight and show case the diverse people and personalities of the community. To meet and explore who they are and what they do.

A natural therapist, Kate Sturmey based in Tauranga, New Zealand shares how buying a small, values-led brand turned into a community-powered, low-waste business that replaces harsh cleaners with handmade, essential-oil products. We talk circular economy in the driveway, sleep rituals for neurodivergent kids and honest lessons from building a sustainable range.

• Moving from Reiki and natural therapies into a product business
• Buying Second Nature Botanicals and scaling with purpose
• Handmade, essential-oil formulas for home and body
• Community recycling bins and refill discounts
• What harsh cleaners do to waterways and skin
• Practical DIY with citrus peels and herbs
• Navigating anxiety, chemical overload, and healing
• Meditation, bush walks, and everyday grounding
• Research, point of difference, and authentic storytelling

Instagram: @secondnaturebotanicalsnz

https://www.secondnaturebotanicals.co.nz

If you would like to join us on the Bolton Inc Effect podcast please get in touch. It's literally just a cup of coffee a chat and a genuine interest in what makes us human.

Transcript

Community Spotlight: Meet Kate Sturmey

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The Bolton Act. Hello peeps. A short while ago, Louie and I sent an invitation out to our community to ask if anybody had anything that they wanted to share. So we got quite curious about the people who were living around us, and we've had an amazing response. We've heard from somebody who wants to get into politics, we've spoken to people who are healers, and the next guest is somebody who combines healing and running a product-based business, and it's become her life's passion. Her name is Kate Sturmy. She lives in our community. So please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Kate Sturmy.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Can I ask you a question?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Kate, nice to have you in the studio with us today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you for giving us your time. So this is part of the community podcast that we were doing where we thought it would be fun to engage our community, see who's around us, see who does what. And you're one of the people who put their hand up, so I I thank you for that. And thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm very excited. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about who you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Who I am. I am a mother of two boys, um, nine and eleven years old. I have um a lovely husband, and we have um, you know, I'm a sister, I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, you know. Um my background's natural therapies, I've been in the industry for 17 um since I was 17 years old, so 20-something years, and so yeah, I'm um holistic and um you know I'm a person that loves being busy, I love doing sports with the children, camping, we go out on the boat a lot, biscuiting, um, hiking, a lot of things, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

So that's Kate. And an overall nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Thank you. Um, and so let's dive a little bit deeper into what you do because uh as I mentioned earlier, you were part of one of the people in the community who um said, Yes, I'm I'm happy to come on the podcast and talk a little bit about what I do. So tell me about what you do, because this is so intriguing.

From Reiki To Natural Therapies

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Okay. Um, well, as I said, I've been in the natural therapies industry since I was 17 years old. I um trained in Reiki when I was 17, and then I went on to go to Polytech and train in natural therapies, where I trained in um like anatomy and physiology and herbal medicine and nutrition and um neuromuscular and um massage, and then I went on as I worked more and more in the field, um worked under amazing practitioners and mentors, and then went on to study further and do further papers, um, which is one beauty of um being in this industry in the health and wellness industry, you can just add to your toolbox continuously. So um I went on to do my diploma in pregnancy massage, and um then organically um I might ended up with um second nature botanicals. So when you say organically, you ended up with it, but it's something that you started, you created no, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Okay, so tell me a bit more about that.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Okay, so my um very good friend, she created it in Australia, and when she um we didn't know each other at the time, she was a client, and she was we became really good friends, and the kids her daughter would come over and play for the children, and one day after one of her treatments, she said, I'm selling second age botanicals, it's been on the market, and I have so many offers, I'm shutting the books. And I said, Oh wow, are you? I said, Oh wow, and she's like, Yeah, the deadline's in a few days, and we're walking up towards the school after her massage, just chatting away, and I just said, Send me the books, hun, I'll get my accountant to have a look at it. That that organically, and my husband said to me, Between a busy clinic running women's circles, you're doing retreats, how are you going to fit this in? And I said, I like to be busy, so I said, Oh, you know, just be a great little side hustle. And that's what I thought. I put an offer in, it got accepted, and the last three years it has gone.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So, what have you done to drive the business? I mean, businesses don't naturally go up.

Buying And Growing Second Nature Botanicals

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Yeah, no, I I I've worked hard. I um I've literally um I have gone to shops, I have door knocked, I have, you know, I have really pushed hard with second hatch botanicals, I formulated some um some more, you know, expanded the range as well. And when things were really tough for the retail shops, I started doing a smaller range as well. Instead of a 200mm bottle, I went down to a 50mm bottle. But I worked really hard, um literally hopping in the car, driving around the North Island, um sitting down with small business owners. And it's hard for them at the moment as well. So sitting down with them and um showing them my range, and they really liked the whole ethos of our business, you know, simple, safe, sustainable products that obviously, you know, we've got the home side of it, so we've got the beautiful perfume oils, and then we've got the cleaning side of it as well. So it's an all-rounder. You've got from your kitchen bench, your foaming soap, from you know, to cleaning your shower, your organic cleaning sprays, from mopping your floors, we've got the the organic floor cleaners, so it's an all-arounder room, linen sprays, bath salts. So I just kept adding to the range, and um, we've got some beautiful candles that we added in as well. And I think that people have there's been a big push with people really wanting New Zealand-based, really wanting natural ingredients, not fake fragrance oils, 100% essential oils, and seeing they can look on our rails and see everything is handmade, it's not a machine, everything's handmade, everything we source is um, do you know, like we we look at everything, like down to our packaging, down to um the shredded paper we use. So we have a big collection bin. The community around here is amazing. We have a big collection bin that people can put bubble wrap in, used clean bubble wrap for us to reuse, boxes for us to reuse. So the whole community around here has got on board with the whole recycle. So we've been. So, how did you get the community on board with the recycling?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I mean, is is that just something that's spread through Instagram? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Instagram, Facebook, word of mouth, um, you know, like if I'm chatting to you right now, you'd be I'd be like, if you have any bubble wrap, that's you know, clean bubble wrap. I've got a big bin, big collection bin that you put all that in and I will reuse it.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

And so where are the collection bins?

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Just um there, halfway down my driveway where all the career boxes are.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Okay, so we can add some of that detail in to to the show notes, just talk about your collection bins. There's so much to dive into. Number one, um, the knowledge and know-how to run a business. Number two, coming from a perspective of um uh your stance on being natural. And so let me just dive into something there. What are we doing to the environment when we when we run dish liquid, uh, um, the chemicals we use on our on our floors, when we're running that down our zincs? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. What are we doing to our environment? Where does that go? So for somebody who, somebody out there who doesn't really know and who just buys it off the shelf because it's six dollars or whatever, what what are we ultimately doing? We live by the sea.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Yes, this is our environment. We're thinking about everything, like if we look at everything, um, the whole planet as a whole, not just us. Absolutely. You know, like we think it's a shared planet, it's a shared planet with our with the with our pets, with um everything that we have, down to the bugs, um, everything that we have in nature, you know, everything is shared. And what we're doing, not just to us, our waterways, um, everything that it affects everything like that. If you're thinking, okay, right now I'm gonna use some toxic floor cleaner, and I'm gonna tip it down now, and then it's going into the waterways. The knockoff effect of you know, like what we're doing to the ocean and what we're doing to all the like you look at the fish, the things that um and we eat that, you know, if that fish, and um, it's just a knockoff effect all around, I think. It's everything that we stick on our skin, like everything, our skin's our biggest organ of the body. And if you're spraying it and using, you know, like chemicals and and you just you know, covering up all your beautiful um dolphins and things like that with yeah.

Building A Range For Real Homes

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I think that it looks so unnatural, 100%. But I think that sometimes there's a chase to look beautiful and to have your skin glowing. And I see some of the products that um my daughter who's 14 looks at on TikTok, and I just I I I want to die at the thought of her putting that on her skin. Like the stuff with the glimmer and the shimmer and the shine. And you think, but that has to go into the pores, yeah, and that then has to be cleared through the lymph system and through the and but but as as you say, so that's just a small microcosm of everything that goes. So so the planet as a whole absorbs all of the stuff that we're putting in her waterways and on her skin.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Yeah. Um and I think it's education, it's huge education. Um, we've got, like as I said, I've been in the natural therapies industry industry for such a long time. When I used to manage health shops, goodness, this is the only place that we could get our natural soap, this is the only place that you could get your organic tampons, it's the only place that you could get your chickpeas, your lentils. There was the supermarkets didn't stock this when I first started in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

But even now, there's a tiny little section that you that you've got.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Unless you know it's much better now. Yeah. It is so much better. And it's education. Like my children, I talk to them all the time about um, so I'll be like, oh, let's not use that. That's not going to be good for the environment. That won't be good for I always example our pets. That won't be good to spray around the pets, they don't want to absorb that. You know, so especially like the floor cleaners, that's why, you know, the cats don't want to be, you know, walking on the floor. So this is why we're using this. So I educate them, I educate them um on homeopathic remedies, um things that they put into their mouth. If they've slammed their um slammed their finger on a door, I'll say, okay, which remedy and why are we taking it? Because it's for these nerve endings. And let's talk about um so even things like if it's um they're taking bark flowers for an emotional aspect, you know. I I discuss that with them and I talk about what we put in our bodies, and they are so good at the schools these days, educating them about recycling and but it is still a very throwaway community instead of reusing everything, you know. So you know, going back to basics, and I know that people or younger generations may say, This is me sounding really old saying that, but um, you know, saying that money's tight and everything, but do look at putting a a a garden in, do look at um picking up some pots and putting your growing lettuces, growing, you know, all these things that do save you money that have go back to basics, yeah, and it's not honestly you can you can pick the use the orange peels from an orange seep that put that in a jar and just put some water over it and then tip that out after a few weeks and you've got this beautiful orange oil straight from the orange peels, and you can just use that as a room spray. Oh, lovely. Use that as in the cleaning.

Recycling Bins And Local Reuse Loop

SPEAKER_01 12:10

There's you because we're in tomato. Yeah, because a matter was a uh an orange orchard. So most of us still have one of the old orange trees. Yes. And so you see the oranges and lemons everywhere. So so the trick there is you peel your oranges. Yep, don't throw, don't throw them up. Don't throw them away.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Keep them in a little bucket. Just put them in a jar. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Put them in a jar, fill it up with um some water. Hot water. Yep. Oh no, just just normal water, and it will sit there and leave it for about three weeks. You'll see it start changing colour, and then you just pour it out and perfect.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Lovely. Thanks for that tip.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

That's amazing. It's a lot with herbs as well, when you pick your herbs, you know, you just seek them in vodka and you know, leave them.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

So do we drink the vodka afterwards or uh yes, yes, yes, because the herbs have all then you strain it all in rosemary vodka. Yeah, it's a really good uh that's a very good idea to take up drinking again, actually. That may be why. You might be able to do that with them. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

But rosemary is um is is a fantastic one as well, that you you you do seep it in the vodka and then you use it as a tincture.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Yeah, so that is um then you take it medicinally.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Nice. Of course you take vodka with the medicinal tincture. Um I wanted to I I just wanted to take you back a step. You said that you started, you went into Reiki when you were 17. So that's not a normal thing for a 17 to feel. So so what drew you, what led you there? Oh, good idea. Were you pushed into it or was it uh was it something that pulled you?

What Harsh Chemicals Do To Waterways

SPEAKER_03 13:39

Um yep, the universe definitely pushed me into it. Um so I um so I'm very lucky, I'm very fortunate. My I grew up my parents are um very alternative, and my father is um an instructor of um karate. So he's he actually still trains twice a week. Um he's only in his 60s, so he still trains twice a week um children. So I grew up learning um pressure points, um meridian lines and things like that. So, you know, that was just you know, so natural. It was like so Keysonology, if there was any muscle testing, um back in the day, none of their um friends had like massage tables. It was well, it wasn't a job, they all just did um you know, muscle testing and things were so you just jump on their um dining table, you know, do some muscle testing and yeah, so I I actually got um quite sick and um and what in your teens? No, I I was around the 17 and I started um having a lot of anxiety and um just um debilitating anxiety and and I had just I had just gone over to Hamilton to go flatting and no no I was flatting, I was god it was so long ago now, I was six months into when I first left school I didn't know what I wanted to do and so I wanted to get out of the small town I grew up in and great upbringing, but I did want to get out of it. Um so I didn't do seventh form, so I managed to get into a hairdressing course. In hindsight, now when I look back, coming from an environment that was you know so protective and small and so caring. Yes, and then so about four months into the course, obviously my my head would blister up, um the chemicals, I um got sicker and sicker, and I one day couldn't get into my car to go to the course, and I found out mum and I said, I just I don't know what this is, but I I actually can't um I I can't breathe, I can't, I don't know what's going on in my body. And she would, I look back, she would have probably been in her 40s because they had us younger. And she realised, you know, like this what's going on, what's this is anxiety, you know, like what we didn't anxiety wasn't really spoken about that long ago, you know, like it wasn't, it was it's a very identified as something that No, so it took a long time to so I so this went on so she took me home and she she she was you know like my goodness, what's going on? And I couldn't actually even I was so exhausted, I couldn't even walk to the letterbox. My whole body had gone into complete and utterance. So that's adrenals and and everything. But at this time it was just, you know, as a mother, now that I'm a mother, I look back and think of my child phoning like that in that state and not knowing what was going on. And um it took a long time, like thank goodness most parents were so beautifully um open-minded people because the doctor probably would have just stuck me on Prozac and thought I was depressed. Um it was uh back then it was kind of like I felt like I was rocking in the corner, and I didn't know what was going on, she didn't know what was going on, so we started this whole journey seeing different natriopaths, seeing different um homeopaths, seeing so many different practitioners. Um she drive me everywhere. Um, but it took me a long time to say the better I got, um it took me a long time to even like I'd say to myself, I can walk to the next power pole, I can walk to the next. It took me a long, long time, but through through different practitioners, we found out that I'd actually had um overload of chemical poisoning. And back then, you know, like it wasn't really talking about.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

So you'd gone from being a very natural environment four months in the city, you'd saturated your entire system.

Teaching Kids Natural Health And Waste Less

SPEAKER_03 17:54

It wasn't just that. When they did the hair analysing and going through, it was a lot of chemical roundups and things like that as well came up. So I had had I over the years, this took years, this wasn't, this isn't just this was a long time. I I took um got all my fillings removed, I did everything I could to think what else is poisoning my body here. So it took me a long, long time to get my adrenals sorted, to get the toxins out of my body. Um and that yeah, so that that was my stepping stone to start in this industry. And believe me, at 17 years old I wasn't I wasn't happy about it all. You know, I did feel like, you know, I felt very um I was very upset at the universe for this whole the whole journey, because it was a very hard journey. I was like, why am I not just being a seventy, you know, like a O3C. I was, I was uh and then that's why I got into the industry so young. You know, like you know, the raw truth of it, that is, you know, and so at 19 before I did uh before I went off to Polytech, you know it's the second time around now, um, I I did a night course to know that this is the industry I want to be in. Does Kate want to be in the natural therapies industry? And um so yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Okay, so it it's always felt so so that so Kate got ex incredibly sick, needed to go on a on a journey of of your own healing.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

At a young age, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

At a young age, and so instead of being out drinking, smoking, partying, and driving fast cars, you were on a therapy table trying to extract all the don't worry, that happened somewhere in the younger bit.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Okay, well at least you had it.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

At least you had a childhood. I'll have that happened, but don't get me wrong, that did happen. You know, like I did grow up in a smaller town here, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Okay, because you don't want to be going through that when you're in your 30s and your forties and you're a mum. You know. So it's it's always wonderful the way life works through you if you just allow it to, if you're if you're in the flow and you can go where sometimes where the direction pulls you.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

Yep, yep, sometimes you just and I think when I I suppose as I've got older, I I just trust so much now in the process and where life takes you. I'm just like, okay, yep, I'm open, I'm open to everything and the process.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Um so when we were talking earlier, I I definitely get that you're really busy. You're off on all sorts of things. You've got a nine-year-old, you've got an 11-year-old, you play netball yourself, and I'm sorry to hear that you were injured. Um you you you coach in Kiwi Tag, you've you and your husband run multiple businesses. So, but where is the quiet time? Where where when is it that you feel the flow? When is it that you know? How do you hear yourself?

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Okay, so I um I usually do reformers a couple times a week as well, um, reformers Pilates. And so it's I'm Does that stop you enough to No, it doesn't stop me enough. Um it's only because of my broken foot. At the moment I've got a broken foot. Um so um usually that is my that nice breathing time, you know, clearing your head, but also I um have some beautiful trees that I sit under and meditate.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I was gonna say, have you Are you part of the meditation?

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Yep, so um I host meditations and I obviously meditate myself. So I've got um my um singing bowls, my and I sit there and sometimes I just take myself on my own journey. So I will literally do my own meditation, um, sit under the trees. My children are they're they're really used to coming out to my clinic and me sitting out there with my crystal bowls, with um oh goodness, I could be chatting away to my angels, goodness who knows what I'm doing out there half the time. I love that. But they're they're very, you know, like one of my little ones one day after Woman Circle came out, and he, you know, just is oh yep, there's the cards you use, the angel cards, and they get all amongst it.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

And um that's that's how that's how humankind used to be.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Yeah. We we just women sitting around. 100%. Honestly, just sitting around. It is such a beautiful thing just to put a blanket down, sit around and just chat. See where it goes.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, see where the flow takes you.

Simple DIY: Citrus And Herb Uses

SPEAKER_03 22:23

No, I know, just this beautiful um um well, obviously I couldn't hike, but um some girls that um some beautiful friends were on a hike the other day, which I was staying at the accommodation, not hiking, but they came back and we just sat around. I took them through a meditation and we just you know that connection. And so hiking is definitely that's my I love going out into the bush. That's my grounding medicine for me. Some people it's a water element, for me, it's very much I'm very earth. So um we love going for hikes and my girlfriends, we you know, when we don't go for a walk along the beach, we you know go for walks together. Um the family we mountain bike a lot together. So I find that so much fun. The boys are so much fun they can go for like 20 K's.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

So you are you off to Rotarua and you.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

So husband, um, he likes to get the shutter lump. Um, and the boys just yeah. I think last time they did 22k's, but because of my foot I didn't go. So, you know, the boys, all that stuff. Like when we go out, um we go out on the boat quite a bit, and um I take them biscuiting and my husband, you know, um I just drive and he's just you know they're biscuiting and having fun and that's nice.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I love that. I love that. Um, so just a little bit about the product. So everything is handmade here.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Everything's handmade, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

So when you took over the business, were you given recipes or were you given product or were you given? Thursday.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Yeah, absolutely. Um well since my background was natural therapies, this was this is why I brought it because it was organic. You know, like for me, it was this is gonna with my background in herbal medicine, I knew that this was I was gonna be able to formulate things, and I knew that um no, um I'm using essential oils, not obviously um, you know, but I but I was I I knew my background I was gonna be able to formulate things and I was gonna be able to add to the collection, and um I knew that I I knew that it was a great concept and Kirsty had done so well, my friend had done like this amazing job, and um it was time for her to step into her new her new light and um her new era. So when I when I sat down and you know we we obviously you know she taught me how to make um the you know we have the recipes and everything like that, then um I was like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

So there are two very different sides to it. There's this beautiful natural side, um, but then there's also um the the side that says I need to know how to run this as a business. Oh a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

I was lucky because I've run my own practice for so long that um I'd al you know like I've had a home-based clinic. I did the hard yards of I've contracted to people, I um, you know, I've worked at different clinic clinics, I had um, you know, sports events, um helping up sports teams. So I've I did the hard yards and I was and I've had a home-based clinic and run that very successfully for 15 plus years. And I did have another um clinic room for a while that I overflowed into, but it's sometimes the bigger you get that line of field's not always the best. They're there to see you. So for me I'd already done the hard yards, you know, like understanding how to run a business. Understanding how to run a business and understanding that um, you know, leaving work at the door, um uh compartmentalizing your whole day, being every bit of your day um is you utilize every bit of it, you know, with with your scheduling, everything. So I was already used to being very scheduled in my day.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

So if you if you take yourself back a step and if there's somebody in the community who um is really inspired to start their own thing, doesn't matter what that is, it could be a therapy, it could be a sports thing, it could be a product thing, service, whatever the case is, what are the some what are some of the fundamentals that somebody in in your experience?

Anxiety, Chemical Overload And Healing Path

SPEAKER_03 26:18

For me, my heart rolls like a lot of what I do. So if it's something you're passionate about, if it's I don't know, you're somebody uh and your background is sports and you're really wanting to do um I don't know, sports nutrition, um, if that's what you love, I would literally, this is for me, I'd I'm a big believer in writing everything down, your pros and your cons.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Okay, so it'd be this here. Why do I think this is going to be successful? Does somebody want what I'm offering here? How do they find out whether somebody wants what they're offering? Well, think, okay, research? Yep, yep, thinking to yourself, okay, does this person here, okay, um, say the offering might be, okay, say the offering might be a new supplement. I want to start a new sports supplement, a new sports drink. Yeah, let's research and think, okay, what what's already on the market? How is mine? What's my point of difference? What's my background to be, you know, selling it? What do I know?

SPEAKER_01 27:18

You've got your pros and cons. You've got your product or your service or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

What's your service or your products? Yeah, absolutely. Uh you do a bit of research. Oh, uh 100%. You need to know if you're going to start something, start something, um, a brand new supplement or um, you know, a brand new shampoo. Yeah. What's going to be a point of difference? What's your story behind it? What are your consumers wanting from you? You know, what what story are you telling them?

SPEAKER_01 27:43

So, how did you grow your followers on Instagram? Did you do something on purpose to grow them or is it just being organic?

SPEAKER_03 27:49

To be to be honest, I couldn't stand being um posting anything about myself. So for the first probably six months, I fumbled my way through it completely and utterly, and I just couldn't show up. I just really just was like, just, oh, I can't show up. I'll just show the products, I'll just show the products. And then as things started happening in the business, and the business grew bigger and bigger, and with businesses, you'd know this, once you grow bigger, more problems come up. So you you're ordering, instead of ordering hundreds of body bottles, you're ordering thousands of bottles. Your um things started, you know, so things might turn out broken and things might and I thought I'm actually gonna start showing some of my followers. Uh kind of a bit of the background scene. This is it, you know, so this is what it's like when things turn out broken. Because life is not always glamorous. Running a boot. And I thought I'm just gonna be a bit more raw and organic here and let them see that um, God, sometimes sometimes shit, it's hard. Like packages will go missing and couriers like, you know, you lose, you can lose um oh you can lose stockists because your orders keep going missing. And and no, the courier company does not, you are the one, it comes out of your pocket. There's no, you know, like if if your packages go missing, you're the one that sends it, and they will say, under act 24, under act this, under act this. You can you you're fighting against the big corporates here. You're not gonna, you you won't get ten dollars back. That's such a pity. But that's that's that's the reality of it. And I started indeed. Yeah, and I started, so I started saying, I'm sorry if packages, you know, um I just started doing really um real stories, and I take people to my workshop, you know, I show them on the video of the workshop um of things being made right there, every single drop of essential oils. The essential oils, here they are, so they know they're not fragrance oils. Um I take them for little tours around the workshop. Some people in Tauronga, which I love, have um asked to pop into the workshop so they come on down and they will have a chat to me and they see exactly how everything's run so they can see me making everything and they like to sometimes come in and smell them, meet the person behind it. So they literally come down to the workshop and this is what I love about this community. I love Tauronga for this that you know there's so much support here for me. We've got a big bin that people put their empties in. They just put their name on it and if they've got an empty container for the um organic cleaning spray they just reuse the bottle their natural disinfectant spray floor cleaners uplifting sprays they literally there's a box there they just put their name in a bag and it'll say um Sally to Kate Sally will pick it up later and the kids just go down in the morning Mum this one here there's this one here and I take them all to the workshop and all the locals get five percent off because they've I haven't had to reuse a bottle. I love that I love that so so there's a recycling bin where people can put in their paper and their um their uh bubble wrap bubble wrap boxes and and yep bubble rack and um boxes because we use um boxes to be sending the big orders like if they're going to the South Island and things like that and so they can come and drop it off and then people can also come and drop off their empty bottles.

Finding Quiet: Meditation, Bowls, And Bush

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yep yep they just literally put their name on it in a in a packet so I could bring you my three and they were my they're my empty glass bottles.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

Yep there's the PET bottles the one litre ones and so they drop them off or there's the four litre ones a lot of people just drop the four litre ones off and then you just fill it up I just fill it up and then how do I know when it's done?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

I just text. You just send me a text send you a text and I come and pick my my product up at 5% discount because you didn't have to give me the I didn't have to buy the bottle again. Lovely lovely.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

So happy days and then you get to reuse so it's a great concept and so yeah all these things circular economy as well which is something that we're trying to to work with you know like I And the boys are involved in your business which is great. Yep yep Tyler does he gets 10 cents every box that he puts together for the gift boxes. So we've got all the gift boxes and he puts them all together and he gets 10 cents a box. Ten cents a box. Love that he can do them fast way faster than cousin that loves arts and crafts. Oh fantastic so how lovely so no it's so it's yeah it's it is really great with that whole the whole concept of it like the concentrate one litre if you you only use a hundred mils of that and that saves you buying 20 250 mil plastic bottles that you would have thrown away so thousands of dollars on one last question. Yes where can people buy your amazing products? They can buy we are online and we are in 35 shops around New Zealand.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

So if you can so get so what what is the website?

Formulating By Hand And Sourcing

SPEAKER_03 32:57

www dotsecondnaturebotanicals co dot nz goodness I had to think about that didn't I? I'll put that in the show notes as well. And there's if you go to our website you'll see that we're in 35 stores around New Zealand North and South Island North and South Island and you can jump on there have a look and you can go and pick up from one of your local shops there or order online yeah okay Kate if there was a final message that you were to say to people in our community and a little bit further afield what would you say? Well for me I always I always say this to the children this is a shared planet this isn't just it's not just the humans here we share this planet with animals with everything you know like the bugs the trees everything's here and everything on this planet wants to survive there isn't one thing on this planet everything wants to live everything wants to thrive and what's one of the smallest changes we can make in our household the easiest smallest change? I think um making small choices of um what we consume and things like that as well and literally what we use as you said with your teenage daughter just really educating them of what they're putting on their body like I'll say to my children oh this one here this is um this moisturizer this is just an oil this is just almond oil we don't need anything like we don't need these perfumes that just smell so toxic and oh goodness and so you know just just I don't know small things at home are you know just just small changes this could be changing one cleaning product um yeah because we whatever you're spraying you're breathing in but you know like doesn't you you could washing it down use your baking soda use your um use your oranges from your trees um and is now a good time to start a business given that 2025's been a bit of a wobbly year financially economically I mean to be I have my analytics aren't even really that down I changed my thought pattern I changed my so what I did for all my retail stores that stock my products is I made a smaller line. They don't have the shelf space and they could not afford a lot of them could not afford to stock bigger stock because things weren't moving. So I had to think outside the box. It was quiet it was really quiet and I thought to myself what can I do here for my retail stores I need to do something for them and they were struggling so I approached them all and I said I'm gonna start a 50 mil range and it doesn't take up much space and this is the wholesale price and you'll be able to sell it for this because I said nobody's spending more than$20 for a little present and that's just the way it is and so many of them got on board when I said this is the range I'm looking at and that range has taken off like no tomorrow. That has been my step in the door because I my heart was looking after them and it's ended up being you know like obviously looking after me the whole thing has been a great cycle with the peaceful sleep pillow miss the one that um I've given you there that one there has um been our number one seller and it's been like this year we've got into um you've got into a big hotel chain um the yoga mat has just gone from strength to strength in wellness studios all around New Zealand. I just keep getting people asking me a lady a psychologist has just started using all our peaceful sleep and all her um calming kits for neurodivergent families and when I told her the story about why I designed the peaceful sleep pillow miss because my son is neurodivergent and I wanted I know that sleep time is a whole ritual for them and I wanted to him to have some control over his sleep time when he wasn't having control over his mind. So I formulated that one so as with all carminative essential oils to calm the central nervous system on trial error trial error and um now he's able to have control and he can spritz his teddy bears spritz the roam and it's beautiful 100% essential oil so calming on his central nervous system but it's given him some control when his brain can't always be in control for him.

Running The Business With Heart

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Well Kate thank you so much for taking the time this morning it's really really been lovely to talk to you. I feel a lot of the the heart and the soul in your business and I'm really very glad that we were able to connect can I ask you the question Bolton Inc Effect Thanks for joining us today on the Bolton Inc Effect podcast. The conversation I had with with Kate has been illuminating in a lot of ways. I have discovered a kindred spirit really in terms of her spirituality and how she feels about protecting the planet and I hope that some of the message today reaches down deep enough for each one of us to make a small difference in the way we run our lives, in the products we use and in the choices that we make. If you would like to join us on the Bolton Inc Effect podcast please get in touch. It's literally just a cup of coffee a chat and a genuine interest in what makes us human.