Since 2012, Duckberry Goose has evolved steadily. Rooted in my Granny’s traditional remedies and her tireless work ethic I always envied, the idea for creating a line of natural skincare and cleaning products has slowly tiptoed into my own tiny kitchen (and my head). This is when I first started drying and mixing my own fruit and herbal tea leaf blends, made facial scrubs and created a lovely, safe sunscreen for my firstborn. Guided by a decades old heirloom book on foraging and home-made remedies (thanks, Nan!), and lots of trial and error, I am proud to have created a line of natural, vegan skincare and home cleaning products that not only work great but are better for your family and the environment. I am dedicating this business to my Nana Rose without whom I would have never endeavoured to forge this path.

If you're like me (a self labeled clean freak) you have tried every natural product around, read reviews, purchased and laundered, scrubbed and wiped. Some products are fantastic, if not for all their plastic packaging. Others are very expensive to afford. I have visited many a sites to be advised to cut a lemon in half and apply coarse salt to scrub the oven door. It doesn't work. Their ovens must be very gently used...mine isn't. Some natural remedies did nothing for me others were a revelation.

I created this site not to become a cleaning guru or make lots of money doing it, but to help you, who might be trying to navigate all the information and natural recipes out there. My products are a shortcut to your experiments. Creating them was a lot of trial and error. If you have found a product that works for you, that's magnificent! I salute you. You may drop me a line to share what worked for you. (For oven doors I just came across cleaning them with simple fireplace ash and warm water! Whaaat?) If you, however, haven't found your cleaning product tribe yet, give mine a go. I keep my prices as low as possible. Source every ingredient and packaging from the same Co. Wicklow source and mix it all at home in my kitchen. There's no overhead, expensive brick and mortar shop or even a lab. My formulas are hand written, tweaked by trial and error. But you'll be amazed how well they work. And they smell divine!

Traditionally, it is the packaging and labels that make every product much more expensive that they should be. For the packaging, I opted for amber glass bottles and jars, that look classy in every interior. (Finally, cleaning products you don't have to hide in cupboards!). The amber colour protects against sunlight and extends the shelf life of the product. Having designed a label around it, I ordered a good batch, realizing, that glass is not always suitable. It can break if dropped and will cost a fortune to ship! Oh, the perpetual headache of trying to do the "right thing".

Having been stocked at a local, natural shop that offers bulk buying and refillable containers, the next phase at Duckberry Goose started: I have developed refill pouches. Not all products can be concentrated, so for now I offer the Dish soap, All Purpose Cleaner and Counter Cleaner only as refills. (More on this coming in the next blog post). As far as labels, I am fortunate enough to have found a reasonable labeling company here in Ireland, who do small quantities of prints and labels for micro-businesses like mine.

Keeping all costs at a minimum, I feel there's a great product line here for likeminded people who are too busy to make their own cleaning and skincare products. I love doing it and have lots of new ideas for beauty and make up products as well. After all, I went as far as creating my own dishwasher tablets! Yeah, I must have gone crazy there... but you know what? I did all this because I didn't want to flush bleach down the toilet, damage wildlife and waterways with harsh chemicals and toxic laundry waste. I compromised by not having brilliant white shirts in the closet, wine stains never seem to fully disappear from the table cloth, and the toilet bowl will have to be regularly cleaned to prevent rings forming... BUT I know my impact on the environment is much less that the average Western European or indeed US household's. I feel good about having made those changes and would never go back.