Interview: Denice Purdie - A real-life soap opera

DENICE PURDIE left school at 16, married at 17 and had her first child a week before her 18th birthday. Ten years later, she divorced her first husband on a Friday and married her second husband the following day.

She had spent her adult life as an at-home wife and mother, when four years ago everything changed.

In 2005 Denice and her family were involved in a car accident which left husband Gavin paralysed from the chest down. Gavin was in the Royal Navy, and the sole breadwinner, so the family's income suddenly plummeted from 32,000 a year to 11,000. For the first time, Denice had to find a way to bring money into the house.

Her solution was Purdie's The Scottish Soap Company. Denice's granny taught her how to make soap as a child, so with just 35 to start up her business and without knowing how to use a computer, she started making soap in the kitchen of her cottage in Argyll. Today she owns three shops – in Dunoon, Inveraray and Glasgow – and last week won The Scotsman Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the National Business Awards.

Today the 41-year-old looks every inch the focused businesswoman in a fitted black dress and a crisp blue shirt, a mane of waist-length blonde hair sitting neatly over one shoulder. She meets me in her Glasgow shop on Great Western Road where rows of colourful soaps line the walls like slices of cake.

Greeting her 21-year-old son Antonio (who is working behind the counter today) with a big kiss on the cheek and a ruffle of his hair, she explains that being a mother to Antonio, 23-year-old Mario, 11-year-old Gavin and seven-year-old Rachel always comes first.

"I may be a businesswoman but first and foremost I'm a mother," she says. "But then I did all this for them. After the crash, Gavin's income plummeted and we had a mortgage to pay. Our financial situation was dire, but when you live somewhere rural, there's no childcare. Gavin couldn't walk, I had to look after the children and I was project-managing the building of our house but I also had to figure out a way of making money from home."

Denice was already making soap as a hobby and giving it to friends when one friend suggested that she try to sell it. Just 35 worth of ingredients and a stint in the makeshift soaperie in her kitchen later and she took her wares to a local Christmas fair, making 96 in the process.

Fast-forward four years and Purdie's The Scottish Soap Company ships across the globe, selling natural soaps, candles, bath oils, shampoos and lotions as far afield as Japan and the US.

Now separated from her husband and putting every penny she makes back into the business to develop new products, Denice is proud she doesn't owe any money, and has big plans for expanding the business by taking her products into hotels and growing the brand on an international scale.

When it comes to winding down, she even knows who is going to carry on the soap-making torch. Her daughter Rachel may not yet be eight, but she already plays an integral role within the business, making her own line of heart-shaped soaps, the sales of which go into her own bank account.

"When I took home my award, my daughter said, 'That's our award Mummy'," says Denice. "And it's true, because when she was little, instead of going to the swing park she was put in the car and taken to business meetings. And she could buy and sell you – she's incredible at business."

A key focus for Purdie's is on natural products. "I wanted something that I could use on my children and not feel like I was dousing them with chemicals from the very beginning," Denice says.

"When I had my first child the first thing I was given was a bottle of lotion to bathe my newborn. I know the chemicals in these products and I was amazed that from the day you're born to the day you die, you're dousing yourself with chemicals. I just feel that if you have the choice, it's better not to do it."

The result is a wide range of products that are hand-made, organic, biodegradable and made using a range of natural botanical-based ingredients. As well as helping five members of staff to manufacture the products at her home in Argyll, Denice handles her own PR, designs the labels, takes care of her website and even works as the delivery driver one day a week. But then, as I soon find out, this is a woman who knows how to multi-task.

"When I was setting up the business I was raising the children and dealing with building a home and I was very hands-on," she says. "I was still breastfeeding my youngest at the time and I remember being in a digger with her helping to dig the foundations and stopping to breastfeed her in the digger. I wish I knew exactly why I am the way I am, but I think desperation has made me this way.

"I know what it's like not to have money. If your family are in danger of not having money to eat, you will do what it takes in order to provide for them. I just didn't have any choice but to get on with it."

And get on with it she has. She's proud of the fact that when her youngest children get home from school, she is there ready to put food on the table, and when they go to bed, she starts working again. She is, she says, unable to differentiate between working for the business and raising a family. It all just has to be done.

"I love business but then I see running a family as like running a business," she says. "You have to negotiate how much money comes out of your purse at the end of the week, you're always juggling people and time. I always used to think that it was rocket science to be a businesswoman but it's not. It's harder being at home raising children. I can't say my seven times table and I'm hopeless at spelling but I can do business and I've managed to do it all while being a mum."

Denice has big plans for the future of the business, but being crowned entrepreneur of the year last week was a personal highlight for her. However, as much as taking home the award (currently proudly on display in the Glasgow shop) was a dream come true, she's still raving about the dress she picked out for the black-tie event.

"I've been married twice but I've never had a wedding dress, never even had a proper wedding ring," she says, laughing. "But I got that dress … it didn't cost much, but it felt like it was my wedding day. I just felt that it was my time to be special, it was my special day. And I wanted to be as pretty as I could because I'm always in wellies!"

• For more information on Purdie's, visit www.purdies.org