Fenton Barns

Join us as ENSC founder Tommy Crooks shares anecdotes from his long and winding road building the company from kitchen table experiments to today's global natural skincare brand.

After one year of turning my house into a soapmaking factory, I was under pressure from greater powers, to move the operation elsewhere, so, I decided to try and find premises to continue building my fledgling empire.

As it turned out, there was a vacant factory unit at the beautiful rural setting of Fenton Barns in East Lothian so I secured it immediately and wondered how I would be able to afford it. This was in 2011, and I think the rent was something like £200 per month. The only income I had at the time was at Stockbridge Market on a Sunday and whatever craft fairs I could find, up and down the country, so money was tight.

My initial thoughts were to set up a soapmaking class, but I had no idea how that would work, and I had my doubts about how popular it would be as Fenton Barns was in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, I moved in with my one and only wooden table, no chair, no shelving and with no idea how a factory should be set up. I managed to borrow a green plastic chair which I still have to this day and set about making my first batch of creams.

One day after moving in, the owner of a bathroom company, which was also at Fenton Barns, popped her head into my unit and promptly bought 150 giftboxes to give away to her customers. The funds from that enabled me to pay three months’ rent in advance, and stage two of The Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company was well and truly on track.