My Outback Bush Soaps Co
Sisters Bringing Awareness of Bush Medicine to Australia
Sisters Grunnung (Markeesh) and Louise De Busch from My Outback Bush Soaps Co are raising awareness of the benefits of native bush medicine, with their range of soaps and healing ointments getting rave reviews from all over Australia.
The soaps and ointments make the most of local native bush medicine ingredients, including eremophila (emu bush) and pittosporum (gumbi gumbi), sourced from Pitta Pitta country around Boulia.
The dried leaves are ground up by hand and used in their soaps, which are made using the cold-process method with oils including coconut, sunflower, olive, and rice bran.
The sisters use ochre clay sourced from the Boulia region too, grinding up rocks by hand in a mortar and pestle, transforming them into a fine powder that gives the soaps swirls of rich reddish-brown and yellow; they’re scented with essential oils of lavender, tea tree, and eucalyptus.
Louise said holding cultural healing camps on country around Boulia inspired her to use the bush medicines found in the area in a way that would increase awareness of their benefits to a larger audience – and so My Outback Bush Soaps Co began earlier this year.
She said she watched YouTube videos to find out all about the soap-creation process, and the rest is history.
“It wasn’t until last year that I did my first tester soap, with gumbi gumbi. I gave it to my family – my mum and her sister – and they loved it. That’s what encouraged me,” Louise said.
“We’ve been in that area of cultural healing back on country, knowing where your roots are and knowing where you come from.”
The sisters are strong advocates for the healing qualities of bush medicine, and wanted to get that message out to not just the wider community, but throughout Australia.
And through the use of social media – TikTok in particular – their business has grown in leaps and bounds.
“Social media is taking off like wildfire,” Markeesh said.
Their soaps are now stocked in shops all over Queensland, hoping to reach Australia wide. In Mount Isa they’re stocked at Outback at Isa, where they’re so popular, it can often be a challenge to keep up with demand.
My Outback Bush Soaps Co is also now registered with Supply Nation – a national database of verified Indigenous-owned businesses, with registration conferring benefits when it comes to procurement with businesses and Government entities – with full certification the next goal.
They’re also committed to using My Outback Bush Soaps Co as a way of educating others about bush medicine, with a workshop held at their Barkly Highway premises in late August. The day’s topics included the importance of passing on bush medicine traditions; native bush plants used for healing; and learning traditional names, uses, and harvesting methods.
Louise and Markeesh also network with representatives from other Indigenous clans throughout the region to learn about their own bush medicine practices and how they can work together.
Markeesh says collaboration is key to small businesses succeeding – and, in this day and age of social media, it’s best to show these collaboration efforts through online platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
“Because collaboration is support. And building your networks is really, really important,” she said.
“And if you’re shy, you have to snap out of it quick smart. If you’ve got a good business idea, you’ve found something great and it’s a concept that nobody else has done, you’ve got to get on TikTok and sell it.
“Because you’re the face of the business, you’re the one that’s going to be able to push it. If you’re maybe lacking on how to articulate what it is that you’re trying to push, then keep going – but don’t quit.”