Sarah Murphy left behind a role as a buyer at Market Import to forge a place of her own in the homewares industry with Murphy & Daughters.

It’s almost a decade since the founder ditched her day job to kick off her small business from home.

“After sourcing unique and beautiful artisan-made products around the globe I was keen to develop my own range of Australian made product of the same ilk with locally sourced ingredients,” she explains.

Playing with the name of her great grandparent’s general store in Kerang, entitled Murphy Brothers, Sarah’s venture took on the moniker of Murphy & Daughters.

Drawing inspiration from a modern interpretation of early Australiana fauna and flora her first product was a range of bon-bon soaps inspired by Australian natives and botanicals.

Following the success of the soap range, Sarah expanded the business to include other soaps, hand creams, bath salts and candles.

“We aim to make your world look and smell better, whilst nourishing your soul.”

She says she takes pride in her brand’s products and all ingredients are sourced using sustainable and ethical work practices. While the hand-wrapped packaging is done by Ability Works, a local employment service that teams up people with disabilities with meaningful employment.

Recently the business received a welcome boost when US talk show host Oprah Winfrey named Sarah’s bath salts one of her Favourite Things 2019. It’s the kind of win every small business dreams of.

Sarah tells KBB it was a case of all-hands-on-deck to ensure they had enough product to meet the expected orders. Daughters Posy and Lola have been put to work filling the tins and mixing the salts.

“The pooling and pulling together of everyone within my family including my daughters, my husband, my mother, mother-in-law was a blessing and a joy. Between us all we have many skills and talents which have all been regularly used in the journey of this small business. My very generous sister-in-law even took a day off work and brought along my nephew to pitch in when we had an enormous amount of product to pull together recently for the Oprah launch”

Sarah says coming from a family of small business owners has provided her with invaluable guidance and she feels blessed by the experience.

“Firstly, I have seen and been part of my parents’ businesses which has been an education in itself. Secondly, I feel very lucky to be surrounded by such a loving and generous family and am reminded of this time and time again.

“I think when you ponder about what is good in life (or when I do), it usually seems to be based on the times we have with family and friends. So both my working life and my non-working life is very full.”

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