LAURA THOMAS

The environmentalist has become a very successful entrepreneur whose products are stocked by Scotland's best hotels

- Catherine Coyle

Laura Thomas can trace her connection to nature all the way back to her childhood in rural Perthshire. Growing up on a farm, life was busy and the working day was long. Laura would get on her horse and spend hours in the forest, just riding around, heading home only when she got hungry or when darkness fell. It was a different time; screens weren't really a thing for kids then, and her home life revolved around the outdoors. You could say that's where the idea of using nature in her working life first germinated.

Those early years of picking flower petals and smooshing them into a homemade perfume, smelling of pine after a day spent kicking about in the woods near the farm; it was here, even though she didn't yet know it, that Laura's affinity to scent, natural materials and the desire to be grounded to the earth took hold.