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The team create moisturiser, lip balm and perfume oils which they sold at the Nelson Saturday market.

They were the only high school students at the market representing Marlborough along with 11 other Nelson school businesses.

"We were pleased with how the market went, we sold some of our products and people loved the smell and the feel of the product," Tahlia said.

Smother Me was created as part of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme which teaches students how to make a real business from scratch and sets them up with a business bank account and access to Xero accounting software.

Tahlia says they wanted to create a product that was simple to understand while they learnt the ins and outs of a real business.  

"It was something different to try so we decided to see how it would go, we looked at what people liked, we wanted to make something simple that we could understand."

She says the Young Enterprise Scheme is a good thing for high school students to get into.

"I would definitely recommend the Young Enterprise Scheme especially if you're not too sure what you want to do after school, it gives you really valuable skills that you can use like customer service or financing."

As for the name, Tahlia says Smother Me "came out of the blue" when the team were brainstorming ideas.  

"I kind of came up with 'smother me with oils' because all of our products are made with oil and we liked it so we kept with it."

The students have been working on their business since February and are supported by a regional co-ordinator, a business mentor and their local business community.

Article by Tasha Leov, Stuff