Packaging

There are three main reasons why we use plastic tubes for packing most of our product range. The first is that this packaging offers the best protection to the product as it reduces the risk of bacterial contamination. This means we can use less preservatives in the formulations.

The second reason is that advances in plastics manufacturing mean that the material we use is overall less environmentally damaging that some other forms of packaging. It is recyclable, biodegradable, can be burnt without releasing harmful or noxious gasses and costs far less in cost and fuel to transport.

The third reason is for consumer safety as many of the products are used in the bath or shower where the use of glass could pose safety risks, especially for children or babies.

The chips that we buy to use to protect your products in transit are made from corn starch and are 100% biodegradeable. However, we do re-use the chips we ourselves receive in goods delivered to us.

So it is possible that your parcel will arrive packed with polystyrene chips but this is only because we re-use these rather than throw them away.

The plastic we use for our packaging is either PP or HDPE. In both cases, the material consists of long molecule chains made from Carbon and Hydrogen. These materials are recyclable, are fully biodegradable and when burned release only Carbon Dioxide and water. They are inert substances and do not react with or adversely affect the products packed within them.

Please note that we never use PVC or any other form of plastic. None of the plastics we use contain phthalates in any form whatsoever. The reason we don't use glass packaging is three-fold. Firstly, glass is not a safe material to use in bathrooms and showers as it is prone to breakage if dropped onto hard surfaces. Secondly, glass is very heavy and expensive to transport and would add considerably to the cost of the products making them unnecessarily expensive. Thirdly, the cost to the environment of using glass is very high when compared to PP or HDPE.

Taking into account the energy needed to manufacture glass (whether from recycled material or from scratch), and then to transport it means that up to three times as much energy goes into making a glass container compared to a plastic one. Added to that is the fact that unless glass is properly recycled it never biodegrades and contributes the build-up of waste materials polluting the earth. On balance we believe that our use of selected plastics is fully justified, although we continually monitor the situation and review all developments in new packaging materials as and when they happen.

The symbols allocated to different plastics are largely unnecessary for the recycling process to take place.  The following description of the process is taken from www.wasteonline.org.uk

Mechanical recycling of plastics refers to processes which involve the melting, shredding or granulation of waste plastics. Plastics must be sorted prior to mechanical recycling. At the moment in the UK most sorting for mechanical recycling is done by trained staff who manually sorts the plastics into polymer type and/or colour.

Technology is being introduced to sort plastics automatically, using various techniques such as X-ray fluorescence, infrared and near infrared spectroscopy, electrostatics and flotation. Following sorting, the plastic is either melted down directly and moulded into a new shape, or melted down after being shredded into flakes and than processed into granules called regranulate.

It is not necessary for the plastic type number to be placed on the packaging for either of the above processes to take place.

We currently use HDPE (type 2) for our tubes and PP (type 5) for the airless pumps.  The jars for Body Butter and Sugar Scrub are PS (type 6).  The reasons we don't put these numbers on the labels are a) because they are not needed in order to facilitate recycling, and b) in case the composition of plastics in the packaging materials changes in the future.

We knew that boxing some of our products would be a little controversial with some of our customers, many of whom are environmentally aware. However, we did not box them for marketing reasons. The problem we have which led us to using a box was simply that there is so much EU legislation regarding the information that has to be given on product packaging we simply ran out of room on the tubes.

The boxes allow us much more space on which to print the required information. For example, the product description, the ingredients, the directions for use and the size all have to be in the same field of view and there are size limitations of the type face. We also sell in different European markets and now have to have some of the text in the host language of the country in which we sell.

We couldn't possibly afford to print different labels for each country, we are too small for that. So there is a lot of information to get onto a small tube!

The boxes are made from 50% post-consumer recycled board and 50% from sustainable soft-wood Scandinavian forests. The inks used are environmentally-friendly, not solvent based.

Moulded into the rim of the collar (the bit that fixes onto the tube) are a couple of small ridges which serve to prevent the cap from coming open accidentally. When trying to open the tube, any pressure that pushes the cap against these ridges actually serves to lock it shut, thus making it almost impossible to open.

To avoid this, we have found that by using the index finger to apply pressure to the back of the cap just above the hinge, and at the same time sliding the thumb up the indentation on the collar to the cap generally opens the tubes easily and quickly. This sounds more difficult than it really is and can normally be done with just one hand.

View a PDF with detailed information on this topic.