The Body Shop Days
I started at The Body Shop back when it was still... well, The Body Shop. Before it was bought by everyone and their aunt. I was the local store's charity and campaigns manager, which mostly meant getting very emotional about their Ghanaian Women's Shea Butter cooperatives. No, really, that's actually not a joke - I still well up thinking about it.
These incredible women had been producing shea butter from nuts using techniques passed down through generations. The Body Shop's involvement gave them careers and, more importantly, voices in their communities. It was proper fair trade before 'fair trade' became a marketing buzzword. This was something where a purchase made an actual pounds and pence difference to someone who deserved it.
So when it came to making Phatstix, guess where I went for shea butter? Same place, same cooperatives. Because some things you just don't compromise on.
The Thing About Big Beauty
Here's what working for the giants teaches you: everything's got to have a story. A fragrance. A tingle. A special ingredient from a mountain top that one goat climbed once.
But here's the truth - most of that's nonsense. Pure marketing fluff to justify charging you £60 for something that's basically fancy Vaseline with a bit of lavender.
When I was developing Phatstix, I kept thinking about all the rubbish I'd seen added to products just to make them seem more 'premium'. Artificial preservatives. Synthetic fragrances. "Texture enhancers". Things that make your lips tingle (why? WHY do we want our lips to tingle? Do you remember the whole venom trend?).
The Kitchen Experiments
So there I was, in my kitchen, surrounded by what looked like evidence from a very unsuccessful crime scene. Fifteen different formulations, each one almost right but not quite. Some too hard, some too soft, some developing mysterious crystals after a few weeks (that was a fun discovery).
But I had one advantage: I knew what not to do. No unnecessary additives. No artificial preservatives. No fragrance just for the sake of it and a killer texture. Just proper, effective ingredients that actually do something useful and remove anything that doesn't. This wasn't a cost saving exercise, it was a "what's the best thing I can possibly make" exercise.
The Lab Bit
Eventually, I admitted I needed help. Once you find a formula that works, stabilising it is a whole other story. So, I found a brilliant husband and wife team at Here2Grow in York who took one look at my kitchen experiments and took it to the next level.
Funnily enough, when doing my research, I was looking for a UK based lab but one that had the expertise I needed. I found many and Here2Grow stood out leaps and bounds. When it came to looking up their address... they were 10 minutes down the road. Clearly it was meant to be.
Dr. Brew and his team helped turn what was essentially my cooking experiment into something properly stable and completely safe (I have files and files of very expensive documents to prove this). Though remarkably, we kept pretty much the same ingredients. Turns out sometimes the simple stuff really is best.
What I Learned
After all those years in beauty, all those product launches, all those marketing meetings, building those nation-wide teams, here's what I actually learned:
-
If something seems unnecessarily complicated, it probably is
-
Your lips don't need to tingle
-
The best products usually have the fewest ingredients
-
Most beauty industry innovation is just new packaging
-
If you can't pronounce it, your lips probably don't need it
-
If you so much as even blink during this process, note it down because you'll need it for a safety and compliance form later.
Of course, I'm still learning. Still getting messages from people using Phatstix in ways I never imagined (someone used it on their heels - genius!). But at least I know our product won't make your lips tingle!
