Phew! Where did last year go? It’s true what they say about time flying as you get older, policeman have seemed like babies for many years so I guess that’s it, I’m officially old! Noooooooooooooo!

Anyway, mini meltdown over.  2018 was quite a year both personally and for the business.  There have been many health issues within my family and involving close friends, some of which are ongoing but we’re all ‘getting there.’

So here’s a quick review of 2018 and why it may have gone so quick!

Last January I was lucky enough to go to the NTA’s (in the audience, not getting an award obviously).  I’m sure if you saw them on TV you’ll remember David Attenborough picking up an award for Blue Planet.  The speech he made about our use of plastic, in particular single use plastic, hopefully struck a chord with many people, it certainly did with me!

It was such a privilege to be in the same room as the great man himself, listening to his words and I soon realised that everyone needs to do their bit to reduce single use plastic use and plastic in general.

And so began my quest to ditch the plastic both in my business and at home.

Between February and May I began to introduce more glass jars for the products. I ditched the pumpy pots due to them not being recyclable and moved the products into glass jars, first blue ones and now into clear ones with aluminium lids as it bothered me that the blue glass jars still had plastic lids.

I’m gradually phasing out plastic for the full size products and, apart from a few cuticle oils and some toner refills that still have to sell through, everything is in glass jars or bottles now.

The packaging I use when I post orders out is now totally plastic free too.  Although I was reusing bubble wrap I now manage to donate it to charity shops.  That way I don’t pass on any unnecessary plastic onto my lovely customers who are also trying to ditch the plastic.

In June the size of my business exploded due to a facebook post that I did giving police 10% discount. Thanks to a lot of repeat business I am still twice as busy as I was so I must be doing something right! My post even reached twitter and was noticed by Nick Knowles, Mr Niceguy himself! He left some lovely comments (he loves my dog shampoo apparently) so that did a lot to raise my profile as well. If I’d known he was going into the jungle before he flew out to Australia I’d have offered him some Survival Soap for his jungle journey!

The rest of the year was spent trying to make enough stock to keep up!  It’s a very lovely problem to have had and I’m now a lot more geared up to deal with the increase in business – I even have some freelance staff now!

I made a lot of videos, not all of them have made it onto social media. I’ve been trying to upload them to you tube but my wifi isn’t very good so it proves a bit of a pain to achieve.  They will take all day to upload and then say its failed and to try again.  Very frustrating I can tell you! I’ve got to work out a better way to get them on you tube and then I’ll be able to share them with you a lot easier.

I’m fully refreshed now after a Christmas break, although I’ve been working hard behind the scenes on the website and on new formulas for lots of new products, and I’m really looking forward to sharing the new products with you very soon.

So here’s to handling everything that 2019 has to throw at me!

Have a fantastic New Year and I’ll see you very soon.
Lots of love
Sue xxx