Plastic-Free Packaging

We took an effort and we did it without the money, funding, crowd-funding or anything at all. We made our handblown glass packaging in an effort to eliminate as much of the plastic packaging from the world of beauty and from our planet as possible. 

We support dozens of glass makers in the Mediterranean. They make truly exquisite pieces. When I met Ali, our chief glass maker boss, and showed him my sketches of the bottles and jars I wanted to make, he looked at the page for about 10 seconds and waved to me to close the book. Two minutes later I had a perfect jar in my hands. Watch this! 

 

Our olive wood accessories are sustainably made out of olive wood that has outlived its productive life of making olives and found new life in a beautiful craft. A new tree has been planted nearby meanwhile to keep the circle of life going.

Watch this little video from Idriss. Our olive wood maker. If you need passion about sustainable and plastic-free, he has more than plenty for all of us to get inspired and on board about eco-friendly things in life and saving our planet from plastic. Just watch.

 

Cork Closures - we decided to go away from easy to use plastic closures and use cork instead. It does present some challenges on our end and a learning curve for you, our customers. I hope we can together figure out best ways of using products without ever having to go back to plastic. 

Cork is a naturally sustainable craft. The cork trees that generously 'donate' some of their bark to the craft are mature trees and harvesting happens in summer, so that the tree does not go cold :). The cork (bark) rebuilds over time, so the tree keeps on growing. 

A cool thing about cork, is that it is porous enough (we use the highest grade of cork with the smallest number of tiniest pores) to allow products to breathe, yet seals it very well. In the last few years that we have been using cork for closures, we had only a few incidents where cork popped out and product leaked. Usually it is our fault for not sealing the bottle well, but it does not happen often. :)

Cork naturally has a protective waxy cover that keeps moisture and bacteria away. Occassionally, if some of that cover is stripped or broken, moisture can get in and cork can develop mold. It is nothing scary, just think of what happens to cheese or bread after a few days on your counter. If natural, preservative-free products do not grow mold if subjected to correct environment, you have a 'twinkie'. In all seriousness, it does not happen often, but if dirty paws and enough moisture get on the cork, it might get affected. In this case, replace the cork.

You can also gently wash and air dry cork. And for best seal (if you are traveling with your glass bottle with cork), make sure glass neck of the bottle is oil-free so that cork does have too much oil around it to slip. Just wipe that area with a clean tissue and seal. We usually place oil corked bottles in a zip lock bag just in case. Air pressure and suitcases flying can make sturdier products do funny things.

 

Our clay bowls for mixing of the masques and DIY beauty recipes are made in one village that is protected by Unesco and has the most unique and ancient way of making pottery. Yes, they might appear chipped and ragged to some, but it is truly the perfection of imperfect, the raku-style, warm to touch and feeling like you just went back a few thousand years ago. Here is Emna, making her bowls, each one by hand, taking over an hour for each...