Neal's Yard Remedies is the UK's most successful organic skincare brand.
Emma Dance goes behind the scenes of the company's eco factory in Peacemarsh, Dorset to find out just what goes in to those little blue bottles.
The development area at Neal's Yard Remedies headquarters in Peacemarsh looks like a cross between a high tech lab and a bakery.
Between the complicated looking machines (one of them measures wrinkles apparently!) and computer screens are tubs and vats of lotions and potions, and something that looks remarkably like cake mixture is being whisked up on one of the counters.
I have a childlike urge to stick my finger in it and taste it, but as it's Jasmine Enriching Cream I'm not sure it will taste quite as good as it looks.
It smells incredible though. The whole room does in fact. Imagine that heady aroma you get in a spa, multiply it by 10 and you might be somewhere close.
It's difficult to believe that every single one of Neal's Yard Remedies products starts life in this room that's not probably not even as big as the science labs we had at school, but it's true.
A small team of experts lovingly develops and tests every product to perfection, before it can go into large scale production just next door.
One of the brains behind the beauty products is formulator Fran Johnson.
"The marketing team comes up with an idea based on what the market wants and then we try to make it happen," she explains.
But because Neal's Yard Remedies use as many natural and organic ingredients as possible, developing new products has its own set of challenges.
"Because there are certain materials we don't use we have to find other ways of doing things," says Fran. "For example, we use different emulsifiers and they behave differently to those which are used in most cosmetics. And because there are less people developing organic products they take more time to come on to the market so we have to work harder to keep up with demand.
"People's tastes change too. People like dry oils at the moment and it is difficult to replicate that 'dry slip.'
"If you use a product that feels oily, then it feels old fashioned.
"There are a few things that it just isn't possible for us to do - like a bright red lipstick. We just can't do it using natural, organic materials.
"We are restricted in what we can use, but that's the challenge and that's what makes it good."
Watching Fran work is reminiscent of watching a chef in the kitchen. There is so much care and attention, and she cares as much about the ingredients she is using as any cook.
She pulls a container out of a cupboard and proudly shows me the contents. It looks like macaroni, but I'm informed that actually it's bee's wax which is used in the Bee Lovely range, a range that was designed to help raise money for a campaign to save the nation's bees.
The provenance of the raw materials is fundamental to Neal's Yard Remedies, and they know where every herb and ingredient comes from.
Some of the herbs and flowers are grown in Peacemarsh and some at an organic farm in Berkshire. Others, like the organic damask rose buds which are handpicked before sunrise to protect their precious oils, come from abroad but regular trips are made to the farms to ensure that not only are the products being produced to the highest standard, but that they are also being ethically produced and that everyone involved in the process is being fairly treated.
There are very strict guidelines about what can and can't be used and every effort is made to keep the percentage of organic ingredients in every product as high as possible and older products are reformulated when new organic products come on to the market.
But while some companies make claims about producing 100 per cent organic products Fran maintains that it's almost impossible since although ingredients such as water, clay, and minerals can be ethically sourced, they can never be classed as organic.
Every single product is hand made at Peacemarsh, and every one of the trademark blue glass jars and bottles is filled there, by hand of course, before it is sent out to the stores not only in the UK, but all over the world.
Although Neal's Yard Remedies is now a global brand, the Peacemarch factory doesn't seem a million miles away from its small beginnings in 1981 when Romy Fraser a former teacher with a passion natural, ethical and holistic health and beauty started brewing herbal remedies in the kitchen behind her small shop in Neal's Yard in Covent Garden. Of course the technology is now far more advanced, and Romy no longer heads up the operation having sold the company in 2005 to the Kindersely family, but the ethos and family feel is still very much in evidence.
While many British companies have sold their soul to multi national corporations it's reassuring to find one where maintaining its core values seems to be more important than making a quick buck.
This article was taken from the April issue of The County Magazine.
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