EP103. How to run a refillable beauty scheme

I've been talking about the principles of circular beauty for a while now, as the beauty industry is starting to very slowly introduce an element of circularity to its formulations and packaging. But the circular economy has also left lots of beauty brands scratching their heads. How do you even begin to implement something that seems so huge and seems to require so much infrastructure? I've decided to demystify this question by interviewing a number of beauty entrepreneurs who are already running refilling schemes in various countries around the world to find out how they're doing it. And through the conversations I've already had with future guests on this podcast, I've discovered that no one uses exactly the same model and that it's the really entrepreneurial visionaries who are embracing circularity ahead of everyone else. I've also discovered that you don't need to be a huge brand to set up a refilling scheme. So what's the future for circularity and beauty? Well, join me for an interview today in which I speak to a very inspirational entrepreneur who has pioneered her refilling scheme in the UK and who still works entirely alone in her business. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetics formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 180 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. So in today's episode I'm joined by Tammy Facy, the founder of Jim and Henry, which is the UK's first brand new to create a leave in hair conditioner comprised of only eight ingredients for curly and afro hair types. Tammy created her brand as a response to a need. She creates luxurious but effective Afro and curly hair care that delivers stunning results with just a few fine ingredients. And building upon that ethos, Jim and Henry embraces the circular economy. So Tammy's entire range comes in recycled consumer plastic and is refillable. Hi Tammy, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Hi Lorraine, I'm great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Oh, I am so excited to hear about Jim and Henry and all the work that you've been doing. So let's set the scene first can you please tell us about your business, Jim and Henry, how long you've been going, what you sell, what's in your range, And I also want you to tell us how big your team is.

Okay, so Jim and Henry, just to clarify anything, they are nicknamed that my older sister is gave my twin sister and I when we were little and they stuck. But I will say for disclaimer purposes, my twin sister is not part of Jim and Henry. She's a yoga teacher and she likes to let everyone know she's a yoga teacher. Yeah. So, Jim and Henry, we are the first brand in the UK to create a hair care range for curly and afro hair types comprised of eight ingredients or fewer. Although now I have leave in hair conditioners with 10 ingredients as well, which I think is pretty cool. We started in 2017 and the whole Brexit thing was challenging, to say the least in terms of sourcing our jars. But that's when we switched from glass jars to consumer recycled plastic jars, which I think is a good thing. And it's just me. It's just me. I run the business.

Amazing. And I really want our listeners to take that on board when you, when we start to really delve into what you've set up. Because I know a lot of people think, gosh, the circular economy, obviously we're talking about refills today. Gosh, that must be such a big undertaking. So much infrastructure required. But actually, I want everyone listening to just hear you say it's just me because I think that will really set the scene for what you do. So let's start at the beginning again. What made you decide to embrace circularity? I know you said you initially started with jars. What happened?

So much so we initially began with glass amber jars and amber, which protects the products from photo damage and the sun. And because the ingredients are largely organic, the, the shea butter and the essential oils, glass jars were great. They are great, don't get me wrong. But they were broken so many times. There were so many accidents, so many issues. And before I even thought about the PCR jars, I was considering refills because I thought it's crackers, that firstly, these glass jars are breaking all the time. How annoying. But as someone with thick, curly, curly afro hair, I'm constantly using a lot of plastic. So I needed a squeezy bottle, a bottle of shampoo, a jar, and I realized I was collecting so much plastic, I thought, come on, like, there's got to be a way that I can refill either the glass jars or possibly Change them or maybe consider refills. And that's when I literally just on my own, discovered refills. Zero waste stores did a lot of research online and thought, okay, how do I do this? Let me, let me work this out, let's try and think about it. And that's when I saw online a lot of zero waste stores have jerry cans of various sizes. So typically they have 5 litre jerry cans and then some other stores have 25 liter jerry cans, so 5 times as large. And whilst I couldn't do that, like massive jerry cans, I could do the five liters because so many of our ingredients arrive in these five litre jerry cans. And I thought, well, hold on, if I can just sanitize them and clean them properly and then decant my product into them, why don't I just do that? So I did it.

Wow, that is so entrepreneurial. Because I've just seen so many people really struggle with this concept of making their brand circular because they think it does require all this infrastructure, all these people, people maybe setting up even some kind of refilling station. But you just went, actually, I've got something here in my lab, it works. Why don't I run with that? And I think that's absolutely fantastic. Tell me about how you initially started with your refills. I know you told me about this when we had our little pre chat. What, what were your first forays into refillable beauty like?

So I definitely thought, I can do it, I can do it, it's fine. So I quite literally did it myself. And what I mean is I. Oh, gosh. So I have these large kilner jars at home and they are, they are glass kilner jars, about 5 liters. And then I've got 2.5. And I literally just put email blasts out there, did a whole social media campaign telling my customers and potential customers that we do refills and if they are interested, please meet me at a certain address in Birmingham slash London. I planned one in Manchester. That just didn't happen because it didn't go well. And I literally had a spoon, a sanitized spoon, gloves, those like nitrile blue gloves, my kilna jar jars of products and my customers there with their Jim and Henry jars. And I was like, okay, let's spoon it. It didn't, it didn't go well. It didn't go well.

But you know what, you have to do these things, don't you, in order to learn from them?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, yes. Yeah. That was not a good idea. And that's when, when I realized, okay, I'm not the person. Like, I don't have the infrastructure set up. But zero waste stores do they, they have all the pumps, you know, I just send them jerry cans and they're like, great, thank you. We do it. So that's, that's what I do now.

I love that. And that was such a revelation. And of course, zero waste stores are mushrooming out of the ground all over the world, which is really exciting to see. So let's dive into that a little bit. How does it work now? So I'm a customer, I'm on the Jim and Henry website and I'm buying your eight ingredient leave in conditioner, which sounds lovely. And once I finish my jar, I want to refill. So what happens next?

You say, okay, I want to refill. And I live in London, so my stockists refill. Stockists are all on the website. But often, if you just don't know, I manage all of our social media. So if you don't know, just send me a message on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, email me and I can say, here you go, go to this shop. And then you literally go along to restore, which is in Hackney, Hackney Downs, yeah, with your jar of your empty, clean, dry, please, please bring a clean and dry jar to the zero waste store, wherever it is in the uk and you just go and refill and that's it.

And it's that simple. But how do you find those stockists to take on your refills? How did you approach them?

So I don't know if I'm going to say Steve Jobs did this or he recommended this. I'm not talking about copying or imitation. I'm not saying that. But what I did was I literally googled zero waste stores in the uk. And then also there are so many websites that list them, like in east, up north, down south. And then there's a company which sells like household cleaning products and they sell everywhere in the uk, Literally everywhere. So I found their list of stockists and I just went through and I still do this with a fine tooth comb. And I'm like, right, if they can sell their range, their products there, I can sell my stuff. And then I reach out to the stockist, say, hi, I'm Tammy. Maybe we'll have a zoom. Sometimes I will go and see them if it suits everyone's schedule. And then I'm like, right, you need my products.

Genius. I love that. That's a really innovative and entrepreneurial way of approaching It. And how have you found. Have the stockists responded when you've initially reached out to them? I mean, is this quite a novel way of reaching out to refill stores?

Honestly, I don't know. I have no idea. Because I know the household cleaning product company is a biggish indie company, and you just know that they are far more established than I am, which is fine. But I just feel like if, you know, I can just talk to someone and explain. Like, we're huge in the curly girl world. Our range is kind of girl approved. So many parents, even my sister and my nephew, like, my sister won't use products that have more than 10 ingredients on her son. She just doesn't do it. You know, you want something fairly natural that won't irritate their skin, their scalp, their hair. And stockists get. Initially there's a bit of, who are you? Like, what? I don't know, we've never heard of you. And then I say things like, well, Natalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones uses our products, which she does. She's lovely, by the way. She's so nice. Yeah. And, you know, we've been on this morning and they. They eventually get it.

Wow. Well, I mean, congratulations. How many stockists are you working with at the moment?

We have 12 refill store stockists. And it's. It's growing.

It is, and I'm sure it will grow even further. And again, that's why I really wanted to highlight the fact that you're doing this all by yourself at the moment. And I have no doubt that, you know, when we next speak in the future, at some point you might have a larger team, but it is absolutely achievable with one person. Because I know a lot of people put up that barrier to say, I can't do this because it's just me, but here you are having done it all by yourself. So I wanted to ask, how do you work with those stockists? Like, how do you provide refills for their refills? How does that work?

Like I said, a lot of our ingredients arrive in jerry cans. So I literally sterilize everything, get all of those ingredients out, sterilize everything, pop a label on, fill everything. So it's like a tube sort of pump thing. Fill enough, I make a batch and then I literally fill. And like my nephew, my Cousin's son, who's 16, not my baby nephew, he comes and helps as well as my mom and my twin sister, and we literally fill everything, label it. They can place an order either through the Website and I ship it out. But now, because I've moved to a different fulfillment company and they do B2B orders, I've just sent a load of jerry cans. So all of my stockists and potential new stockists can just order straight from the website and it gets sent the same day.

And then when they've finished their jerry cans, how many do they send back to you? How does that work?

Yeah. So once they've collected 10, they send them back to up to, literally, the lab. And then we sterilize them again, put the fresh product in, pop a new label on, send them back.

And how do you sanitize or sterilize the jerry cans? How does that work?

We've got a literal sill, so it's literally boiled water, and then you have to leave them upside down for at least 12 hours. And then you have to check if there's any drip. It's very thorough because we don't want any bacteria.

No, absolutely. So what are the main requirements for you to work with refilling stockists? You obviously send them the jerry cans. Is there any paperwork they require with it? How does that work?

Admittedly, there's no paperwork at my end, and perhaps there should be. I'm not really sure about that in terms of. So a new stockist says, hey, we love your vibe, your ideas. Let's go forward. I say, okay, initially we have sort of, you know, try our first most popular product. Let us know how you get on. And then ideally, they then order three jerry cans. But I'm not pushy. Like, if it. If it. Seriously, if they say, look, we don't want the hair oil, it would never work for our customers. There's no point in them having it. I'd rather that particular store and their customers got what they wanted and then just worked like that.

It's incredible. I think it's really innovative, what you've set up. And I'm sure there are lots of people listening today thinking, wow, actually, so many more beauty brands should be doing this. And this is how. This is the model we should all probably be moving to. So how do you encourage your customers to use refills? Do they have to reach out to you to find out how to use it? Do you send them instructions when they order from you? How does it work?

Yeah, so it's still a bit of a tricky one with customers because I feel like, although refills aren't necessarily new to me, this, they're still quite new in the world, and it's been quite not Challenging, but explaining what refills are to customers and just saying firstly you're not harming the planet. You also save money because you've already got the jar yourself. You don't pay any postage in packaging because you're just going to the, the local store to you. And once I explain that so many of my customers say oh my God, that's amazing, that's great, I'm going to do that. I'm like, okay, cool, fantastic. So really it's just about me explaining constantly, constantly, constantly saying you know what you're doing. Buying Jim and Henry is fantastic, Yay. But you can save money, save the planet and also buy more if you want. I did for a time sell the jerry cans to consumers as well as in B2C which was semi popular. It was kind of popular especially for some less able bodied customers. I'm not that able, physically able to get to a store so I prefer having a jerry can. But that was literally like two customers and that they're fine with the actual jars. But it's, it's, it's a, it's a, I'd say it's a constant conversation with customers. Yeah, I'm happy to.

Yeah. Well it's exciting because you're changing hearts and minds and you know what, it will have a ripple effect because people will buy from you and think, well that's such a genius idea. I'm going to my local zero waste store to buy my Jim and Henry product. Actually I also want this and this product there. Why are these people not doing this yet? So hopefully they'll start to put pressure on other brands. Yeah.

Ideally I have seen a, not, I wouldn't call them a competitor but a like bath body hair care hand wash company. They initially weren't refilling their jerry cans and due to pressure from customers they now are. And I just thought, well that's, that's fantastic.

So yeah, very exciting. So what's next for Jim and Henry?

Apart from world domination? No, I, whilst I do the refills here in the uk, I am trying and I've got quite a few meetings and calls set up next week. I'm trying to sort of establish a refill scheme in the States, in America. So which is, it's so big, it's huge in America and I, it would be crackers to ship my product over there. That's kind of defeats the object. But I'm trying to work on at the moment trying to get a refill scheme set up with Jim and Henry products already over there and get them refilled and do the whole circular economy thing over there.

Wow. And you're still all by yourself. Do you plan to bring more people on board to help you?

Yes, yes, yes. I've got a call today with someone who is hopefully joining.

Good, good. Well, I'm absolutely inspired and blown away by what you're doing, but particularly given the fact that you are all by yourself in this. It is inspirational and I know our listeners will be thinking the same. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. If people want to follow you or find out more about you, where can they do that? Where can they buy your hair care formulations?

Our entire range is on our website, which includes all of our stockists, the refill stock stockists up and down the country. So our website is jim and henry.com and our Instagram is jimandhenry and Facebook is just Jim and Henry. So cool.

And we will include all of that with the show notes as well. So do go and check out Jim and Henry and all the awesome work that Tammy is doing. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Tammy, it's been really lovely chatting to you.

You're welcome. It's been so fun. I love this stuff. So thank you. Thanks for having me.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it's inspired you to see that every brand can embrace circular beauty. I would love to hear your thoughts. So please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. Thank you for joining Tammy and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.

Sam.