This week we are bringing you more insights into the other ethical businesses that we are proud to stock here at Lucy & Yak.
Meet Primal Suds, the brand that does all natural soaps like no other. Here we have an interview with Andrew & Jen, co-founders of Primal Suds on the inspiration behind the wash revolution, their product range and their views on zero-waste ethos.
Andrew & Jen, how did you come up with the idea for Primal Suds?
Andrew: We get asked quite a bit why we started Primal Suds, a question that has about a squillion answers and/or if prompted we can embarrassingly talk at very high speed at any giving victim for a solid hour (or more) in some sort of strange zealous soap explanatory rant. In the past this has included the postman, the staff down our local Cost Cutter or strangers....so here goes. After taking a year out from our old lives with time to rethink, repair and re-evaluated what was personally important to us, me and Jen made the easy choice of not going back to work as we knew it and embarked on a wash revolution instead.
Jen: Our initial goal was to create natural soaps that contained no synthetic ingredients, the likes of SLS, Cetearyl alcohol and so forth. The only unnatural ingredient we use is Lye (heavy alkaline) which after the soap making process is finished is no longer present and is biodegradable....without it there is no soap. We obviously wanted to offer some natural, no plastic, cruelty free, vegan friendly options to modern thinking peoples bathrooms as well, albeit primaly inspired.
Andrew: We figured things needed to rewind rather than fast forward, this is why we also use an ancient process of soap making, which kinda fitted the brief perfectly. I am a chef by trade and to me the process of soap making is not too dissimilar to making a meal. Magic is in the ingredients and staying creative. We’ve taken soap making back in time, using natural ingredients such as clays, charcoals and essential oils, taking inspiration from our ancestry soap makers mixing fats with fire ash to develop the first soaps known to man, these happened to be free of unearthly additives as well. Hence our name Primal Suds!
How did your range develop since you first launched Primal Suds?
As our first year played out we started to introduce more natural products to the range, natural shampoo bars, natural deo bars (NO BO BARS) and recently Dry Shampoo...always sticking to our fundamental ethos of natural and no plastic, this is ongoing and in the future we do plan to move out of the bathroom.
Zero waste is a popular term these days. How do you live this ethos in your everyday choices as business owners?
The packaging (from the box we send in to the soap boxes) we use is totally compostable and recyclable, the soap itself is totally biodegradable and will have no accumulative detrimental effects on the water systems, unlike a vast amount of mainstream bathroom products. Obviously, no plastic, we don’t use the stuff!
What are your future plans for Primal Suds?
In a nutshell, we will continue to stick to the plan as we build Primal Suds with a no compromise attitude on the values we started out with and if this means we can’t do certain products ( for example, conditioner bars/liquid) so be it, until we find a way...if there is one.
We also encourage kindness, compassion and encouragement for one and other within the Suds Tribe and in general to be fair. Social media can be a judgmental and toxic place at times and “ain’t nobody got time for that’’, as we feel one of the most ethical things humanity can actually control is love. So when people are making small changes to the benefit of the planet, big that up...not criticise or find fault. Any change is better than no change and with awareness to environmental issues building to such great and positive levels we are really confident that collectively....we all got this ya’ll.
Thank you Primal Suds. To shop a full range of all-natural soaps and shampoo bars, click here.