Tin of Beans & a Jacket Potato, the start of iindi.be
The 1st January 2019, New Years Revolution of only plastic free. As a Vegan, I'd got used to the complexities, how difficult could it be buying plastic free?
Off I popped to the local Supermarket, new cloth bags in hand, appearing like an Eco Warrior. Looking down the supermarket aisle, the overwhelming enormity of Plastic hit me. Why had I not realised? or noticed before? Where had I been as an Ethical buyer of all Vegan Free.
Home an hour later with a Tin of Beans & a Jacket Potato - exhausted & embarrassed at the lack of care to our planet and potential contribution of methane from the beans & potato lunch!
Before I changed the world, (hands in head emoji), I needed a cup of fair trade coffee, with my home made oat milk, which did indeed taste absolutely disgusting, lumpy, think & slimy, (remember to remove the oats next time).
The current need to wash my hair & shower but didn't purchase any toiletries from the supermarket. It was ok, I could do this and walked down to the local Chemist. Again, nothing, nada, not one shampoo bottle packed without plastic. Again staring up and down the chemist aisles of toiletries, the enormity of plastic, the despair. I couldn't find anything not packed in plastic apart from a box of Epsom bath salts - so purchased.
Back home, dug into the plastic recycling dustbin, scavenging for the empty shampoo & conditioner plastic bottles - found, sorted. Finally, the Epsom Salt teeny bath (couldn't waste water), with Epsom salts and hair products from the plastic bin worked. Confession - I went into another bin and found this well lovely smelling empty shampoo bottle.
As a Stubbornist - (new word), dressed and visit to the local bigger town, new cloth bags still in hand, - now impacting carbon emissions! Hallelujah, store found, full of goodies, soaps all Vegan, all good for you, all free of plastic! Cannot believe I purchased over £100 on toiletries, including a variety of toothpaste, the whole 'bag and mashings' for a fully kitted Bathroom, on the credit card, contributing to world debt.
Following week I was just my own local hero, Instagram posts, (got a couple of likes) saving the world, look at these photos with filters (do love a filter). Sorted, I'm still Eco Vegan women, mother and now grandmother. Started baking bread and producing lots of hummus with raw veg from the local organic vegetable supplier! Hair was starting to feel and look straw-like and appeared a little lighter at the ends. What was in these wonderful products?
You know as a child, when you're at school & a school friend is not very nice to you? Remember the 'I'm going to tell my dad of you' - that will scare him/her not to be nice to me again. I was out of my depth couldn't believe it, googling and translating all these ingredients and googling the effect on health at these products - here was my wow, sad moment.
Shouldn't there be a company of course which promotes what it does on saving our wildlife and planet but promotes clearly & equally, what it doesn't do and why. Humans are by nature forgiving, empathetic, altruistic but cross a human to be feeling fooled is the worst and I was feeling at my worst & fooled!
Do I tell a parent, school teacher of others wrong doings on clarity? Would the effort of shouting on twitter work? Sometimes, possibly, not really, but what could I do?
And here lies the creation of iindi.be.
So how will iindi.be, be different? The team will ALWAYS make Vegan & Cruelty free products, (no compromise) using raw material that will not impact our planet's biodiversity and which are ethically sourced. They have a positive impact on us and beneficial to our physical and mental well being. Each product has been tested many times on friends, friends of friends and family, with some remarkable and a few not so remarkable results, the brutal honest feedback has created what iindi.be is today.
My logo under iindibe says always vegan always plastic free. There will be a blog, (or maybe the blog has arrived :-) on the use of plastic labelling & pump with the Environmentals range. The label is made of teslin and independently tested to ASTM standards. Teslin has been designed to biodegrade, 'When you want it to and not before'. The material breaks down into environmentally when placed in an anaerobic environment containing microbes that “eat” polymers.
iindi.be will always speak about the wonderful products, the benefits, the raw ingredients but will equally give information on how we are improving. I've not even launched the company and changed several labels as one biodegrades quicker than the other!
Thank you for reading my first blog - Nx