Caring for baby the natural way (From Salisbury Journal)

Caring for baby the natural way

2:53pm Thursday 22nd January 2009 in Going Green

NAPPIES and baby wipes come in all shapes and sizes – and sometimes they come in disguise.

“We did have a customer saying no to a delivery because she thought she was getting an office fan instead of nappies,” says Naturebotts director Jess Hyde,” so now we make sure we have got Naturebotts tape and stickers so that the customers realise that their order is not necessarily coming in a nappies box.”

Jess (39) is one of three directors, all working mums, of the Ringwood-based mail order company, which sells eco-friendly childcare products via its website www.naturebotts.co.uk But the company’s green credentials extend beyond the product range it stocks and deliveries are made using recycled packaging from other businesses.

Staff at their warehouse approached local businesses on the same trading estate and asked if they could take away packaging that would have been put out for recycling in any case.

“They were more than happy to have their boxes picked up as our drivers are passing,” explains Jess.

“Quite often, they leave other packaging like bubble wrap in.

“It works for all of us – we don’t have to use new packaging and we don’t have to pass on the costs of packaging to the customers which is an added benefit.”

It all ties in with the company’s aim to be as eco-friendly as possible, although initially its environmental conscience was developed more by coincidence than design when Jess’s fellow director Caitlin Castillo was trying to track down nappies that would not irritate her son Jaco’s delicate skin.

Caitlin and Jess met originally as Montessori teachers in London.

Caitlin married and her first child Jaco was born with severe atopic eczema.

She came across Moltex-Öko nappies – a German brand of eco-friendly disposable nappies – that were perfect, but when she and her husband moved to Bournemouth, the nappies were virtually unobtainable.

She bemoaned the fact to old schoolfriend Penny Bowen, who suggested the pair set up in business and sell the nappies themselves, so in September 2001, Naturebotts was born.

A year later, Jess – by now a mother herself to Arthur, who was in Moltex-Öko nappies from the day he was born – joined them.

Initially they worked from home – Penny in Wiltshire, Jess in Somerset and Caitlin in Dorset – but as the business grew, they moved to offices in Ringwood, which remains the company’s base.

“It’s worked really well,” says Jess.

“We started with just the nappies and some wipes and then added in organic cotton wool and the Natracare feminine hygiene range.

“We gradually added things that we used and we liked like the Earth Friendly Baby skincare range which has been really popular – simple products, inexpensive but it’s eco-friendly so it ticks all the boxes.”

Eight years on and with eight children between them, motherhood has been one long market research exercise.

“Anything we stock has to have some kind of eco friendly/green/ organic angle to it because that’s what our customers want,” she says.

“It started with the nappies purely because they helped Jaco’s skin – it was coincidental that they were eco-friendly, but the more Caitlin looked into it, the more she realised that these products were so important.”

When you have children, she says, you become more and more aware of what you are putting on your baby’s skin.

“It’s for the baby as well as for the environment.

“It starts off with what you are putting on your child but obviously that goes hand in hand with the environment – manufacture, disposal and a chemical free life – you become more green.”

Choosing products is, she says, a joint decision.

Naturebotts also manufactures its own branded biodegradable, unperfumed nappy sacks and wipes.

“The first thing we had manufactured of our own was the nappy sacks because there is no point in putting the Moltex nappies in a bag that doesn’t break down because then they don’t get a chance to breakdown,” she says.

“We just weren’t happy with any of the wipes – everything we found either didn’t do the job or was massively expensive.

“So we found a company in Wales to make them – and that was extra brilliant for us because they are made in the UK.

“You can buy cheaper, but they are not wildly expensive, they are big and soft and they do the job.”

Most of its business is by mail order, promising next day delivery, which Jess says is much appreciated by customers particularly those living in rural areas.

As before, the website will feature the directors’ own children, their cousins and friends modelling the products on sale.

“They’re cheap,” she laughs, “so we do, I’m afraid, use our own children.

“We’ve got them – they are the right age and it made sense to use them but we really do use the products that we have and we wouldn’t want to recommend anything that we didn’t.”

• Naturebotts is set to relaunch its website in February. Visit www.naturebotts.co.uk.