Eve's Choice

So, nine months ago now I decided, after 32 years of outright neglect, I would look into a skincare routine and look after my face! I spoke to my friends and my sister and after listening to what they did, I was recommended a YouTube channel; so, I watched that. On there the phrase “put your money where your morals are” was said repeatedly and I hadn’t thought about that before, but it made sense. Around the house, I do what I can to recycle, not waste food, use a ‘green’ energy supplier, turn off lights, save water, etc. I hadn’t created a skincare routine yet, I could use any company, why not use a company that wants to help the planet as I do? 

As a mother of two, the pennies had to be watched, but I was sure I could find not only a reasonably priced but also ‘eco’ skincare brand to try first, and that’s when I fell down the rabbit hole. Of course, I did the customary Google search, and then, of course, (this was before Apple stopped it), Instagram and Facebook got wind I was shopping for ‘green skincare’. All my adverts miraculously changed (which wasn’t a bad thing, it saved me time!), so I clicked link after link and found a confusing variety of different ‘green’ options to choose from. Did I want to go fully recyclable or be plastic-free? Should I go cruelty-free or vegan? Does it contain palm oil, and what are sulphates anyway, and why are they bad? Should I go water-free, was it fair trade, were the staff paid the living wage? Each website had its list of reasons to purchase, with tiny, branded images pushing their ‘eco’ credentials; how was I to work out which one was best for me! Hours of scrolling and searching went by and I was only getting more confused and being left with more and more open tabs on my phone.

I’m an organiser. I love to control and give structure to chaos (ask any of my bridal party) and my tool of choice tends to be an Excel spreadsheet! But how to rank those tick boxes? A mark out of 100 (someone already does that and I defy you to name them!)? Was it even possible to create a way to measure a company’s eco-credentials? And anyway, why didn’t this sort of thing exist already? How was it that no one had created a way to compare two beauty brands side by side and put it out there for everyone to use? And, at that moment, an idea was born.

I needed help. This was a job too big for a mother of two with a full-time job, so I called in the one other female who I knew I could boss around, sorry ‘manage’, and she had to love me anyway: the little sister. From that moment we have both worked full time at our day jobs and every other spare second has been spent getting Eve’s Choice up and running. Who knew so much work went into a website!?