Packaging

We're being as environmentally conscious as we can think to be. And, we aspire to learn more and get a little better every year!

At the moment, we use:

• Food-safe, reusable, and recyclable metal tins made by Specialty Bottle in Seattle to hold the lotion bars, salves, balms, and lip balms. The salves, balms, and lip balm containers have screw-top lids, so the lid doesn't easily slide off if it lives in your purse or backpack for a while. The lotion bars have a slip-off lid, and given that they melt easily at body temperature, they should never be stored in a hot car or hot anywhere else. Labels are by Avery, and printed by us. 
• Molded recycled fiber pulp boxes and a small paper wrap and stick-on labels to wrap our soaps, shampoo bars, dish soap bars, dog shampoo bars, and shower steamers. Boxes are created by Sustainable Packaging Industries (SPI) and are plastic-free, made from recycled cardboard, and are reusable, recyclable, and compostable. No bleach, dyes, or glue used in the boxes. Labels are by Avery. The paper wrap is usually from PaperMart or Michael's. Out of the Ritual Mischief studio itself, we also happily sell these items bare naked (no packaging), and you are welcome to request no packaging--for only these products, excluding shower steamers--when you order online. If we ship with soap bar items with no packaging, item names will be written inside the shipping box and on shipping filler.
• Reusable glass bottles with metal tops from Specialty Bottle in Seattle and reusable glass bottles with metal roller balls and a plastic top by Zenith Supplies in Seattle to hold the body and massage oils. We also have one large batch of 2-oz pump tops (with plastic tops) that we're using up and don't intend to order these bottles with plastic tops again. Nothing we offer is single-use plastic--they're all reusable--and we offer half-price refills of oils (any of our oils into the bottle you bring back) to locals to encourage reuse of these glass bottles.
• A small, card-stock paper square tag with product info accompanies our dried plant offerings (sleep and dream pillows, sachets, and closet bags). This year we worked with neighbors Feather & Fox in Langley to create reusable cotton bags with zippers for the sleep and dream pillows and we worked with friend Barbara to create most of our drawer sachets out of scrap fabric for the Lavender, Lemon Balm, and Spearmint sachets. Other sachets were hand embroidered by West Bank artisans of Handmade Palestine--we ordered the sachets to support families there. We create the hangtags ourselves using cardstock paper from Papermart or Michael's and print on both sides to conserve paper. In person, not online, we offer half-price refills of sleep and dream pillows from our herbal studio. 
• No packaging. The locally made western red cedar soap rest by Teresa at Mountain Tree Farm in Arlington, WA, body and dish scrubbies made by Gina White in Seattle, and olive wood soap rests by Handmade Palestine have no packaging at all.
• Shipping. For shipping, we use recycled cardboard boxes (some from EcoSwift, Tailored Packaging, and Amazon, and many are recycled boxes we've received from others), reused paper (mostly from our Specialty Bottle orders) and gifted reused paper from friends, RARELY tissue paper typically just for Christmas (FSC® certified, ensuring that these products come from responsibly managed forests from Papermart), and/or wood wool (Wasserstrom Restaurant Supply) within gift sets.
• In-person purchases. We use reused paper bags and paper bags by DreamBag (FSC compliant and recyclable and reusable) for carry away products in for those who shop in the herbal studio. We use the same (as above) wood wool for gifts and gift sets. At this point, roughly 75% of the people who shop at our studio or visit us at makers markets bring their own bags and that percentage grows every year--so we often don't have to use a paper bag at all--because Whidbey Island people and visitors totally rock!