The Interview - Part 3

Last time we looked at the beginning of our cosmetics and skincare journey, and now we're talking about how you, our customers can get involved.

Fairypants   The skin balm thing came about by accident. One of my customers emailed me and she said, 'I already buy your lip balms, is there a chance that you could make me a lip balm in a really big tin?' And I was didn't really know where she was going, but she told me that she put the lip balm on her eczema; it’s the only thing that cures it. She said she'd tried steroids, and my lipbalm was the only thing that helped her.  I went away, and I formulated a skin balm for her instead. The lip balm has got a little bit of colour in it, and it’s also got flavours in it. I didn't think she'd want her arm to smell of Pina Colada, so I came up with some nicer fragrances.

 

We do Rose and Mint, Orange and Vanilla and an Unscented one. And then I started making them in really big tins. I sent her one for free and she rang me up and she said she couldn’t believe how amazing it was, and it had worked.  And she said, as long as I keep on using this every now and then, it just keeps it at bay. So I was thought that was brilliant.  I sent a few samples out. I requested testers. Every now and then when I’ve got something new, I request testers on my social media pages. I normally explain to them kind of what it is. I don’t really go into a lot of detail so I don’t spoil the surprise, but I might tell them it’s nail varnish, so that nobody who doesn’t really wear nail varnish will ask for it.

 

 

 

And I always say to them that they must let me know before they participate if they have known allergies just so that I can weed them out if they’re allergic to something I'm using. And then obviously they can always come back to me if they’ve got a problem afterwards, but luckily I’ve never had anyone come back to me and say they’ve had an allergic reaction so it’s okay. But I sent all these testers out for this Dry Skin Balm and I was getting the same feedback, it was like a pattern. Everyone was saying 'my psoriasis has cleared up', 'my eczema’s cleared up', etc. Someone else said, they used it on their sunburn and went from bright red to brown overnight. And then people were just saying all these crazy things and I was thinking, they don’t know me, they’re not saying it just to be nice. You know, they’re saying it because they mean it.

 

So then I started selling that, and that again is one of my best sellers. So it’s always accidental, and sometimes from a suggestion from a customer. I mean, the latest product, the nail varnish remover, that came about because one of my stockists said her customers were buying all the nail varnish and then asking about a remover. So she asked me and that was a couple of months ago because that’s how long it took me to get a formula and get the branding for it. And then so now my customers are really happy because they can buy the nail varnish and the matching nail varnish remover. So I’m always open to requests, shall we say, from customers, because that’s normally the best way to move forward.

 

In Part 4 we go back to University and talk about a great belief in fate. xox

The Interview - Part 2

We left off last week discussing how we first got a stall in Chester Market - here's where we pick up the story.

Fairypants    The feeling I got from being in a market is that people have to see you there a few times before they’ll buy from you, because to their mind you could be there one week and gone the next. And they’ve bought something and they want a refund, so they don’t trust you until you’ve been there for a few months. So, like I say, after the pity sales of the first few months, then it started to kind of pick up a little bit and it was really good. And then I think maybe it was a year or two years later I just found this recipe in a magazine to make vegan lip balm and I’m obsessed with cosmetics, like really obsessed with them, to the point where people who go abroad will bring them back for me if they’re a strange brand that you can’t get over here.

 

And I had a friend in Uni who was from Texas; she used to bring all this crazy stuff back over from America for me. So finding this recipe for lip balm, it was amazing, it blew my mind. I decided to make some just for me, but this recipe, it made about ten lip balms. I had all these lip balms in the same flavour and, although it was really nice,  I didn't want ten of these lip balms, so I just gave them to my friends and family.

 

And it was the same thing as with the dresses, it was totally accidental. I just gave them away and people were saying 'it’s the best lip balm I’ve ever tried'. And probably part of it was them just being nice, but I thought maybe I was on to something. I started doing a load of research into what it takes to make cosmetics and sell it. It’s different. If I make a dress and sell it, that’s fine, I don’t have to adhere to any rules and regulations, really. I mean, as long as I tell you about the washing instructions and care and stuff, that’s kind of about it. But with the cosmetics, you have to get it tested. You have to get it sent off to a lab. You have to go through all this red tape. You have to tell the government that that’s what you’re doing. You have to register.So I did. It took months of this research to find out what I had to do to be legal and then I sorted all that out, bought a license – well, it’s not really called a license, but it basically means that I am allowed to make and sell lip balms in the whole of the EU.

 

So I bought this license thing, started selling them, and it just, it went from there. It got… it went a bit crazy. I started having people wanting to buy wholesale from me, so that was a bit crazy. I didn’t really know how I was going to do that, but I said yes anyway. Say yes and think about it afterwards. Then it kind of grew from there. I did just the lip balms for about a year and a half, before I kind of felt like it wasn’t really going anywhere. Like, it was slow and steady sales, but I felt like to really do these wholesalers any justice, I had to expand the range and let them buy more things from me.

 

 

So slowly over the course of a year I introduced eyeshadows, skin balm. So the skin balm was quite a good story, I’ll come back to that in a minute. Nail varnish, that’s my biggest seller. It’s the worst as well because most of it I still make myself and they just take forever and I have to rope my boyfriend in, and we just sit there making nail varnish for a whole day. But, yes, so each time I was adding this product to my collection, I was paying another fee for a different license for that product, and the scarier the product is, the more stuff that’s in it, the more expensive it is. So like for the lip balms I might have only paid £130 or something. But for the nail varnish it’s more like £400 because there’s so many more chemicals and stuff in it that has to be tested. The lip balms have only got three ingredients in so, you know, there’s not a lot of testing that has to go into that, but the nail varnish is more complex.

 

After that, I started doing perfumes as well. So they were another expensive one because there’s so many things in them and also it’s directly onto your skin, so there’s a lot of extra testing in there. There’s no real plan to when I’m going to think of something new. I tend to just get bored and want to do something new. None of what’s happened has been extensively planned. It’s all seemed a bit accidental, which is probably not the best way to run a business, but it seems to work all right for me so I might stick to it for a little while longer.

 

In Part 3 we look at taking a customer suggestion and turning it into Dry Skin Balm, and product testing. xox

The Interview - Part 1

Just before Christmas we participated in an in depth interview with a researcher keen to find out more about entrepreneurship in the UK. We were happy to oblige, and we spent nearly two hours dissecting Fairypants and how we came to be where we are. We just got sent the transcript, and we thought you might like to have a read - but it's quite long, so we've serialised some of the questions for you!!

Interviewer        Hi, can you start by telling me your age, how long you have been in business, and what is it all about? 

Fairypants      Okay, so I’m 28 and I started Fairypants in 2009, so it’s about six years.

Interviewer     Okay. And what’s Fairypants? 

Fairypants     Yes, Fairypants. Don’t ask about where the name came from. It was completely random. I started off making clothes, and then I added things like handmade jewellery and hair accessories. And then I accidentally started making vegan cosmetics, and that’s kind of the main thing now.  

Interviewer     Okay. So there has been a change during these six years?

Fairypants      Yes, definitely. Yes.

Interviewer     So it’s turned from clothes to jewellery, and now you’re mainly focused on…?

Fairypants      Yes. The clothes was why it started, because I’d just graduated in 2008, obviously a very bad time to graduate, and I couldn’t get a graduate job. I’d been working in Superdrug while I was at uni, but I was applying for graduate jobs everywhere. Because it was 2008, people were cutting jobs so, you know, graduate jobs that I would have gone for, that I would have been good at, didn’t exist anymore so it was really difficult. So I ended up staying with Superdrug for another couple of years, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

So while I was there, I started making dresses just for myself because I’d never had as much money, as much disposable income as when I was a student. Because you get all the grants, you get all the loans, I was working 16 hours a week while I was a student, I had so much money. And when you’re a student, you live on appalling food and you go to pound a pint night, so you spend a few pounds on a night out. So I had all this money coming in and I wasn’t really spending that much, so I was buying a lot of clothes. And then I graduated working full-time in Superdrug on, you know, what was probably not much more than the minimum wage.

 So I started making these dresses just for me because I had no money to buy dresses. And then I was going on all these nights out still, so I’d wear all these dresses that I’d made on these nights out and these girls would be coming up to me in the toilet saying, where did you get that dress from, it’s amazing.

So I told my mum and she was like, I think you should start selling them. And then my nan told me to get a stall in Chester Market and start selling them. So I thought, all right, then! I got a stall in Chester Market selling the dresses and it… because I had this huge stall to fill, that’s why I started doing the jewellery and the accessories just because there was so much space on this stall. So they sold really well. At first it was mostly pity sales I think from my friends coming in to see me and buying them. But then the longer I stayed there, the more I got these regulars coming back to see me.

In Part 2 next week, I talk more about the beginnings of Fairypants, and our time in Chester Market! xox

The one with the clean slate...

Here at Fairypants HQ we're undergoing a bit of an office overhaul. For the first time in our nearly 7 year history we'll have a dedicated office space, and we're so excited.

As you'll know if you've read our blog before, we make absolutely everything ourselves. And it gets pretty difficult, the more you guys spread the word and the more people find out about us. So a while ago we started working with a UK manufacturer, and they kindly make some of our nail varnish ranges for us. It's still our recipe, but it's not our poor little hands making them!

But all this means that we need space - and lots of it! We need space to store the stuff that we've had ready made for us (boxes and boxes of nail varnish!) and we also need space to store the raw ingredients for the things we make ourselves, like our classic lipbalm.

And more annoyingly - each of those things needs to be stored in different ways. We have liquids, solid butters and powders that all need to be stored at different temperatures and in different ways. If the Shea Butter gets too warm, it'll start melting - and if the glass lip paint jars get too cold, they'll shatter when we try to pour the hot liquid lipstick in! It's a dilemma!

But we really can't wait for our office to be finished, and we're super excited to share photos with you as it transforms from this -

into our dream work space!

So keep your fingers crossed that we don't encounter any building related problems, and we'll keep you updated on progress. xox

Happy Birthday!

Don’t forget, you have until February 29^th to use your amazeballs 20% discount code off all orders on our website.

Parma Violet Perfume 30ml £10 with discount code

 

All you need to do is make sure you’re spending over £10, then type in BIRTHDAY at the checkout, and just watch yourself save money. It’s magic.

Matte Pastel Nail Varnish £3.20 with discount code

What will you buy?

 

 

The reason for the casual discount code is our founder, Natalie has her birthday TODAY, so happy birthday to her! And why should it just be her having all the fun, eh? xox

Come up and see us, make us smile!

We've taken the plunge, and we'll be at our first ever Vegan specific event next month. It's on the 19th March, at St George's Hall in Liverpool - so if you're local then you should definitely pop over and make yourself known to us so we can say hi!

We'll be taking all of our cosmetics stock with us, including the fabulous new Nail Varnish Remover - they have to be seen to be believed!



Blueberry & Pomegranate Nail Varnish Remover £4.99

We'll also have our full range of amazing Lip Paints - these have been really popular recently, you guys are loving some of the more unusual shades!

Margaret Lip Paint £4.99

And of course, not forgetting - our classic lipbalms. We'll have all flavours with us, freshly made and ready to take up residence in your handbag- which one will you choose?

Mojito Lipbalm £3.99

So in a nutshell - pop it in your diary, we can't wait to see you! xox

The one with a cheeky discount code...

February is dull. It’s cold, it’s miserable, it’s still winter – and the lighter nights and warm days still seem so far away.

Nail Care Gift Set £8.00 with BIRTHDAY discount code

So – we’re going to do cheersie upsies today – it’s Natalie’s birthday in February, and as the founder of Fairypants it’s only right that you all get to celebrate too.

Nail Varnish Remover £4 with BIRTHDAY discount code

So we’ll be offering a super duper 20% discount off everything on our website – just use the code BIRTHDAY and as long as you’ve spent over £10.00, you’ll get that pretty hefty discount – good, no?

Perfume Gift Set £40 with BIRTHDAY discount code

The discount runs for the whole of February, so you have until Monday 29^th February to take advantage of the discount – so go for it!

Parma Violet Lipbalm £3.20 with BIRTHDAY discount code

 We’d love to see photos of your hauls too, so you can Facebook, Twitter or Instagram us and show us what you got with your discount!

Happy shopping!

xox