How to start sustainably, Chloë Luxton, Bramley

0:00Welcome to How to Start Up, the podcast that goes beyond just the headlines to uncover how startups really begin, straight from the founders who lived it. I'm Juliette Fallifield, founder of Fallifield & Mason, where we empower you to take charge of your PR and launch your podcast with confidence in-house. In today's episode, we're joined by Chloë Luxton, founder of Bramley. With sustainability as a top priority, this company is providing customers with botanical magic through natural fragrances, bulk refill pouches and recycled packaging. Keep listening to hear how Chloe got started and why slow growth was her friend.

0:37Also, her perspective on B Corp and we discussed the pros and the cons of getting certified, as well as the pros and cons of being a founder and how to manage that isolation that can often feel relentless. Hi Chloe, thank you so much for joining How To Start Up today. It would be wonderful if you could introduce a little bit about yourself and a bit about the business that you have started.

0:59Chloë Luxton:Well, thank you for having me. It's great to be here and lovely to meet you. I'm Chloe, founder of Bramley, natural bath body and skincare brand. I started Bramley 16 years ago now. And it was because my husband and I, we were living in London. And we wanted to move out of London. And we found a pub called Max for Dams. And it had eight bedrooms. And it's in this beautiful area of Wiltshire. You come off the A303, you're halfway between London and Cornwall, you drive through this old arch and then you come through and there's like a lake to your left. It's absolutely stunning. And then at the end, you come to this pub and it's just so beautiful.

1:39Chloë Luxton:So it had eight bedrooms and I had been in the bathroom body industry before and I wanted to put something beautiful in the bedrooms for the bathroom products because that was my sort of area of expertise. And I looked around and at the time it was very much single-use tiny plastic bottles do you remember those 30 mils you can never get anything out of them you could never get anything out of them and they were generally came from china and they were just single-use plastic with nothing really in it just like watery based products and i was like this just doesn't reflect what we want to do here so i was like brilliant i'm going to create my own and so that's basically how bramley started so So I went and worked with an apothecary based in Somerset, so like an hour from where we are now.

2:24Chloë Luxton:And we put together these blends. I wanted each one to be like the best it can be. So I was like, this can be like the best hand wash you've ever tried or the best hand cream. So that was quite a good sort of starting point, really, because then you just go from there and you just literally, I just put everything into it. I think if I'd started now, I probably would have potentially done it differently. But I think it's also partly the beauty of the brand in that for me, they all had to be natural bases. And back then it was all about parabens and there's been microplastics and everything. So 16 years ago, not many people were doing that sort of natural story.

2:56Chloë Luxton:So I wanted it to be really natural and just fragrance with the pure essential oils. So the essential oils have amazing therapeutic effects, but they also smell amazing. So for the hand wash, for instance, we've got in there Clarissage and lavender, which have like renowned antibacterial, antiseptic qualities. So that's the sort of the hand wash. And then in the shampoo and conditioner, we have rosemary and lemon, which have really good sort of cleansing properties. So just six products. It was everything you needed for a night away. So it was hand wash, hand cream, shampoo, conditioner, body wash and body lotion.

3:29Chloë Luxton:And they each had all of those sort of different fragrances, but they tied together with this beautiful sort of citrus base because I wanted them all to be citrus just as always a lovely uplifting sort of fragrance. And so, yeah, so that's how it started, basically. And I was brought up in the Anita Roddick era of the body shop and the ozone layer. And we had to be recycling plastic and not single use. And so I wanted the hotels that they had big sort of five litre refill jerry cans, and then they would fill up each of the bottles. So there was no bottles being chucked away or anything. So sustainability was really at the core of everything we did then and pretty much still is.

4:0716 years ago, how did you go from creating the beautiful guts of the product? So what was inside the bottle was stunning. But then how did you conquer the packaging problem? Because presumably once you got it into your hotel or your pub, you then realized it was getting popular. And was it very much like the Chanel No. 5? She just sprayed it for a few clients and then people asked her what it was and wanted to start to buy it. Like, do you have pub guests going, how do I take this home with me? Is that where you start to expand?

4:35Chloë Luxton:Yeah, so literally, I called in the favours for the packaging. And I think I was still at work when they were opening the pub. So I had my friend labelling the bottles for me to put them in the rooms and everything. And then when it opened, I think the really key moment for me where I was like, wow, is when I was sitting in the pub with friends or whatever, and a man would come out of the bathroom like that, sort of smelling his hands. a I was like wow they actually do wash their hands which is great but equally I was just like if a man is a sort of doing that to smell his hands that's a really good thing because traditionally it's more sort of female thing the sort of whole frequency so yeah so that's when I was really like wow okay I've created I think something that is and I really wanted it to be unisex as well I didn't want it to be just for women so that was a great moment yeah and then also because Charlie was working all hours in the pub because obviously it was his baby and because it had guests people staying the night it's 24 hours a day business so he was always working and so on the weekends I used to go and sell it at market stalls so there was this market called the anonymous traveling market it used to pop up once a month in different villages around the area and I didn't really know many people in the area at that time and I hadn't had children and I used to just go to these markets and set up with my stool and then be like chatting to people and it was always really good with the hand cream because I could squirt them can you would you like to try my hand cream and they'd all try it and actually still to this day when we're at Chelsea Flower Show we're still like should I try a hand cream and people walk off and then they smell it and then generally they come back and then they buy it so for me I think also it was just a really good opportunity at the pub to get people to try the products for free and then hopefully have this amazing sort of connection with the products or if they're staying the night they were having like an amazing time with their lover or their their new husband or their girlfriends whatever and they come away and they use the products and there's such a connection between smell and memory isn't it the sense that's most linked to memory so i can smell a certain brand of cigarettes and it takes me right back to being fives my grandmother and my grandmother probably should not have been smoking around a five-year-old but but it takes you straight back and it's such an incredible thing and this is again why I love podcasts is that when you're listening to something it's different when you're seeing something and your audio sense is so strong compared to your visual sense the sense of smell is linked to memory so people would have a lovely weekend away and then want to take that memory home with them exactly and yeah so that's been great for us you went from the pub sampling or providing your guests with a lovely amenity to then sampling at the markets and then And after that, where did it go next?

7:13Chloë Luxton:Because Charlie had been in the hospitality sector, people would come down and stay. Like, all friends would come and stay and see us because obviously we've moved to the country. And 16 years ago, there were still quite a few people who were in London. I know the guys, Adam and Clive, who had a Riding House cafe. They came down. They were one of our first sort of external customers. And they said, oh, I love this hand wash and hand cream. Can we have it in our cafe or in our restaurant? And I was like, OK, yeah, that's, you know, why not? and so then it just grew really organically from there and yeah yeah trade just went sort of year on year it's just went up and up with that growth going back to the packaging problem because i know a lot of brands that i've necessarily spoke to and a few other beauty brands who really trying to champion the sustainability but in beauty it's difficult because packaging and then shipping obviously none of us are perfect but we're trying to be better as a b corp but did it take a lot of research to find the right packaging like where did you start you know what part of the joy of starting Bramley is that I had no time so we moved out we got married in the May and then Charlie opened the pub in the July so I literally I didn't have time to sit down and think about lots of those things and maybe I would have done it differently if I had but who knows so I literally just had to get stock items so I knew that there was this bottle that I could use and the caps and the label so I knew all the label suppliers and everything so that would fit with your sustainability yes so I went with easy recyclable rather than at the time there wasn't really anything that was recycled bottle wise but I knew that the HTPE which is the plastic we use in our bottles was easily recyclable and it was compatible with the essential oils as well because you have to be really careful with essential oils that they don't leach into the plastic and make it all brittle and horrid things the lids are the hardest part aren't they to get a recyclable and a recycled lid?

9:03Chloë Luxton:Yes. The worst things are the pumps because the pumps have so many different components and inevitably they're different plastics and they have a spring in them, like a metal spring. So it's really hard and they're really hard to put apart. And I think even though one of our pumps that we have is 100 % recyclable, no recycling centre in the UK will actually recycle it because they just assume it isn't recyclable, which is such a shame. So for us, I've always tried to make sure that everything is easily recyclable. And then always early on, we have sold the five litres, you can buy the five litres on our website.

9:39Chloë Luxton:We also do one litres, which are great for sort of family bathrooms. That's what we have upstairs. And then also I was looking for ages and ages to find a really nice, sustainable refill pouch. Those are the pouches that you get. because so many brands do the pouches and they say they're 80 % less plastic. They are 80 % less plastic, but that plastic that they use is actually the worst type of plastic to recycle, that sort of really thin plastic. So I was just like, I can't even compromise. They have a spout that you have to cut off. It was just such a barrier for customers to use that. So I then read this article on a newsletter that came through that was about this company who had created this compostable refill pouch, which is just phenomenal so that's the one we use now and actually that's probably one of the fastest growing areas of our company are the compostable refill pouches which are just brilliant you just sell out and then you just chuck it on your compost and it will decompose within 37 weeks i think it is that's incredible yeah so it's always trying to think about what is the next thing and you know i was talking to another company about other things that we can do anyway yeah i can go on and on no it's great though but i was going to say as a founder and what's so interesting you said what was good you didn't have time like I spend every day questioning how I'm spending my time because time is the most valuable resource and I think I say that on every podcast money comes and goes people come and go clients come and go it's natural but time is finite you think you made a rod for your own back with this sustainable lens on your brand do you think you've made more work for yourself and if so do you think it was worth it potentially yes Yes, because there are other things that I think, gosh, I love that shape of that bottle.

11:23Chloë Luxton:But then because that's our sort of ethos and Bramley is very much rooted in sustainability. So it makes it easier in a way because you're actually guided by your sustainability ethos. So it means that you just have to choose the greener way. So actually it does help probably. What would you suggest for new founders who are putting their toe into the water or setting up a brand or product based brand? what would they do first when they're looking at their sustainability values? Yeah, just always look at what the container's made of. It's another bugbear of mine because glass is obviously, and aluminium are really easily recyclable and they have a value to them.

12:01Chloë Luxton:So they definitely are always recycled. Whereas plastic obviously is less valuable. But then glass and aluminium, it's like a higher carbon footprint to actually produce the products themselves. So I don't know. Now, it's slightly you're damned if you don't, damned if you do. But I think if you believe that for you and for your brand, you're making the right sort of greener choice, I think that's all you can do. And how have you got all of this knowledge about what's sustainable and what's not? I don't know. I guess I've always had an interest in it. And so I've always just been aware of it. And I think the more you suddenly think about it, and if you really do want to have a sustainable, you suddenly you question everything.

12:39Chloë Luxton:and for me I think a lot more people are looking at how packaging especially because we order so much online I think people really look at how something arrives and whether it's in a plastic whether the plastic is biodegradable and everything but I don't know if there is any sort of one resource that you can go to to to find out all of that. Natural curiosity is so interesting as I think a lot of people say when you work this hard in your own business you have to be so almost eluded that your business is going to succeed but you need that drive and that passion to keep going and we both run B Corp businesses.

13:12How long have you been a B Corp for?

13:15Chloë Luxton:Our B Corp journey, I feel, has been going on for years. Yeah, it's a fair old thing to get done. Yeah, especially as a product-based business. Yeah. And also I really wanted it. I was like back in 2021, I think I started the conversation internally. It's a lot of hard work and someone to actually take ownership of it. and the first time we did it I think I was in charge and we failed so we failed last January and then I tasked Scarlett my team and she is brilliant and we passed in November. Amazing congratulations. Thank you how long have you been? We have been I think two and a half years. Oh gosh so you're coming up to the new.

13:57Yes and I was gonna ask with B Corp because I I very much had a bit of a backlash, the B Corp backlash, I call it. So people were going, you're a small business, you're a service-based business, why would you bother? And I retorted in, I mean, I have an older brother and this tends to be my reaction of 98 % of UK economy are small to medium enterprises and 78 % of those are service-based. So if we all became a B Corp, we'd all be better off. But it's getting a lot of flack in the press because there are brands like Evian and Nespresso who are B Corps. And when you do the digging, you can see why they've become certified and they have earned it and they do a lot of regenerative.

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14:58Chloë Luxton:hello at Fallowfield Mason to book your spot. But for you, would you recommend B Corp for brands? Have you seen your customers engage with it? Yeah, it's a funny one because I think we did B Corp because I know in my heart that we've been doing the right thing and we do it sustainably and everything we do is to do good. But actually, it was just a really good checklist to go through and just it holds you accountable as a business. And there were areas that we were not doing very well in. So obviously all of the packaging and everything was great. But for us, because we'd grown relatively slowly, but organically with the people, we weren't necessarily doing all the right things there because it had been set up in a different way.

15:42Chloë Luxton:And more HR, like just all of that sort of the people side of things. We really made some changes to us and we do volunteer days and it was really nice to do things like that. I found the framework of it because I did it because I was like, who am I to start a business? I started overnight off the back of redundancy. I wanted a big brother pat on the back to be like, yes, you are legitimate, you are doing the right things and you are practicing what you preach. I felt like that certification was something bigger than my small business to tell the world this is a genuine mission. But you're right, the people part was fascinating, all the policies and all the templates.

16:18Chloë Luxton:Yes, the breastfeeding policy. Breastfeeding policy. And I was like, in a co-working office, how does that work? And then I did laugh that we got points for our middle management here for being women. I was like, I'm in communications. I should get points for employing men in communications, not women. And it's not perfect. And B Corp will be the first to admit they're not perfect yet, but we're just trying to be better. For you, is it important to your team as well to be certified? Yeah, I think it is, actually. There was quite a lot of communication because a lot of them didn't know what it was.

16:47Chloë Luxton:but now they're fully behind it and also for us from a business point of view we went to a trade show in paris in january and it's universal so you had the b corp logo and the people are like oh okay now i get what you are and who you are and i think it is very i think b corp's a massive movement or bigger movement in the uk than anywhere else i think hopefully other countries will look at us and see how it's done because then it will become ideally we want everyone in the whole world globally to B Corp because we all should be putting people and planet for profit, although I keep saying people are profit before planet when I talk to you about it.

17:21That's it. I think for anyone listening that doesn't understand B Corp, you can't be a charity to be a B Corp. You have to be a business that makes a profit because obviously the more successful your business is, the more you can then help people and planet. But profit is there's no shame in that. You are striving to have a successful business. And with that, given your product is beautiful and luxurious have you felt that sustainability or your sustainability values have compromised that luxury offering in any way or is actually it's just made it better because your packaging is beautiful you just want to cut it up and make it into a gift card it's so stunning

17:55Chloë Luxton:what we do is that we try and use again like i was saying sustainability we just because it's in us we then think of other ways that we can turn our packaging into yeah as you say christmas or our Christmas sets had lines that you cut out and turn it into a gift tag. And this year the ball has, and we've done it before, where you have the ribbon, but that was like an elastic hair tie. And what we call the Bramley Village, our beautiful gift set, which were drawn by a seastainer, are all just for people to keep or hand on to their children to play with and stuff. So I think we just hopefully play it to our advantage, really.

18:29Chloë Luxton:But yeah, we don't have extra boxes where we don't need them. that Hamwash doesn't need a box because that's just a little too much added sort of luxury. A waste, really. Bringing it back to the brand, given that you're 16 years in and I've seen you for years and years in beautiful places around the country, where is your ambition to take the brand next? We've been really lucky with our partners. I think the first partnership that really helped elevate us was with the Pig Hotels, which was brilliant. end how did you broker that because i know a lot of brands desperate to get in with the pig group well the first one that they opened i think it was in 2011 in the new forest that was not too far from us and i just had my son maybe it was 2010 i should know when he was born 2011 and i had him in the may we thought gosh we're going to get away having babies is not going to change us we are just going to do what we want and so we went and i think he always slept in the bath because we were like we're going to go to the new pig that's opened and we went long and it was beautiful and everything was lovely the menu was 25 miles everything within 25 miles and then I went into the shower and I was like oh my goodness what's this and it was this product called Sprout Out and I could see this whole kitchen garden you could see the sprouts you could see where they'd gone with it but I looked on the back and it was made in the US or something and I was like oh my goodness this is just well an opportunity for us so off-brand for them.

19:53Chloë Luxton:Quite often amenities, the stuff they put in the rooms is the last thing that hotels think about. I got in touch with Robin and I said, look, you need to have Bramley in your rooms. And he has been like a massive support. You don't ask, you don't get. If you don't ask, you don't get. Exactly. I think definitely becoming self-employed and you've come from a big brand. I've come from big brands where you're sheltered and you're protected somewhat, but suddenly you're out on your own. And if you don't put your hand up, no one's going to ask you if you're okay or what you need or I had a bit of an imposter moment yesterday.

20:24I'm learning, I'm trying to practice a imposter experience, not syndrome, but it's not a syndrome. You cannot be diagnosed with imposter because it's just a feeling it will pass. And Hamish Mackay Lewis did an episode on a whole of imposter thing in Founderland and it's one of our most downloaded episodes.

20:41Chloë Luxton:Yeah, have a listen. He's fantastic. Anyway, so yesterday I was looking at, I think it was Laura Jackson, who I admired for a long time with Glasset. And there were a couple of other female founders that I can't do that. For some reason, I have been quite bullish in the last few years, but for some reason yesterday, I was like, oh no, I can't message them. They're like, what's the worst that's going to happen? You message them, they don't reply. So what? You try. That kind of putting yourself out there and making yourself very vulnerable, the sooner you can get more comfortable with that, the better.

21:09Because in founder world, that's all you do. And accept that 90 % of the time you're going to fail. And that's normal. did they get back to you not yet and i'm learning to say yeah quite a lot because i you do have to also celebrate those small wins because i interviewed the it was actually the episode after hamish's head of neuroscience oxford university about sleep and i was like oh my god who am i to be asking him questions and he was the nicest man on the planet in fact now i've moved up here i need to go for tea but it was one of those things where you pinch yourself again like just ask so for you in the evolution of bramley have there been some real moments where you've just gone oh my god I wish I hadn't done that yeah that's interesting because we've been such

21:51Chloë Luxton:a sort of organic and it has we haven't got investors or anything we've never taken any external investment so I think that actually helps with the sort of whole like how I feel and maybe I should put myself out there a bit more but there's nothing really that has made me feel uncomfortable because I haven't had to there are little things like doing things like this always make you feel slightly like you're having to put your face and voice ahead of the brand whereas normally when you work for the businesses the brand and you're fueling it where suddenly you're front and center like i completely get what you mean and everyone eye rolls oh you do a podcast i was like it does really well it's actually quite good but are there any sort of clangers that you could advise other founders to avoid no i think actually i found and definitely more recently that actually putting yourself out there also there's quite a big movement in the female founders side of things but it does feel slightly unfair because to the men at this point because there's loads going on in the female founder space and especially there's i don't know if you've come across this community called by women built set up by sahar hashemi who started coffee republic and years ago i read her book how to be an entrepreneur and anyway she has done this amazing thing for female founders which is of product services so it's quite niche i think it will probably be extended out into services as well and everything and it's basically for female founders and i think there's about maybe 3 000 now on that sort of community and it's just such a lovely space to share advice tips and everything i actually think it's a really nice time for female founders and hopefully for male founders but i think there's some statistic like for every pound spent invested in companies any 2p of that pound is invested in female founded companies and 0.05 percent in black female founders and 250 billion will be added to economy if more women were encouraged to start businesses at the same rate of men it's the alice rose review that i've seen a lot of people quote saying that women create more empathetic community-led businesses and actually our whole economy, everyone in the country will be better off if women start businesses at the same rate as men.

24:06So is there anything you would want to say to a future female founder about starting a business or a brand?

24:13Chloë Luxton:I would just say, obviously it goes for any founder, but sort of know your customer. I started Bramley knowing that the Beckford Arms was my customer. So I could literally if it all else failed, I had a customer and I could just quietly get rid of it through the pub if I needed to. But I think it's really important to know your customer. And actually, the product is so important. And so no matter how big and beautiful it looks like on the outside, the actual product on the inside really has to work because that's what people will come back to and buy again. So interesting you say that. A lot of people say that with podcasting, how do I grow my podcast like how many more Instagram reels should I do I'm like just make the conversation really good so when people listen to it they want to share it that's all you need to do yes Instagram yes LinkedIn and when we produce podcasts for clients are like we can halo effect it and really help support it with those but if you make the conversation in the podcast excellent that is all you need to do exactly just make sure the product itself is just beautiful and will speak for itself really and then I always do say go for it because for me it's just been such an amazing journey and it's just been especially I think as a mother it's been really freeing and yeah amazing really I don't regret it ever for a moment.

25:34What would you say are the biggest highs and the biggest lows in being your own boss?

25:39Chloë Luxton:So the highs are the freedom again going back to that I am very much an advocate and I've got quite a sort of strong female team around me. And I always say, have the freedom to be able to go to your children's sports days or assembly or whatever that's really important, because fundamentally that's what matters in life. Hand wash will always be there and you should always get back to emails. And so the high for me is having a strong team around me, having built a team. I love all of that. And then the lows of being a founder, it's quite lonely sometimes. I do have a business partner who helps that equally when you're, I think, in any role, everyone looks to you as the founder, everyone looks to you and you're like, I don't know the answer to everything.

26:23How do you manage that? How do you keep on top of that?

26:26Chloë Luxton:I think you still just have to go back to your roots and take a moment and think what is right. And gut, I think gut is a massive thing for me. Does it feel right? Does it not feel right? How do you manage the loneliness? How do you manage that isolation? well again yeah that is real and actually about going back again to this female founder for the three by women built and and just through the journey of meeting people at different events and stuff i hate networking events really but actually i've come to enjoy them more you actually it's just having that connection with other female founders and just talking it through and just saying i've got this issue or just being able to whatsapp or message and say what do we do here so actually I think that's really helpful and then talking to my husband and female friends and it's just about sharing it that old age old a problem shared is a problem half is so true it really is and even if it's a friend so I use co-working offices for this reason because you can just ask someone who's sitting opposite you knows nothing about your business or you say I've got that question do you know anything about and they might know the answer and you just build that bond and that relationship with them and everyone has a different perspective I've actually seen at Miro, I've moved house recently.

27:38So renovations, I am clueless. I've never done it before. So anyone that comes to stay has a different idea and I, oh yeah, flip that door into that room and they see things differently. So getting it out there and this is where the

27:51Chloë Luxton:podcast came from. You put your hand up and ask for help and you ask a ton of questions, people can give you answers. But that isolated thing, I think people don't talk about enough. And I've managed to pick a craft podcasting that tends to be one way. You put a lot of content out, you don't get the feedback immediately it's not like a live audience so if anybody's listening as an enjoyment conversation please rate review the podcast because otherwise that's also funny you can see the download numbers but you're just like who even are you because there's data so protected and podcasting but yeah any other lows that you'd highlight in general of being a founder yeah no i just think actually it is apart from yeah the sort of everything's on you obviously that is like pressure that if everything went well tomorrow is you've got people with a team of 20 and they're sort of all reliant on you but I try not to focus too much on that because then I think you literally would be like panic mode so no I think actually it's a really liberating thing to do yeah I'd highly recommend it excellent and we have a question from our previous guest who asked if you could turn back time what would you do differently yes I was thinking about this and I actually think I'm really lucky that hindsight is a beautiful thing.

29:06Chloë Luxton:I think I didn't realise at the time when I started that what Bramley would become. So I'm actually quite relieved that you can't see in the future or if I could turn back time, what would I have done differently? Maybe I'd have chosen a different bottle, but that's about it. And now our bottle is in every single, it's in brackets in lots of pubs. So we can't really change the bottle because people have invested into the brackets. And sometimes I think, oh gosh, I'd love to have a different sort of shape bottle. But at the time, it is what it is. And it's worked brilliantly for us. Well, I like what you said also about this sort of slow growth of trajectory.