Many mornings and afternoons you can find me near or on the ocean, sneaking in a quick walk between work calls or sailing with my club. As a midwesterner, I feel pretty dang lucky.
But every time I go, I see how we are polluting even our most beautiful places. The beach is lined with fragments of plastic. And I often see plastic bottles, balloons and the like floating on the ocean. What does this mean for the poor animals that call the beach and ocean their home? What’s at the bottom of the ocean? You get the point.
I quickly realized that not even me, who sees this nearly everyday, is willing to make a sacrifice to non-plastic products if it means sacrificing my moisturized hair, not getting my laundry as clean, giving up the smell of my favorite body wash or just using clunky and poorly designed products to save a few bottles.
If you’re reading this, you likely have high standards too. That doesn’t make us bad, selfish people—as a friend told me “if you look good, you feel good”. And you are important and worthy of quality, beautiful experiences.
So I went hunting for products that could meet the trifecta– amazing experience (moisturized hair, clean laundry, amazing smell), design (looks good/functional) and sustainable (no harm in collecting natural ingredients to create the products and waste-free when we are done with them; economically viable, not paying $3 per load to wash laundry). ONLY then, might I consider a change to something new.
This is where Heffen comes in. The unrelenting road to elevating everyday products. With the goal of making us feel like we’re not giving up something but actually gaining something–a reward for changing our behavior.
The world is changing fast. Oftentimes, it feels insurmountable and we are just along for the ride—and those scientists will take care of it. But in fact, if we can prevent 5, 10 or 100,000 bottles from being created, we’ve won a small victory. If we can cut down on the amount of microplastics from entering our body through the very containers housing the products we love, or parabens from disrupting our hormonal system, we’ve won another battle. If we can encourage our favorite brands (those that you don’t want to give up) to do their part, we’ve won and spurred a movement greater than ourselves.
You matter and you deserve the best. Every company that you support knows that you are not going to compromise to make the “green” sacrifice, that is until you find something better. Let’s treat ourselves to an experience that inspires a broader movement beyond the farmers market.
We are busy perfecting our products with a goal to release at least 2 by the end of this year. If you’ve read this far, I absolutely want to hear why you love the products you do so we can continue our effort to meet and exceed your standard. Reach out to hello@heffen.org.
Alayna, Heffen founder