May 6, 2020
My attached letter today is a bit long but I hope you can take the time to read it and I hope it will help you understand the upcoming changes to our body product line. I felt it was important to help you understand our story and explain the journey we have been on to get here. Some companies raise their prices and do not explain the reasoning to their customers, but I felt that was not who we are. My hope is you will understand our decisions and that we really took them to heart. We hope you will continue to enjoy our products in your home.
As spring begins to show its face here on old Mission we wanted to share some new updates from the Secret Garden for our 2020 season. First, we hope all of you have stayed safe and healthy during these difficult times. Here at the Secret Garden, we have tried to stay positive and busy pumping the thousands and thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer (Pure Hands and our new “Be Clean”) and our other personal care products. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the orders and kind notes. They have really kept us going. We felt it was a way to give back and help in our own little way. Before Covid-19, we had begun to look at ways to make the Secret Garden at Brys Estate a more earth friendly company which is in line with our values. We were beginning to plan for these changes this May and then we all found ourselves in the midst of a global crisis. Our planning was put on hold and we started trying to keep our products in stock for our customers, which became our number one priority. The challenge was being able to find the raw materials to make our products, as our suppliers were being overcome with orders for the raw materials to make hand sanitizer. Thankfully, we had bought several large batches of our base, ahead of the pandemic, to begin the big job of making large amounts of products before we opened for the summer. We quickly ran through those supplies in less than a week along with our bottles and pumps. We had depleted our supplies in ten days, which under normal circumstances would have lasted us one complete season. When we opened the Secret Garden and our gift shop four years ago, we wanted to create a product that was thoughtfully made using real essential oils, including our own, and responsibly made bases. Five years later we are ready to add a new level to our brand. We are going to move all products larger than three ounces to glass packaging. In addition, we are going to slowly phase out of plastic except in our two-ounce products, shower gel and lavender Pure Hands as well as our eight-ounce Pure Hands. All of our glass comes from North America as well as our plastic bottles and pumps. All our plastic is PET made from recycled plastic. In addition, we will be introducing refill pouches. Our plan is to eventually have all products available in refill pouches, but this will take some time. Refill pouches will enable us to keep our prices down and enable you to refill your existing bottles each time they are empty and will be much more environmentally friendly.
When the Secret Garden began, we priced our products to the public at a wholesale or “factory” price. In spite of the numerous price increases by our vendors over the last five years, we have only raised our prices by $1.50, because we have always wanted to give our special customers the best price we could. However, it has come to a point that we have to make some price adjustments to keep the Secret Garden a viable growing business. The Covid-19 has also caused a huge shortage of our packaging supplies for many of our other personal care products. Businesses are all trying to buy the same supplies and the companies that make them have had to raise their prices almost double in some cases. Some of our suppliers have also started charging us for shipping, whereas before the pandemic, shipping was free if we purchased a certain dollar amount. We have taken on these price increases over the past months and have not passed them on to you. Our plan is to move forward over the next few months in adjusting our prices to include the price increases that we have incurred for our raw goods, as well as the additional cost of using glass bottles, along with the responsible plastics we need that are made in North America. We will run sales periodically along with additional perks when we get some price cuts from our vendors.
In addition to the responsible packaging, I would like to cover some of the other important facts about our products. In all of our products, we use high quality essential oils, including some of the oils that we distill from our own plants. Every product that has lavender essential oil is a blend of our own distilled lavender (Lavendula Angustifolia essential oil) as well as a Lavendula Angustifolia that is verified by EcoCert. EcoCert is a globally recognized symbol that indicates the absence of GMO, parabens, phenoxyethanol, nanoparticles, silicon, PEG, synthetic perfumes and dyes, animal-derived ingredients (unless naturally produced by them: milk, honey, etc.). They also review the biodegradable or recyclable nature of packaging.
Many luxury body products say they have oils, but many are just extracts, not real essential oils. If our products have a small bit of fragrance oil, added to them, it is paraben and phthalate free. Our bases are all responsibly made and are paraben free, gluten free, cruelty free, soy free, and infused with botanicals, just to name a few of their benefits. You can find a complete list next to each of your favorite products. Our main goal is to create high quality products that are infused with high quality essential oils. We want all of our products to benefit your skin in the most positive way possible.
We have received so many amazing stories over the past five years of how these products have helped people in so many ways and the essential oils play a big part in that. Over the next few weeks we will begin to transition over to glass bottles and our new prices on the website. We will offer the plastic bottles at the current pricing until we sell through them. Our new refill pouches will be coming online over the next few months.
Finally, thank you for all your support and understanding and most importantly, stay safe and healthy. Please email us if you have any questions. We are hoping to open the Secret Garden and the garden shop the first weekend of June and look forward to welcoming you back. Our hope is that in these difficult days of staying inside, visiting the Secret Garden will be a welcome respite where you can be outdoors, take in all the beauty and peace that the Secret Garden provides.
Sending the soothing scent of lavender your way!!!
-Katie Brys
My attached letter today is a bit long but I hope you can take the time to read it and I hope it will help you understand the upcoming changes to our body product line. I felt it was important to help you understand our story and explain the journey we have been on to get here. Some companies raise their prices and do not explain the reasoning to their customers, but I felt that was not who we are. My hope is you will understand our decisions and that we really took them to heart. We hope you will continue to enjoy our products in your home.
As spring begins to show its face here on old Mission we wanted to share some new updates from the Secret Garden for our 2020 season. First, we hope all of you have stayed safe and healthy during these difficult times. Here at the Secret Garden, we have tried to stay positive and busy pumping the thousands and thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer (Pure Hands and our new “Be Clean”) and our other personal care products. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the orders and kind notes. They have really kept us going. We felt it was a way to give back and help in our own little way. Before Covid-19, we had begun to look at ways to make the Secret Garden at Brys Estate a more earth friendly company which is in line with our values. We were beginning to plan for these changes this May and then we all found ourselves in the midst of a global crisis. Our planning was put on hold and we started trying to keep our products in stock for our customers, which became our number one priority. The challenge was being able to find the raw materials to make our products, as our suppliers were being overcome with orders for the raw materials to make hand sanitizer. Thankfully, we had bought several large batches of our base, ahead of the pandemic, to begin the big job of making large amounts of products before we opened for the summer. We quickly ran through those supplies in less than a week along with our bottles and pumps. We had depleted our supplies in ten days, which under normal circumstances would have lasted us one complete season. When we opened the Secret Garden and our gift shop four years ago, we wanted to create a product that was thoughtfully made using real essential oils, including our own, and responsibly made bases. Five years later we are ready to add a new level to our brand. We are going to move all products larger than three ounces to glass packaging. In addition, we are going to slowly phase out of plastic except in our two-ounce products, shower gel and lavender Pure Hands as well as our eight-ounce Pure Hands. All of our glass comes from North America as well as our plastic bottles and pumps. All our plastic is PET made from recycled plastic. In addition, we will be introducing refill pouches. Our plan is to eventually have all products available in refill pouches, but this will take some time. Refill pouches will enable us to keep our prices down and enable you to refill your existing bottles each time they are empty and will be much more environmentally friendly.
When the Secret Garden began, we priced our products to the public at a wholesale or “factory” price. In spite of the numerous price increases by our vendors over the last five years, we have only raised our prices by $1.50, because we have always wanted to give our special customers the best price we could. However, it has come to a point that we have to make some price adjustments to keep the Secret Garden a viable growing business. The Covid-19 has also caused a huge shortage of our packaging supplies for many of our other personal care products. Businesses are all trying to buy the same supplies and the companies that make them have had to raise their prices almost double in some cases. Some of our suppliers have also started charging us for shipping, whereas before the pandemic, shipping was free if we purchased a certain dollar amount. We have taken on these price increases over the past months and have not passed them on to you. Our plan is to move forward over the next few months in adjusting our prices to include the price increases that we have incurred for our raw goods, as well as the additional cost of using glass bottles, along with the responsible plastics we need that are made in North America. We will run sales periodically along with additional perks when we get some price cuts from our vendors.
In addition to the responsible packaging, I would like to cover some of the other important facts about our products. In all of our products, we use high quality essential oils, including some of the oils that we distill from our own plants. Every product that has lavender essential oil is a blend of our own distilled lavender (Lavendula Angustifolia essential oil) as well as a Lavendula Angustifolia that is verified by EcoCert. EcoCert is a globally recognized symbol that indicates the absence of GMO, parabens, phenoxyethanol, nanoparticles, silicon, PEG, synthetic perfumes and dyes, animal-derived ingredients (unless naturally produced by them: milk, honey, etc.). They also review the biodegradable or recyclable nature of packaging.
Many luxury body products say they have oils, but many are just extracts, not real essential oils. If our products have a small bit of fragrance oil, added to them, it is paraben and phthalate free. Our bases are all responsibly made and are paraben free, gluten free, cruelty free, soy free, and infused with botanicals, just to name a few of their benefits. You can find a complete list next to each of your favorite products. Our main goal is to create high quality products that are infused with high quality essential oils. We want all of our products to benefit your skin in the most positive way possible.
We have received so many amazing stories over the past five years of how these products have helped people in so many ways and the essential oils play a big part in that. Over the next few weeks we will begin to transition over to glass bottles and our new prices on the website. We will offer the plastic bottles at the current pricing until we sell through them. Our new refill pouches will be coming online over the next few months.
Finally, thank you for all your support and understanding and most importantly, stay safe and healthy. Please email us if you have any questions. We are hoping to open the Secret Garden and the garden shop the first weekend of June and look forward to welcoming you back. Our hope is that in these difficult days of staying inside, visiting the Secret Garden will be a welcome respite where you can be outdoors, take in all the beauty and peace that the Secret Garden provides.
Sending the soothing scent of lavender your way!!!
-Katie Brys