Glass vs. Plastic
One criterion that our small crafting company considered when we selected the PET plastic that is used for most of our liquid products is the fact that the FDA considers this plastic to be one of the most inert. This is why PET is the only plastic approved for packaging beverages containing vodka or other alcohol (a powerful solvent) beverages. This is particularly important when one is bottling products with essential oils and/or herbal extracts, which have the potential to “react” with lower grades of plastic and can cause the plastic to degrade into the product. The other big benefit of the PET plastic is that it is the most highly recyclable plastic. It's important to consider that our products are handcrafted in small batches and fresh product is shipped regularly to our customers and, thus, do not sit on shelves in warehouses and stores in the packaging for long periods of time—unlike just about all other personal care companies’ products that are offered within the mass market distribution chain and the wide-ranging retail consumer marketplace.
Packaging is always a difficult issue that requires considerable research and evaluation and, because of our personal experience with cancer and our environmental concerns, we do not take our packaging decisions lightly. It is also burdensome that, for small businesses who buy packaging in smaller quantities, they cannot make specific packaging demands and must adhere to minimum order requirements and available packaging options made by the stocking distributors.
We love glass. Unfortunately, even glass has serious drawbacks—for one, the obvious possibility of breaking during shipping or breaking into dangerous shards...in your baby's bathtub. The other downside to glass is its extreme impact on the environment due to the large amounts of fossil fuels (carbon footprint and sustainability factor) required to generate the very high temperatures needed to form or melt glass. One must also consider the increase in fuel oils (carbon footprint and sustainability factor) needed to transport the significantly heavier glass packaging. Sadly, burning such great amounts of fossil fuels creates much in the way of air pollution and degradation of the ozone, both of which have been linked to increased cancer and other health risks. Lastly and sadly, a number of communities have recently stopped recycling glass.
Our organic Flower Therapy line of skin care products are currently packaged in glass and are a beautiful line of products that you could try if you don’t care for plastic bottles. Our organic bar soaps—delightfully silky and aromatic cleansing castile soaps—are wrapped in sustainable and biodegradeable handmade, fair trade papers made from fast-growing lokta grass. Alternatively, you could transfer our other freshly-made products into glass containers at your home for your own use. Unfortunately, there are no perfect containers for some liquid products, and there is potential for contamination for unwrapped or bulk products. Unless you make all of your personal care products at home, our products would still be among the cleanest that you’ll find anywhere.