Thursday 11 March 2010

Decisions, (organic) decisions


This week saw Beauty Bible's annual outing to Bristol to judge the first round of the Soil Association Organic Beauty Awards (as you can see from this pic of Sarah with the SA's Feona Horrex): a marathon session of dabbing, daubing, sniffing and smelling (and enough hand-washing to make us feel like veritable Howard Hugheses). The usual contenders were out in force: Neal’s Yard, Spiezia, Inlight, Essential Care and Skin Blossom (a teensy affordable brand which has two ‘steals’ in our most recent book). But we’re always pleased to stumble across new organic finds – so: hello to Pinks Boutique (great scrubs, complete with nifty spoon for scooping), Botanicals (Jo very much enjoyed slathering on their Mint & Tea Tree Foot Balm last night) and Lulu & Boo (nice typography on the packaging and some lovely smells). Our shortlisted products (NB not necessarily the ones pictured!) will now be trialled in the usual way – 10 testers per product giving their opinions (there are volunteers queuing up at the Soil Association), with a special team of babies on standby to trial the babycare category! Watch this space for the ‘gongs’, announced in April at the Natural Products Show (and, of course, on our site).