Wednesday 29 April 2015

Let's talk talons...

You've probably heard all about our Nail Varnish by now. Heck, you might even own some. But now, you can learn all about it!

You know what '5 Free' means, we've told you that already. So let me just reiterate - you will find no nasties in our polishes - none whatsoever.

It started in the spring of 2014, as with lots of cosmetics, I have a bit of an obsession with Nail Varnish. I'm the sort of person who imagines something they want to buy, and then hunts FOREVER until they find it. So really, making things is the only way to satisfy my imagination.

Since it was spring, I decided that pastels were the way forward. I added the black speckles because I wanted them to look like little birds eggs.


Looking good, huh? These lovelies are now 1 year old, so happy birthday to them.

I then decided I needed the Brightest Neons Of All Time (tm) so these came next...


Pretty bright! If I set my mind to it I can usually do it... Next came scented polishes, nudes, metallics, mattes and the latest is the super cool Intergalactic set of 10 holographic shades.


The photos do NOT do these justice - they have to be seen to be believed! So - do you own any of our amazing polishes? Which shade is your favourite? xox

Monday 27 April 2015

Focus on - Animal Aid

If you look at the footer of our website, you'll see we list all the shops/websites that stock our lovely goodies. Some of them stock more lines than others, and they all buy in different quantities. But they're all equally important to us. If every city in the UK stocked Fairypants then EVERYONE would know all about it- and that's our ultimate aim. WORLD DOMINATION(Or, you know. Just the UK. That'd be cool too).

Animal Aid are one of our first stockists, so they believed in us when others didn't even know about us. And for that we are eternally grateful. It's always really exciting when we get an email from them placing an order - we love imagining all of the new customers they are helping us to reach.

Nobody talks about Animal Aid better than themselves, so this description comes from their fab website -

Animal Aid is the UK's largest animal rights group and one of the longest established in the world, having been founded in 1977.
We campaign peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promote cruelty-free living. We investigate and expose animal cruelty, and our undercover investigations and other evidence are often used by the media, bringing these issues to public attention.
Please do go see their site if you get the chance -  http://www.animalaid.org.uk/
They don't just stock our stuff, but some gorgeous bits by some other  companies too - it's a bit of a one stop shop - there's lots of products out there we don't make yet, and you quite probably can find them at Animal Aid.
In short, if it wasn't for people like Animal Aid believing in us and trusting our products, we wouldn't be where we are today. So give them some love.

Animal Aid are big fans of our Nail Varnish - Mary is just one of the lovely shades you can find there. xox

Saturday 25 April 2015

Wanna know how we make stuff?

Sorry, we can't tell you that. If we told you, we'd have to kill you etc etc. I can however tell you about some of our processes, which will give you a little insight into what we do.

I started this business on my own, and for all intents and purposes run it single handedly. Mr Fairypants however seems to get pressganged into helping more and more. He says I need to pay him, but I reckon it's more of a voluntary role... for now at least!

When I started making cosmetics I didn't have that many orders. It's a small business, and people either didn't know it existed, or didn't trust some random brand they found on the internet.

A few great blog posts later (and a whole load of word-of-mouth recommendations) the cosmetic sales were starting to grow, as were the number of products on offer. So currently I still make everything myself, but this is going to have to change, I'm looking into using a UK manufacturer to help me with my more popular products.

For each of my lines I keep 3-10 units in stock of each shade/flavour/fragrance. Some things like the nail varnish and perfume I can make singly, so I might regularly top those lines up as and when.

For my hot-fill products (this is where I make a batch of hot liquid, and it cools into a solid) like the lip balm and lip paint, things have to be done a little differently. I have to make these in batches, the smallest batch size I can make is 10 of each shade. This means that I keep an eye on my stock levels, and when I'm down to perhaps 2 of Banoffee Pie Lipbalm, I know I need to make a fresh batch.

So if you're a normal customer, or if you're ordering wholesale but only small order quantities, I can usually just pluck your item from my stash, pack it up and send it to you. This is why my turnaround time is usually very quick - if you order by about 7pm, it'll be sent first class the next day. If you're placing larger wholesale orders (or for some reason a single customer wants 4 of something I only have 3 left of) I will make up a larger batch to order.

This can sometimes delay your order if I have to shoehorn in a making session, but it also means I'm not sitting on loads of stock. And, you know you're getting the freshest batch possible. All of my products do have 'sell by' dates on them, because there are no preservatives. Luckily though, these fall in with current regular guidelines on how long you should keep your make up. I'll talk more about that another time!

If you ever have to wait for a order though, I'll let you know why!

Our most popular product is our Nail Varnish, and we've just secured a relationship with a small factory here in the UK who have agreed to make our nail varnishes for us! We're starting just with the one shade range - our speckly pastels. But as time goes on and we're sure that it's the right thing to do, we'll invest more money in manufacturing.

Our first order arrived from the factory!


For bigger businesses it might not be such a big deal, but we almost need to 'save up' our money, a bit like if you wanted to buy a new sofa. Some people can buy it outright, some people need to save. Until we hit the big time, we're savers. And that's fine with us - but it won't be long until EVERYONE knows about Fairypants, and we have no choice but to work more with factories. Surely?! #crossesfingers
xox

Thursday 23 April 2015

Next up, Eyeshadow!

We're going in chronological order now, can you tell?

After we'd rested on our lipbalm-laurels for a bit, we decided we needed more cosmetics in our lives. So in December 2013, we released our ace loose powder eyeshadow. The best way of describing them is that they look a little like a Barry M pot - it's a 5ml glass jar packed full of shimmery goodness.



So in the picture above you can see Olivia, she's one of our most popular shades. All of our eyeshadows are named after heroines from Shakespeare's plays. Because we like Shakespeare. No other reason.

We started off with 6 shades, as you can see Olivia is a lovely, pale green. There's also Desdemona (steely grey), Titania (shimmering gold), Ophelia (bronze-y pink), Viola (soft lilac) and Miranda (grey blue). 

These original six shades are all shimmery and gorgeous. Perfect basics to add to your make up bag. One or two of them can also double up - Ophelia makes a great blusher, and Titania is fab as a highlighter.

Not too long ago we decided we needed a refresh, and so along came our 3 glittery eyeshadows. Made to the same formula as the others, but with added sparkle. So we now have Cleopatra (glitter gold), Bianca (glitter silver) and Cordelia (glitter black). 


These bad boys are a little more dramatic, and perfect for that special occasion. Or work, if you like to dress up. We don't judge.

All our eyeshadows are just £3.99 from http://www.fairypants.co.uk/Vintage-Retro-Cosmetics/veganeyeshadow  and are also available in a gift set too - any 3 for £10. Get on it. 
xox

Tuesday 21 April 2015

Introducing - our amazing Lipbalm!

So, say hello to your New Best Friend. (We're not joking, either).

Our range of lipbalms contains a super cool 15 flavours for you to choose from. At £3.99 each they're a steal, or you can choose to get a set of any three flavours for £10 - which is a total bargain, any cheaper and we'd be giving them away!

You know the story of how these bad boys came about - we originally started with 10 flavours. 5 were based on cakes, 5 based on cocktails. Over time we've expanded, bringing out new flavours every now and again.

And plenty of our customers collect them all, so we should probably bring some more out soon, to keep everyone satisfied.

One of our favourite flavours is Mojito.


It's one of the originals, and still our most popular!

Our current flavours are as follows - 

Mojito, Amaretto & Cola, Raspberry Sambuca, Ice Cream Soda, Peach Bellini, Irish Cream, Pina Colada,Sticky Toffee Pudding, Banoffee Pie, Key Lime Pie, Strawberry Cheesecake, Cherry Bakewell, Black Forest Gateau, Gingerbread and Candy Cane.

The last two were supposed to be limited editions for Christmas... but people kept on buying them!

Our lipbalms go on super smooth, and they last a long while before reapplication. They contain Jojoba Wax, Shea Butter, Sweet Almond oil, and colours and lip safe flavours. The Jojoba wax is what makes these so ace though, the wax is the closest you can get to your skins' natural oils - so smothering your lips in this doesn't feel gross, heavy or chemical-y, it just feels right. Ever used a high street lip balm and had to keep reapplying it? That's because they actually dry your lips out, instead of moisturising them. Get a tin of Fairypants, and you'll never look back.

Get them all here, including that ace set we told you about.


Our Lipbalm gift set!


Sunday 19 April 2015

So what makes our stuff vegan?

You probably wonder why we bother to say our cosmetics are vegan - I mean, all cosmetics are, right? Wrong! Not all cosmetics are created equal. We're biased, but we'd say that ours are the best. Let us tell you why!

Not all cosmetics are vegan. Ours are. Cosmetics become Not-Vegan if they contain any product of an animal, I.E Beeswax, Lanolin or Carmine. Beeswax is obvious, but you may not have heard of the other two. Lanolin is a natural oily substance found on the wooly coats of sheep (other similar animals are also available). It's often used in any product that needs grease - so lip products, moisturisers, balms etc. Carmine is made from crushed beetles, and gives things a nice red colour. But is pretty icky.. There are plenty of others to look out for too, you can find a complete list here...

http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/animal-ingredients/

In addition to being completely vegan, our cosmetics are also Cruelty Free. This means we do not test our products on animals, and the ingredients we buy aren't tested on them either. We do however test on willing human victims. Every now and again we will ask for volunteers to try our next big thing, so keep your eyes peeled!

All our nail varnishes are also 5 Free. This means they are free from 5 very yucky ingredients found in lots of high street polishes. Those names to look out for are Dibutyl Phthalate, Toluene, Formaldehyde, Formaldehyde Resin, and Camphor. Icky for all manner of reasons. And we don't use them at all. Nail varnish can often contain Fish Scales too, under the name of Guanine - this is crushed up fish scales. Yes it will make your polish all shimmery and lovely... but ewww.

Finally, all our cosmetics are handmade by us, in Cheshire UK. We make everything, from the  make-up itself to the labels we stick on the finished product. And we all like to support British Business, so you can feel good about buying from the little guy ;-).

xox

Friday 17 April 2015

Well hello there!

We started this blog a million years ago, way back in the mists of 2012. We then kinda... stopped blogging. Because life took over!

It was brought to our attention that this old blog was still out there in the ether, so we decided to actually do something with it.

So hello, let us start again. We are Fairypants, and we design and make vegan cosmetics, skincare, perfume, jewellery and accessories. We started with just a few ranges, but our offering is expanding all the time, so keep up to date with us, so you don't miss anything...

To start off, I'll tell you the story of how we started making cosmetics. Sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

Make up has always been an obsession of mine - I used to work as a beauty specialist for a well know high street retailer back in the day, and they used to just take my wages straight back off me, I spent that much money there. But above all, I loved lip balm. I collected it from all over the world, paid ridiculous postage fees, had friends bring it back for me and so on. But I was never TRULY satisfied, you know?

Until, that fateful day I stumbled upon a recipe for make-your-own lipbalm. I got so excited, I probably did a little wee. I found stockists for all of the ingredients, and set about following the recipe, tweaking it a bit every now and then.

The only thing about lipbalm is it's realllllly hard to just make one or two, so I ended up with about 20 extra pots in different flavours - so I gave the extras away to friends and family. They told me they wanted MORE, so I thought... hang on - can I sell these?

Turns out there's loads of red tape when you make anything people will put on or near their bodies (quite rightly). So after conversations with my local council, I set up a relationship with a lab, so that each product I made could be thoroughly assessed for safety. That can be kinda expensive, but I reckoned it's better to be safe than sorry - better to pay for EVERYTHING so that it's all above board.

So I did! That was a couple of years ago now, and since I've spent shedloads of money creating new ranges. Now we have lip balm, lip scrub, lip paint, nail varnish, eye shadow, skin balm and perfume. And we keep expanding - I won't rest until I've replaced everything in your make-up bag/bathroom cabinet/box on the floor.


So - nice to meet you, see you soon!
xox