Looking back on childhood photos, the most noticeable thing is my skin. I suffered with severe eczema when I was young, and I am still dealing with it to this day. There are dozens of pictures of me with red patches, blood, and scratches across my face and body. It didn’t faze me as a kid because it was just normal to me; I didn’t know any different.
The older I got, however, the more frustrated and upset I became about my skin. I began trying to cover the patches with makeup, but this only irritated my skin more. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of trying to conceal the eczema whilst creating more – a cycle that I only broke less than six months ago.
I tried dozens and dozens of products – all of which either burned my skin, didn’t do anything at all, or were obnoxiously expensive. The skincare I was buying was full of fragrance, drying alcohols, colourants, and harmful substances that were making my skin worse, not better. I wanted healthy skin that didn’t cost me my entire pay check.
I sat staring at my cabinet of skincare one evening, gazing at all the bottles and jars and packets I would never use again. My earlier trip to Pack It In (Worcester’s first Zero Waste shop and refill centre) must’ve been playing on my mind, as I began to consider the amount of waste I was producing. The more I stared, the more I realised how much of what was in front of me would go to landfill. It was all plastic. Plastic film, plastic bottles, plastic pump dispensers. I became more and more aware of what I had done – I had wasted not only my money, but I had produced kilograms of plastic waste. I realised that my responsibility for cutting down my plastic waste was far more important than buying more and more skincare in the hopes of finding something that would work.
I began to research how I could make my own skincare, in the hopes of finding a more natural alternative to the conventional shop-bought products one finds in Superdrug. I also began trying to find alternatives for plastic – something that proved immensely difficult. You can read more about plastic and why I don’t use it in my Why Plastic Free blog.
I realised that what I needed was a brand that created products that catered for sensitive skin like mine, for reasonable prices, with high quality ingredients and without the use of plastic packaging.
I then realised, if I wanted a job done, I was going to have to do it myself.
And that’s where Nim began.