Plural Supply brings together the joy of making and sharing natural products with our love and respect for the environment.
We have also always been curious about unique ingredients and sustainable creation. This curiosity, combined with a desire to reduce our environmental impact, has led us to create a range of natural products that is considerate to the earth and kind to even the most sensitive of skin types.
The work we do is guided by three core concepts: intention, iteration, and impact.
Intention
Intentionality, to us, begins with provenance and purpose. When you use any product made by Plural Supply, you have the assurance that it is formulated with raw ingredients that have been chosen with consideration for the earth — from responsibly farmed ingredients to surplus or even found ingredients. Whether we’re making candles or soaps, our formulations are soothing, effective, and created with as little waste as possible.
Iteration
The process of constant making also means we’re constantly learning. Our craft is an unorthodox combination of rigorous research with playful experimentation, partly because we strive to create products that respond to needs that arise. Instead of large-scale production or trend-led designs, we create the best quality products that we know how through inquiry and iteration, all while addressing issues like skincare concerns or sensitivities for our soaps, and how far scents can travel for our candles.
Two more things are also key to our iteration: recognising that our knowledge isn’t exhaustive, and that sustainability is a journey, not a destination. This is why we’re constantly refreshing our products and formulas to use more responsibly sourced ingredients, and experimenting with more ways to close the loop in our production.
Impact
We try our best to make environmentally informed decisions every step of the way because we believe a truly sustainable approach involves all parts of the life cycle. Our goal is to move towards circularity by exploring new approaches to sourcing, making, and packaging. This begins with using raw ingredients that are sustainably sourced, sustainably produced, and can be sustainably used. It also includes thinking about how a product is received, how it is used, and how any remnant materials can be reused, recycled, or returned.
Finally, we know that environmental impact is also dependent on the usage of a product, which is why we only put out products that are gentle but effective — formulations developed and tested by us, and made to be finished by you.
From the desk of our maker —
One of the things I love about making my own products from scratch is that you’re able to learn so much during the process. Each time I develop a new product, I learn about how an ingredient might work with a soap base, or how certain combinations help alleviate skin conditions like my own dry and sensitive skin, or a friend’s severe eczema. Making your own products also teaches you a lot about the people you make them for, because everyone comes back to you with stories. Someone I know now takes extra long showers because of the Barley Grass and Tea Tree Bar, and another customer once took a 4-hour nap with the help of the Islay Candle (though I don’t recommend unsupervised candle burning!).
Learning is what excites me most whenever I enter a studio. I don’t have a fixed working space — I move between different makerspaces that are equipped for different crafts, like soapmaking, candle making, printmaking and more. Working like this means I get to create alongside other makers and crafters, who are always ready to share their own perspectives, skills, experience and tools. Besides sharing their knowledge, they’re also always ready to help try out new products. If there’s anything that can help sharpen that testing phase, it’s definitely creating for fellow makers.
It's these rounds of mixing, melting, pouring and testing that make me confident in the quality of my products. As someone with a background in data analysis and mathematics, this process is something I love. It lets me be rigorous and precise with documenting, experimenting and iterative testing, while discovering new and fun ingredients, methods and scents.
Trying out new ingredients matters to me because they’re the foundation of an environmentally-friendly product. It’s important to me that my soaps are greywater safe (meaning that the water it dissolves in is nontoxic and safe enough to use for irrigation), and that my candles are soy-free and palm-free out of consideration for the environment. As I get to know more about different ingredients, how they’re produced, and their impact on local communities and the environment, I adjust my formulas and product ranges to incorporate more sustainable resources.
I owe different parts of my journey and process to friends who have worked on Plural Supply’s design, friends who have shared wisdom, tools and ideas, customers and strangers who have donated packaging materials and ingredients, and farmers and producers who have shared the stories behind their products and oils. It’s important to recognise we’re all makers making different things in a larger, connected system — and my hope is to connect the dots and close the loops within this network through the products and stories we tell at Plural Supply.
– J, maker and founder of Plural Supply