A Heartfelt Thank You
As 2014 draws to a close, I want to take a moment to say a sincere thank you for all your support over what has been an incredibly busy, rewarding and inspiring year for both me and JustBe.
This year brought many proud milestones: our first four awards, including two from the Ultimate Natural Beauty Bible for our all-natural skincare and two Great Taste Awards for our herbal teas. Being asked to supply our Active Aromatherapy Rollerballs for the volunteers that the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
We also introduced two new ranges: our enriched soaps and the aromatherapy chocolates, both created with the same love and intention as everything we do. Alongside that, we gave our skincare range a beautiful packaging refresh to reflect the purity inside each bottle.
JustBe Botanicals First Four Awards
Those first four awards came from two of the most respected names in natural and ethical beauty and food:
Two awards from the Ultimate Natural Beauty Bible: independent validation from one of the UK's most trusted natural beauty publications, earned through real-world testing by real people with discerning standards.
Two Great Taste Awards for our mood-boosting herbal teas, judged blind by over 500 food industry experts, these are among the hardest food awards to earn and among the most meaningful to hold.
For a small, hand-blended brand in its early years, being recognised across both skincare and food by judges who knew nothing about us beyond the products themselves, was the most honest kind of confirmation that what we were doing was worth doing.
Two New Ranges - Soaps and Aromatherapy Chocolates
2014 also saw the launch of two ranges that would go on to become beloved fixtures of the JustBe world.
The enriched soap range, natural, botanically-inspired and as carefully formulated as everything else in the collection brought a new dimension to the JustBe body care offering.
And the aromatherapy chocolate range: the idea that chocolate could do more than taste good, that it could genuinely support your mood was born. A range that would go on to earn Great Taste Award and Beauty Shortlist Award and be the basis of many talks and tastings include Dalmore whisky.
The First International Partner in the Netherlands
Among the milestones of 2014, one stands out as particularly significant in terms of what it meant for the future: the very first international stockist for chocolate, in the Netherlands.
For a brand built by hand, blended in small batches and packaged with care. crossing a border felt like a genuine moment of arrival. Not just a Scottish brand. A brand with a reach that was already beginning to grow.
To Everyone Who Has Been Part of This
None of 2014 happened alone. It was shaped by the customers who stopped by at events and sent kind messages. The therapists who offered JustBe treatments. The cafes and bistros who served our teas. The growing community of stockists who believed in what we were building. And the reviewers and bloggers who helped more people discover the benefits of natural skincare and wellbeing.
Every word of encouragement, every review, every purchase, it all added up to something real. Something that has only grown since.
With love and gratitude, then, now and always, Gail