What is the Peggy Sue story? Why did you start the brand?
Selfindulgence & Serenity Shanah Baxter and Alysha Hack, founders of lifestyle label, Peggy Sue spill the bath salts on their brand evolution and ethos.
Shanah: The Peggy Sue journey began in October 2016 when I had the idea of making soaps for some Christmas presents. Growing up with a mum in the skincare industry, I was armed with a knowledge on how to create the products and the best ingredients to use. The soaps I made were palm oil free, fun and pretty. I posted a picture of them online and people started messaging me to say they were keen to buy some for their Christmas shopping. I had a 6-month old daughter at the time whose name is Peggy. I made a quick Instagram page ‘Peggy Sue Soaps’ and in the lead up to Christmas 2016 I sold over 1,000 soaps through Instagram. I didn’t even have a website at the time! I then joined forces with Alysha, one of my good friends and now co-owner of Peggy Sue. Each and every product produced by Peggy Sue is carefully thought out and curated with love. Our range is kind on the planet, perfect for all skin types including sensitive, and is designed to not only nourish and care for skin but also help us all slow down, enjoy meaningful moments and focus on self-care. The Peggy Sue product range seems to use some pretty unique ingredients. Tell us about some of them. Alysha: We love using flower and fruit extracts in our products because they are all just overflowing with antioxidants and hold so many benefits for the skin. One of our favourite concoctions is our Intensive Eye Cream which has both red wine and coffee bean extract blended throughout. Two of life’s greatest gifts in one eye cream! Good for the tastebuds and your skin! Coffee extract is famous for its brightening and tightening abilities, so it’s perfect to help reduce circles around the eye area as well as reducing puffiness and minimising fine lines and wrinkles. The red wine extract is a super unique skincare ingredient that also boasts a wealth of benefits. It helps boost the skin’s collagen production which is a protein that holds your skin cells together.
34 / SUMMER 2021
It also keeps the skin around the eye area strong and healthy while boosting elastic fibres and aids in slowing down the ageing process. What encouraged you to offer refills for your products and what percentage of your products are available as refills? Shanah: Refillable skincare shreds a huge amount off the carbon footprint of our beauty regimes. While it can be a challenging initiative as the refills need to be packaged in plastic for the health and safety of our customers, the refill pouches contain 90 percent less plastic than the lid of the glass bottle. Taking this into account along with the energy and transport required to create a new bottle, creating the sealed refill pouch uses a fraction of the carbon footprint required to produce an entirely new bottle. We also send an envelope with each refill order to our customers which allows the customer to easily return their empty refill pouch to us so we can send them off to be repurposed and ensure they don’t end up in landfill. To further help the process we offer free stainless-steel funnels to help our customers refill their bottles with ease. We can proudly say that 95 percent of the Peggy Sue range comes with refill options. We hope that when Australian’s consider the carbon footprint of their skincare regime, they opt to switch to Peggy Sue to partner with us as we fight the war on waste. What’s next for Peggy Sue? Alysha: We want Australians to focus on and prioritise self-care while showing compassion and care for the world around them. Anyone who subscribes to this philosophy is a part of our Peggy Sue Crew and we welcome and embrace them with open arms. We recently opened our first flagship store in Sydney and would love to open more stores and spread the Peggy Sue philosophy on a grass roots level across Australia. If Peggy Sue can become a way for all our beautiful customers to connect to themselves and the world around them in a meaningful way, then we feel our hard work is rewarded.
More at peggysuesoaps.com
