BAE Vegan Perfume Launches Shopify

by HulkApps.com Collaborator October 30, 2020

Finally we launch! It has been a long time coming but we made it. We have transferred from our current platform to Shopify. Our motivation for doing this was so, after many requests, we could offer AfterPay. You ask, we listen!

With the launch of our new Shopify store come several changes. For existing customers, you will notice a price increase. We are sorry for this our accountant crunched the numbers and informed us straight up that we were undercharging, and this was before adding in the cost of upgrading to Shopify and offering AfterPay.

There has also been a massive shortage of raw fragrance ingredients which has pushed the price of our perfume formulations north-bound.

On that note, I’d love a moment to talk up our perfumes. The fragrance we source is exceptional. Beyond exceptional. This is one thing I knew I had to get right from the start and I believe it is why we receive great feedback. There are many fragrance manufacturers and there are big price variations between them. We will never go cheap. Ever. It is imperative that our beautiful customers know this. Back to the matter at hand, with these combined elements, our price increase unfortunately had to occur.

Oil Based Perfumes. We are longer offering oil based perfumes. Instead we have sourced an absolutely gorgeous alcohol free base that spritzes just like traditional perfume. It is totally natural, vegan, palm oil free and silicone free. Cyclomethicone is a popular alternative to alcohol however we did not wish to use a silicone base so instead undertook extensive research for an alternative. The downside is that it is expensive in comparison to cyclomethicone and will add $2.95 to the cost of a 20ml bottle.

On to bottles. Bottles and labels have seriously been a nightmare for us. So much has gone wrong and there has been much wasted expense. When we started, I tried to be ‘all things to everyone’ by offering different base options (alcohol or oil) and different size bottles. While ultimately it is my goal to broadly cater for many needs, at this early stage, I need to keep it simple. Offering so many options became hard to manage and very costly, and it was under professional advice for us to offer one bottle size only (apart from the sample bottles).

The bottle that we will be offering on our new store is a 20ml hexagonal spritz bottle. There are only a handful of Australian perfume bottle suppliers and the choice of bottle options are small. I had learned from previous experience that I had to make sure whatever bottle we decided upon would be accessible long term. As we offer masculine perfumes, I had to find a bottle that was unisex, one that could respectfully pass if it were given to a male. I also had to consider the weight, for postage calculations as well as being suitable for handbags and travel. They will still last 6-12 months even with daily use, depending on the spritz count.

I can say with certainty that we will go back to offering a larger size option in the future (50 or 60ml) in addition to the 20ml but at this stage it will not be until next year.

Other changes to our vegan perfumes are:

- Scent Reformulations: There have been reformulations of several scents including: Amber Musk, Bling, Solstice, Ahimsa & Vatsalya. If you have purchased samples or full size bottles of these scents prior to March 2019, we advise that you try a sample before going ahead with a full size bottle to ensure you like the new formula.

- Packaging: With the new bottle size came new packaging! Changing bottles is the expense that just keeps taking! As a new box was required for the new bottle, it made me think deeply about our current artwork. We get a lot of good feedback on ‘love the packaging’ but there was something about it I just did not love. I felt it didn’t really represent what we stood for (all about the animals) so we have changed the box artwork. The initial printing of the box was underwhelming so I have changed the papertype and these are currently being reprinted.

- Receipts: We will no longer send a paper copy of orders.

- Shipping Satchel: We have changed to a more environmentally friendly postage satchel with Hero Packaging.

- Natural Perfume alcohol free only: We only offer natural perfume with the alcohol free base because a perfume can technically not be called natural when blended with alcohol. Personally I also found blending essential oils with the alcohol free base to be far more stable than using alcohol.

We understand that the change in price and bottle size may be disappointing and hope that what we stand for and the quality of our products will be enough for you to want to stick with us regardless.

For the animals,

Nat & Dal