Sustainable Living - Seep.
Looking to start your sustainable living journey towards an eco-friendly home? We've got you covered with some of our favourite eco brands. Introducing The Seep Company who have created 100% plastic-free cleaning products that work!
We are so excited to have you feature on our blog! Tell us a little bit about yourself, your brand and how it started.
Hello there, I‘m so delighted to be collaborating with Houseof, thank you so much for including us. My name is Laura and I founded Seep last year. I live in London with 2 kids, my husband and my dog Mango and have spent the last 20 years working with consumer and retail brands. I launched Seep because I was a frustrated shopper! I had switched my laundry liquid, cleaning sprays and lots of other household products to more sustainable versions but I couldn’t find great options in the cleaning tool aisle. Most of the aisle for sponges, cloths, bin liners, washing up brushes in my local supermarket was a sea of (ugly) plastic. So I decided to launch Seep in the first lock down. Our mission is to bring people household essentials that look slick, work brilliantly and that are gentle on the planet.
“I launched Seep because I was a frustrated shopper!”
We think your cleaning products are fab. We agree that sustainable products that are better for the planet can look good too. What is the design process and where do you find your inspiration?
The thinking behind the products was to first find the most commonly used products for cleaning which we discovered was a green-topped, plastic scourer sponge and a microfibre cloth or J-cloth. We then set about designing the closest equivalent products that were fully compostable but also that would look good enough to be on display at your sink. Materials-wise, compostability was really important to us because just being biodegradable doesn’t mean much. You can have a biodegradable plastic bag that just degrades into smaller bits of plastic. If a product is compostable, its constituent parts must break down back into harmless raw materials and ultimately go back into the earth. Hence why we called the business Seep.
“...compostability was really important to us because being biodegradable doesn’t mean much.”
What advice can you give someone who wants to be greener at home? Where should they start?
Sometimes you can be so overwhelmed by all the terminology and you can easily feel like nothing will make a difference. My advice would firstly be to take lots of small steps and do things gradually like switching to reusable bags, composting your food waste and using refills instead of single-use packaging. Secondly, read up on things. There are some great sources of advice like Ethical Consumer who really get under the hood of products and brands and what the different terms mean.
Do you encourage your friends and family to be more eco friendly?
Not really. I don’t want people to think I’m a hard core zero waster who constantly disapproves of other people’s unsustainable lifestyles. I don’t want anyone to feel judged, they won’t want to hang out with me anymore! Instead I hope friends and family take inspiration from what we do and take their own steps to being more eco friendly. If they ask, I’ll share what I know but I don’t want to ram it down people’s throats.
Are there any sustainable brands you purchase from or follow on social media that you would recommend?
Holy smokes, SO many! It’s kind of our job to keep up-to-speed with amazing sustainable brands :-) Some of my favourites are Good Club and Bower Collective for their zero waste grocery and non food supplies. I also like Wild deodorant, Oatly, Delphis Eco for their washing up liquid, Tony’s Chocolonely, Abel & Cole. I’ll stop but there are so many more.
You have a fantastic partnership with On a Mission. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
It was important for us to offset our carbon emissions right from the start and so we set about finding the right organisation to partner with early on. We didn’t want to partner with a commercial organisation but with a charity that was early on in their journey like Seep so that we could grow together. We offset 3 times our carbon footprint and they calculate our emissions by products. They are also data-led in the way they find the reforestation projects they support and look for carbon impact but also those projects that have a positive impact on livelihoods. Other brands like Wild and Honest Mobile also partner with them.
sea green pendant ceiling light
What’s your interior style like at home?
Our interiors are mostly quite messy with 2 kids, a dog and a busy lifestyle. When the mess is gone though our house is pretty contemporary and we completely renovated our Victorian London terraced house a few years ago. There is lots of white and grey, some period features and lots of the Seep colours - turquoise and navy - throughout. I love these colours because they remind me of the sea.
Finally if you had to pick a houseof light for your home which one would you choose?
Love the sea green pendant ceiling light.
