Jewellery Boxes & Packaging

Over the years as I've established Iceni my main goal was to ensure I got the best product I could produce to you, the customer, in the safest way possible. I used Jiffy bags with plastic bubble wrap, and jewellery boxes with foam inserts, to give that luxurious feel. I thought that my little business wouldn't make a very huge impact on the environment. I mean, I love nature don't I, my whole life celebrates it - I thought I was doing all the right things. I wasn't though.

So, I sat me down with a coffee and I started to search for environmentally friendly packaging, from jewellery boxes to postage envelopes....oh me gawds what a tidal wave of nonsense I fell in to!

Through researching I found that many of the so-called 'environment friendly' packaging is not in fact that environmentally friendly - although I found that I could purchase some super duper snazzy envelopes that worked out at nearly £5 each...well...that cost, on top of jewellery boxes, tape, inserts, etc....no business can sustain that without having to add that on to their product prices, and I just didn't want that to happen. I try to keep my prices realistic and reachable to as many as possible.

Hours later over three days of searching (I exaggerate not!) I found my packaging!, and as of November 2021 I am introducing new environmentally friendly packaging as stocks of my old boxes run out. My new jewellery boxes are FSC Mix certified, which means they have been made from paper that has come from forests that are certified and/or controlled by the Forest Stewardship Council, and from reclaimed/recycled timber.

This means they don't have the fancy foam inserts - but I hope you'll agree that is but a small sacrifice to make for a better option.

My gift pouches are made of 100% cotton.

My postage boxes/envelopes are all recyclable.

The main lesson I learned from this transition was that there are so many products out there that claim to be something they're not - and to the best of my ability and knowledge, I've tried to wade through all of them to find necessary items for my business that will create the least impact to the environment.

But what about the foiling? I hear you cry!

Well, I spoke with my supplier about this, who told me:

"During hot foil printing process, the wastage of foiling is very minimal. All the foil comes on a cardboard cone - these are made of 100% paper which are all recyclable. If recyclable boxes are printed with foiling, these boxes are 100% fully recyclable too."

They also referred me to this (somewhat tongue-in-cheek but based-on-facts) article - which I found really interesting and put my fears to rest over wanting a tiny bit of sparkle on my branding.