I have some great news! As of today, Cookie Lifestyle continues as Glow: an online platform with products that make your world a little more beautiful, but without breaking down that world at the back. Sounds logical, right? Glow will also be a place where people with an equal mindset come together to inform and, above all, inspire each other. Because those who make conscious choices change more than just buying behavior.
Gut feeling
During the launch of the last collection of Cookie Lifestyle, now about a year and a half ago, I knew that I could no longer ignore my gut feeling, which I had been walking with for a long time. I was no longer behind the successful webshop that I had set up myself with very hard work. In fact, I hadn’t figured it out for quite a while and I knew it was time for a change.
The history of products
Let’s go back. When I started Cookie Lifestyle, I started selling what you might call fast fashion . Now a few years ago, but it almost feels like a different life. Driven by the desire to set up something myself and to do business on my own terms, I opened a webshop that started to bear the nickname of my newborn daughter: Cookie.
I was an entrepreneur and mother and as my business grew, I changed myself and the way I stood in life and looked at the world. I started to make different choices for myself and for my family. I became more and more aware of the history of certain products, which unfortunately is not always end-good-all-good, the chemicals that we come into contact with on a daily basis and the fact that they have a major influence on our health. Instead of throwing products in the shopping cart without much thought, I started to make more and more conscious choices with every purchase I made.
Back rooms and chemicals
What do you have to think about? Sometimes it concerns people who sit in back rooms under poor working conditions for a starvation wage sewing clothes. Sometimes sheep almost succumb to a much too thick coat and then remain bleeding after a rushed shaving process. And sometimes care products that smell spicy from luxury packaging are stuffed in the factory with chemicals that are not a party for your skin at all, let alone for the environment. These products are often also tested on animals that suffer a miserable life somewhere in a shadowy laboratory.
What message would I send — to myself and to my children — by tacitly knowing the real price of products, without turning that science into action? By continuing to sell products with a history that I would rather not see in the world in which my children grow up?
Stop or continue?
I was faced with a choice: stop with Cookie Lifestyle or redirect the webshop to a platform that does represent how I am in the world now. Not because I want to be the activist (or maybe a bit ;), but because I want to show people that it can also be done differently: that those who want a more beautiful world can still buy beautiful products, without the goat wool socks feeling (a feeling that I often got myself in my search for sustainability). So, the same beautiful products with the look & feel that you are used to (hello neutral lovers :), but made honestly, free of chemicals and without animal suffering.
My mission may seem a bit contradictory, because isn’t consuming as little as possible the best thing in the end? I can say a resounding yes to this. After all, I started buying a lot less myself, because I now realize that we often do not need all that stuff at all. Ok, this may not be a useful point of view as the owner of a webshop, but it is what I stand for. Consuming less and making better choices in the products we choose, for ourselves, but also for the world around us. And that’s where I want to contribute.
More than a webshop
Glow is also becoming more than just a webshop. It will also be an online community where I want to bring like-minded people together. Because I know better than anyone that if you are going to make different choices, you can feel that you are on your own in the beginning. For example, if I’m the only vegan at a party with people who don’t understand why I don’t just eat a piece of cake. Or if I point out to someone that scoring a bargain at the Action is not really something to celebrate.
Being more conscious in life is a quest. It’s discovering and adjusting, it’s doing as-well-as-possible because perfection doesn’t exist. And you don’t have to. Every small step you take is one and I think that’s the way to go. You don’t have to change everything at once, but one step at a time. With every new purchase ask yourself, there is a better alternative. It’s a quest and I’d like to help you a bit with my new platform Glow. To inform, inspire and connect each other.
Glow – the label
Someone who shouts that things can be better should, in my opinion, be an example of this. That’s why I started my own label more than a year ago. Women’s and children’s clothing of the best quality, made of the best materials without chemicals, with the lowest possible impact on the environment and locally made by a small family business in the Netherlands. And yes, there is a different price tag here than cheap production abroad with cheaper materials, but that is a price that I myself would like to pay for quality, health and a better world.
You can find this in the shop
The product range that you now find in the store is therefore different than it used to be. In addition to your own label, you will find numerous other brands and products that hold the same values in high esteem. But it goes beyond just clothing. Also other products that we use every day, such as toys, care products and household products. All made honestly and without the nasty chemicals.
Step by step, the webshop will continue to expand and I will share the choices I make with you in the community and add the new products I choose as much as possible to the webshop, so that you increasingly create a one-stop-shop for all your fairly produced, sustainable and non-toxic products. In any case, you can count on the products in the shop meeting the following criteria:
- 100% vegan and not tested on animals
- Do not contain toxic substances
- Being fairly produced
In other words: on my digital shelves you will only find products that make your world a little more beautiful, without breaking down that same world behind the scenes. I hope you find that the extra investment as worth it as I do.
With Glow begins for me a new adventure that – of course – had been in the pipeline for a while. And now it’s finally getting underway. Hopefully together with you. Connect to the community and let’s light up the world together!
Love
