In Profile: Heathcote & Ivory

Heathcote & Ivory is a multi-award winning, family-run, progressive, quintessentially British beauty company that has built an enviable reputation for its award-winning, sustainable fragranced products and gifting collections across bath, body, wellness and lifestyle, all of which exude British wit and charm.

Creative supremo and co-founder Lesley Aaronson tells PG&H about some of the exciting new products that will be taking Heathcote & Ivory to the next level in the run up to Christmas and beyond.

Christmas may be a few months down the line, but at Heathcote & Ivory - known for its eye-catching, stand out packaging, high quality, paraben-free PETA and RSPOcertified ingredients, and iconic fragrances - there’s a very definite festive buzz in the air, with exciting new licensed and non-licensed gift-led products ready to roll out to retailers this Autumn.

“We believe that Christmas is going to be really big this year, and we’re extremely excited to launch our brand new Christmas collections,” enthuses creative supremo Lesley Aaronson, who co-founded Heathcote & Ivory with her husband Denis in 2000, both bringing their individual skill sets to the business, “with Denis leading from the front,” as Lesley puts it.

Over the past two decades, the company has evolved its cruelty-free and vegan-friendly bath and body products to encompass lifestyle accessories too, with textiles such as gardening gloves, aprons, tea towels and bags, as well as home fragrancing, introduced last year. Gift sets continue to be a year round mainstay of the company, with tins and wooden boxes that can be re-cycled, re-used and re-purposed all taking centre stage.

Well established licences include Cath Kidston, the RHS, Sara Miller London and, more recently Nathalie Lete and the William Morris Gallery, more of which later.

“Passion, attention to detail and joy in the entire process is at the heart of everything we do,” states Lesley. “We’re very collaborative so it’s very definitely a team effort. We have a lot of fun working together, and the expectation is that anything is possible. Plus, we’re not afraid to take risks, to try something new.”

As she points out: “as a small business - which has grown by 35% over the past two years due to new product development - a major advantage is that we can respond to trends and take quick decisions. In fact, thoughtful, feelgood innovations are an obsession, where we’re

dedicated to helping elevate everyday self-care rituals through our collections and brand collaborations that feature imaginative stories as well as a big helping of fun.”

With the cost of living squeeze likely to bite in the second half of the year, the company has looked to products with ‘pick up’ price points - Christmas gifts that people can purchase without spending a fortune. “We feel that Christmas is going to be really big this year, and we have put a huge emphasis on it,” underlines Lesley. “Brand

new festive products include items that you can hang on the Christmas tree as a bauble, or pop into a Christmas stocking, or put on the festive table, such as Christmas crackers filled with scented bath fizzers.”

Brand new for 2022 is Magic Myth Marvel, a collection of eye-catching beauty gifts featuring illustrations of Britain’s heroes and legends inspired by childhood fairy tales. It includes a novelty boxed stack of hand and

bath treats, Unwind & Recharge Magic Stack, with melting shower steamers a new twist on the bath bomb.

“The products can be gifted as they are, or separated into individual gifts,” Lesley explains. “Our much-loved bath flowers - the original brainchild of Denis - are back in a plastic-free box featuring the Magic Myth Marvel botanical design, with fairy tale beans, inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk, hidden in the pattern. There’s also a tin with a little dragon hidden in the lid, and a Sherlock Holmes pipe that’s been turned into a flower. As you can imagine, we had a lot of fun with the story telling!”

There is also a limited edition collection of four novelty beauty gifts featuring artist Nathalie Lete’s festive illustrations. Products range from scented soap in a heart shaped tin, featuring nostalgic porcelain dogs one side and snowmen the other, to a hand cream in a novelty tin in the shape of a nesting doll. Plus, brand new in Heathcote & Ivory’s William Morris at Home collection - a partnership launched with the not-for-profit William Morris Gallery in 2021 - is Bullerswood, inspired by one of the famous William Morris Hammersmith carpets. The design features on an Advent calendar filled with 24 vegan, scented bath and body treats, and there’s also a bumper beauty cracker with pocket hand creams and bath fizzers, as well as an opulent velvet pouch filled with hand creams and soap.

And at the request of the company’s retail customers, dog lovers haven’t been forgotten either. The company’s recently launched Canine Companion collection offers Christmas gifts for both dogs and their owners, such as a doggie bandana wrapped around a hand cream, and a gift set featuring a Christmas stocking, velvet bow tie, hair scrunchie and dog shampoo, all showcasing the William Morris Blackthorn print in a bespoke dark blue.

On the retail side of the business, headed by Esther Meyer, independent gift retailers remain extremely important to the company, with Heathcote & Ivory employing a dedicated, on the road regional sales team, as well as a sales administration team, to deal with phone orders and enquiries from retailers across the spectrum.

“We have also set up our own content creation team to drive online sales,” confirms Lesley. “They bring our products and ranges to life with video content that can be used by both our trade customers, and at home, on our digital platforms. The increasing activity and quality of our online presence has given us the opportunity to share our products with our customers and gives us the confidence to develop ever more products for people to enjoy.” So, what are the goals and ambitions for the company going forward? “Values of authenticity, kindness, commitment and responsibility underpin the ethos of the business.

Looking back at life before Covid, to where we are now, we are proud to have come through blooming, with a fresh outlook influenced by the past two years.

Going forward, we will continue to work hard to create beautifully crafted, scented beauty products and gifting collections - thoughtful gifting that we know our valued customers are going to love.”

Home fragrancing is a new development for Heathcote & Ivory with Friendly Welcome (inspired by the William Morris quote, ‘a friendly welcome ready for the incomer’) from William Morris at Home. The collection includes room mists and candles that have a mood-enhancing benefit.

For Christmas, a scented candle trio contains travel versions in a boxed gift set, with Bullerswood’s evocative Clementine & Clove Scented Candle inspired by Tudor pomanders. With re-purposing in mind, Lesley points out: “the jewel like containers also make fabulous caddies for make-up brushes.”

l Words that best describe you: “Energetic, creative, an anxious optimist, and I do like to make things fun.” l What do you enjoy most about working in the beauty sector? “The variety: colour, design, fragrance, flowers and the opportunity to learn. What a treat to be able to make something that’s useful and beautiful, and, hopefully, that the consumer wants.” l What was your Plan B? “As a compulsive forager and a chatterbox, I might have had a shop or ended up on the stage!”