Plush Pants Cloth Nappies was set up in summer 2000 by Vicki Stott, to supply the Manchester/Stockport/Cheshire area with a selection of cloth nappy systems.
The business rapidly grew and launched a website soon afterwards, making Plush Pants one of the first UK-wide real nappy businesses.
In 2004, when Vicki was no longer able to devote enough time to the business, I stepped in and took over, and have been running it ever since from our home in Oxfordshire.
I have been a cloth nappy user since early 2001, when our second daughter aged 15 months was wetting so heavily at night that she was regularly waking up completely soaked, as her disposable nappies couldn't cope. After asking for advice repeatedly and getting the same answer - try cloth nappies - we took the plunge, and have never looked back. Initially we used reusable nappies at night only, however as they performed so much better for us, we soon moved to using them full time. When we started out, we hired a selection of nappies from Plush Pants using the Cloth Nappy Trial Scheme. Our third daughter was almost exclusively cloth nappied, and our fourth (born August 2003) was exclusively cloth nappied.
We now run Plush Pants Cloth Nappies from our home in Oxfordshire. I (Christine) am responsible for the nappy advice, orders and site content. My husband Iain helps with marketing and accounts. Our youngest daughter was our chief nappy tester until (rather inconveniently I thought!) she potty trained in 2006. Fortunately our local toddler group is an excellent source of willing nappy testers. Having put four children through their nappy years, both disposable and washable, we know a thing or two about nappies! Our experiences of parenting our own children have very much been a driving force in directing the development of Plush Pants - the products we have found indispensible, we also try to offer to you. So as you can see, this is very much a family affair! More recently we have been joined by Emma, a local mum to 4 boys, who helps out with the orders at busy periods, and takes over the helm when we're away.
Plush Pants is mainly about Cloth Nappies, however we also include in our range a number of other products which we have come across and found useful in our own eco-friendly lifestyle. So you can now purchase truly eco-friendly reusable sanitary products for example, crystal deodorants, washable trainer pants and bed protector sheets, Grobag baby sleeping bags, the Wilkinet baby sling and Hippychick Hip Seats. We even have a selection of wooden baby toys which have proved very popular.
We have chosen to focus on giving our customers the best prices we can on our range of washable nappies and other eco friendly products - so you will notice our standard prices are often a bit cheaper than other stores or websites - while offering our popular Cloth Nappy Trial Scheme (and free advice service) to help parents to find out what is best for them. It's what got us started after all!
Christine McRitchie