Summer 2000: Plush Pants Cloth Nappies was established initially as a local enterprise in the Manchester/Stockport/Cheshire area. Back then it was pretty hard to find any information about real nappies, with the only ones widely sold in stores being traditional terry squares and rubber pants. The business rapidly grew and launched a website soon afterwards, making Plush Pants one of the first UK-wide real nappy specialists.
Spring 2001: The Plush Pants Cloth Nappy Trial Scheme was launched, enabling parents to borrow a range of real nappies, using them on their own babies for a week or two, to help them discover which worked best, taking the risk out of choosing the best washable nappy.
Summer 2004: Plush Pants moved to Oxfordshire, and since then the website has been redesigned, the product range has been updated (and continues to evolve!) and Plush Pants has become one of the leading names in the UK cloth nappy industry.
Summer 2007: Fantastic News! Half a million nappies have been kept out of landfill by parents using the Plush Pants Cloth Nappy Trial Scheme and converting to washable nappies since 2004! And if they use their nappies on subsequent babies, the true figure may be closer to a million!

The Plush Pants Family:

We became a cloth nappy family 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. Having the opportunity to borrow a few nappies to test the water really gave me the boost up the bum that I needed to take the plunge, and we've never looked back. Our third and fourth babies were also cloth nappied - in fact much to my surprise I even got the hang of using traditional terry squares!

We now run Plush Pants Cloth Nappies from our home in Oxfordshire. Christine is responsible for the nappy advice, orders and site content. Iain helps with marketing and accounts and generally providing sound business sense! Our own children have now outgrown their nappy days, so 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. Everything we sell has been put thoroughly through it's paces before being offered here, and you will find that many of our products now feature customer written reviews. In 2007 we also welcomed Emma to the team, Emma is a local mum with 4 boys, who has done lots of nappy testing for me.

Environmental and Ethical Policy:

Plush Pants is very much an Eco-business, and by this I mean we're so much more than a business selling eco-friendly products - our concern for the environment drives what we do and how we go about it. We are a member of Ethical Junction - an organisation that actively screens new applicants before accepting them for membership and requires that everyone meets their stringent ethical guidelines. Christine personally is also a member of Friends of the Earth and the Women's Environmental Network (WEN).

One of our top priorities is sourcing good quality local products, made right here in the UK. We're quite conscious of the "nappy miles" involved and where we do take products from overseas, we try to minimise the environmental impact of them. It's not always possible to get the quality our customers deserve without going to an overseas brand, in which case we try to minimise air freight by using the UK distributor if there is one (they will receive the goods in a smaller number of large shipments, rather than lots of packets sent scattergun style all over the place), and in the case of Wemoon Menstrual Pads, we now act as UK distributor to help keep down the amount of shipments being sent to the UK - we place a few large orders throughout the year rather than frequent little orders, which should help keep the environmental impact to a minimum.

Another of my bug bears is excess packaging, this is something that drives me bonkers and as a result I am very careful to avoid stocking products that in my opinion, are over packaged. I also expect my suppliers to use recycled or recyclable packaging, and if the product is made overseas then I have to be satisfied that workers conditions are acceptable, and no slave or child labour is involved. If a potential supplier cannot assure me of these factors, I will not stock their products, no matter how wonderful they may be! There are some costs that are simply too high for any of us to accept.

Closer to home, Plush Pants uses only recyclable packaging. We also reclaim and reuse packaging such as bubble wrap and shredded paper, sourced from local businesses. This is so successful that we seem to have become a magnet for excess bubble wrap locally and often receive far more than we need, but we are happy to store it until we (or someone else) can use it, rather than see it go into landfill. We actively reuse or recycle all packaging we receive. Plush Pants prints everything on recycled paper, we use low energy bulbs wherever possible, and our electricity comes from a green supplier. Sadly our village post office has been closed now, which means that a car journey is necessary to post our parcels, however we find this can usually be combined with other errands (the post office is near the doctors surgery, and also on the route to some of our children's activities) so we can keep the car use to a minimum. We are in some ways, to coin Janey Lee Grace, "Imperfectly Natural", however we are constantly reviewing how we can evolve and what we can change to keep our environmental footprint to a bare minimum.

And finally...

Plush Pants Cloth Nappies is devoted to helping you find the best washable nappy for your family, 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 (save money and avoid the risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome), crystal deodorants (totally chemical free), 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 impartial advice service, and the best prices we can on our range of washable nappies and other eco friendly products - so you will notice that 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. You are welcome to phone or e-mail for advice about anything we sell - I'm quite happy to talk about periods or poo, if it helps you to work out what will meet your needs best! There is also masses of information throughout the website, so get a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy a good browse!

Christine McRitchie