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Social reality & the media

The reality is…

We believe in saying it like it is. No hype or super inflated claims about the efficacy of our products and we work hard to not make medical claims. Although, we all know that plants are our first medicine. We are not medical practitioners and our products have never gone through drug testing. They aren’t drugs, they are cosmetics according to the governing body, the FDA.

Contrary to what others may say, there are rules that govern personal care companies. Laws in place that are there to protect consumers. The oversight agency is the FDA. Just because they are strapped and lack the level of bureaucracy does not mean we, as creators of skin care, should wantonly ignore the law.

Who said that?

Our product reviews are real, from real customers not purchased or paid for. It’s true, some companies actually pay for people to write reviews. That is why there aren’t hundreds of reviews for each item on our website or our Amazon store. We do offer rewards points to help encourage people to share their experience and we have gotten social snaps with quotes and we continue to encourage review writing. The social snaps are lots of fun too!

We are a small company with over a decade of very happy and satisfied customers. In fact, many have been with us from the very beginning. So our written reviews may be a bit thin but they are genuine and heart felt.

We’ve asked people what their thoughts are on written reviews and how it influences their decision. Most say they read them and they do have a large influence on their purchase decision. The next question we always ask is how many reviews do they write. Over 95% of the people we ask do not take the time to write reviews. Hmmm…..

Media, Social and otherwise

You can’t be in business these days without having a social media channel or two. We use social media as a way to send you information about what is happening with Très Spa, share our thoughts and ideas, or just send messages of encouragement. We aren’t a hard sale or hype kind of company so sending out “Must Buy” “Hot Deals” and “Act Now” pitches don’t sit well with us. So we don’t do it. Plus, our products are already super reasonable so there really is no reason to mark it down on a super discount. You also wont find us sponsoring adds very often because our marketing budget is about the size you would have for a kids lemonade stand. Once in a while we may see an add but we would rather spend our money on really high quality raw ingredients.

We are not the most active socialites but we try. We are on several social channels (some more frequent than others): Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube so far.

If you are trying to reach us, the best way to do that is still through eMail or phone. We try to respond to emails within 12 hours so if you don’t hear back, then your message may not have been received. If you phone and we don’t answer, please leave a message and someone will return your call within 24 hours.

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Vegan

Vegan friendly

We are a committed vegan company. While we did not start out that way, it has become a very important part of our identity. For us, achieving the vegan status was a pretty big deal. We wanted to go beyond the ability to say cruelty free. We wanted to do better. There are tons of cruelty free companies that still use animal by products in their formulations. I know that sounds odd but the term cruelty free covers animal testing but not exploitation. So you can see that it is one thing to say you are cruelty free, but quiet a different level to step up to be a vegan company.

In the beginning we did use a bit of organic milk in the milk bath and we did use a bit of honey in one or two products. This is fine for a cruelty free company but not for vegans. That was all we used so it was really easy for us to make a couple of simple modifications to our formulas and move over to be fully vegan compliant. Once we understood, we converted to vegan after our second year in business, over a decade ago.

You cannot be truly Vegan Friendly and exploit or harm animals as well as insects. Just like cows do not produce milk for humans, Silk worms do not “clock-in” to a job where they voluntarily go make silk threads for humans. Squashing beetles for color to dye products is pretty obvious, but what about honey? Well…as it turns out bees make honey for other bees. Not for you or me. Read more here Vegan Society

In fact, we go one step further with our vegan practice and insist that ingredients be in harmony with nature. So beyond the required preservatives, you will not find any synthesized or artificially manufactured fragrances or additives of any kind in our finished products. This makes all of the Très Spa products in perfect harmony with nature. You never need to worry about our products polluting or destroying eco-systems. From nature back to nature.

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Animal Compassion

Cruelty free

The thought of any animal suffering for the sake of human vanity is horrific. This is the reason we stayed strictly with plants that have a very long history in human application. No animal testing is needed. This is also why we have stayed away from trends and fads of synthesized additives cleverly masked as good for you yet stemming from a science lab. We aren’t arguing their efficacy. We just don’t see the need for it when the plants have all we need.

When you see the words Cruelty Free in skin care, it means that the products have not been tested on animals. While there is no governing body policing the term, it is a generally accepted practice in the industry. Now here is where it gets a little problematic. Cruelty Free doesn’t mean the individual ingredients haven’t been tested on animals. Remember those fun chemistry concoctions synthesized in a lab? They do require a bit of testing so how do they get tested? Possibly not on animals but who knows and we have no interest in finding out since we just avoid them all together.

To the rescue come a couple of agencies that will take a look at the ingredients and verify that, not only the finished product, but also each ingredient that make up the finished product have not been tested on animals. PETA is one of those companies.

PETA approved

Tres Spa is PETA Approved Vegan and Cruelty Free

For years we avoided the bureaucracy for the right to say what we have been doing all along. Seems weird to have to pay someone for the right to say that we are cruelty free when we are vegan. But we get it. It does have value to those who do not know us. So eventually we gave in and decided to pick PETA to partner with.

We chose People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for a couple of reasons. There is a fee (their is always a fee) and they do verify (just like the other groups) but they go beyond that. They use the funds donated to help support their mission: to end animal cruelty. They actively work to bring an end to animal cruelty and suffering not just in cosmetics, but in all industries. This is a worthy cause, in our opinion, and one worth supporting.

We are thrilled to be approved and recognized by PETA as not only a cruelty free company but a vegan one as well. We are also a part of their Business Partner program. Double bonus!

You can find us in the PETA virtual mall as well as many other companies. All are Cruelty Free and many are also Vegan. Très Spa is in the Beauty department between Health and Accessories. As an additional bonus, see if you can find the secret coupon code. This coupon can be combined with others. Who does that anymore? We do!

Compassion for their living environment

We agree, not testing on animals is great. But we, at Très Spa, think we can do even better. When we innovate, create, and distribute Très Spa products we think of the downstream impact our products may have on natural habitats. So we design our products to be so gentle on the eco-system that you could stand in the middle of the most delicate remote area of the planet and freely use our products without harming a single living organism. With the exception of bacteria. Soap (this includes our shampoo) has been shown to kill many forms of harmful bacteria.

Our products come from nature and are easily absorbed back into nature. We like to say “from nature, back to nature”.

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Reduce Reuse Re-purpose

Reduce

It’s heartbreaking how many manufacturers use excessive packaging to retail their products. Sometimes it’s required for safety but in the cosmetic world it’s often done to artificially inflate a products perceived value. The personal care business and the cosmetic world share some of the same mind space when it comes to retail so you find that same behavior bleeding over.

We get it. Who doesn’t love a pretty box with lots of textures and colors and pizzazz? Shinny shimmery glittery things sitting on a shelf capture anyone’s attention. But there is a cost to that and it’s one we all end up having to pay if we fall into that trap. There is an environmental cost with all that excess packaging in addition to the sting in the buyers wallet. Most people think of landfill load after consumer purchase. But that is not the only environmental impact. Take a moment and imagine all of the processes and chemicals that go into one package and then think of the downstream impact of all of those chemicals. The cascading effect grows exponentially.

Over a decade ago, we decided to ignore the market trend of excess and do our own thing. While we can’t get away from packaging, Très Spa uses minimal, recyclable, and/or or reduced packaging for the products. At one point we even made our own paper until it got to much to do. Our gift collections are not tiny sized either. They are full size or travel size and the box is just right to hold all of the product together.

And when we ship your order to you, the box is only large enough to hold your order together. We spend a little extra to get sturdy boxes rather than relying on over-sized flimsy boxes packed with cushions.

Reuse

We can reduce our carbon footprint by reusing packaging. We get the handiness of a tube for certain applications like deodorants. But we get tired of seeing so many tubes entering the recycle program. We wondered what if we made a stick to refill the tube. So we did. Now you can actually reuse the tubes by purchasing the stick refills. Just clean your tube and pop in a new one. We are currently evaluating other products for a similar concept or a buy a “bulk” refill option.

Re-purpose

Some of our packaging can be re-purposed for other things. We intentionally do not glue labels on our gift packaging so that it can easily be re-purposed for a multitude of other storage needs. They fold flat for easy storage as well. Once you’ve used them to the point of falling apart, they can go into your recycle collection bin.

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Sustainability

Tres Spa Fresh and Natural Skin Care

We all share one birthright, our position as stewards of the environment. No matter what your position is in life, you own this birthright and the duties and responsibilities that go along with it. What you do matters and the choices you make every day make a difference. Something as simple as how you care for and nurture your skin is one of them and who you choose to support with your purchasing power can have a profound impact. At Très Spa, we take our stewardship responsibility seriously. We focus on all of the little things that go into creating and distributing superior skin care products. We are always striving to make adjustments and improvements to advance our management skills. Sustainability is deeply rooted in our guiding ethos.

Sustainable ingredients

Our quest for sustainability starts with all of the ingredients that go into each product. If you can plant a seed, grow it, harvest, and re-grow it: it’s sustainable. So from the very beginning we made the decision to use botanical ingredients. The oils we use are cold pressed from nuts and seeds that have been grown and harvested responsibly. The scents come from pure essential oils that are cold pressed, steam distilled, or extracted. You will never find artificial fragrances in any of our products. As we have grown and evolved we made the commitment to become full vegan as well as supporting organic growers.

With the exception of a couple of preservatives required for product safety, you won’t find synthesized compounds or nearly natural or nature identical ingredients in our products. We only create authentic natural products.

What you also wont find in our products are chemicals that have been shown to have deleterious effects on delicate environments.

Many products have actually been banned from areas of the planet due to the adverse downstream effects they have. The most notable are certain Sun Screens and Bug Repellents. *If you want an environment friendly bug repellent, you should check out our Hiker’s Heaven line. 

At Très Spa, we design our products to be so gentle on the planet that you could stand in the middle of the most delicate remote area of the planet and freely use our products without harming a single living organism. With the exception of bacteria. Soap (this includes our shampoo) has been shown to kill many forms of harmful bacteria. Our products come from nature and are easily absorbed back into nature.

Responsible packaging

We have to put the products in something. In a perfect world, you would be able to stop by and fill up your bottle, jars, and bags but that is not realistic. So we do our best to make the best possible choices that meet the challenges of our customer needs. The organic soaps and organic shampoo are wrapped in recycled paper. All of our white paper labels are printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper. Our packaging can be recycled, reused, and even re-purposed. You can even purchase refills for our stick products. Quite a few of our customers are international travelers so our products need to be travel ready, hence the PET bottles.

We continue to evaluate and make improvements when we can, making Très Spa even better.

Conservation in creation

As a creator of products, it is our responsibility to make sure we are mitigating the effects of manufacturing by controlling the downstream impact. With over a decade of experience we have fine tuned our vendor selection and our processes to minimize waste. In addition, we offset our carbon footprint through charitable donations.