Country Creatures Supplier Series: 100 Acres Botanicals

At Country Creatures we carefully select all our suppliers to provide us with the very best of products: British companies with the highest regard for sustainability, animal welfare and attention to detail to produce the highest quality food, drink and everything else we use across our inns and pubs. We wanted to showcase some of these companies through our Country Creatures Supplier Series to share some of the highest level of producers engaging in non intensive and traditional techniques to create some of the best tasting and highest quality products around.

For part one of our series we are shining a spotlight on 100 Acres. A luxury botanical bath and body brand creating an all-natural, British-made fragrance products that are, quite simply, bottled incarnations of the botanical British countryside. We are proud to have these products in all our bedrooms and bathrooms across Country Creatures so you can indulge in the best of what the British countryside has to offer when you stay in with us.

We caught up with Ellea from 100 Acres to tell us a little bit more about the company.

Tell us a little bit about the background of 100 Acres

Of course! So 100 Acres is founded on a love for the great British countryside. If we could, we’d spend all of our time running through the sprawling green meadows, exploring walled gardens, wild swimming in secret lakes and dining al-fresco in the warm evening air infused with the wild botanicals, herbs, fruits and flowers all around. That’s our idea of total heaven.

But, in reality, we can’t all do this all the time (the occasional weekend escape is the best most of us can manage these days!). So, that’s where we come in. We’ve bottled 100 acres of heavenly British countryside, so that wherever you are – whether you’re having a quick shower before work on a weekday, or indulging in a leisurely Sunday soak – you can just close your eyes, inhale deeply and let our fragrances transport you to 100 acres of heavenly British countryside. A countryside escape in a bottle, we like to call ourselves!

Our products smell incredible first and foremost, but that being said, for us, it’s about more than just fragrance. As founders, ethos-wise we’re incredibly fussy about what goes into and onto our bodies, and know our customers are too. So, in all that we do (and put into our products), we stick to our three key principles.

• 100% natural ingredients – being an all-natural fragrance brand, our scents are derived from fragrant plant oils, aromatic botanical extracts and rich essential oils. So not only do our products smell like 100 acres of heavenly countryside, but actually contain all the nourishing botanical benefits of it too. We also (of course) exclude anything synthetic, potentially harmful or toxic – so absolutely no parabens, sulphates, phthalates, palm oil, etc.
• Made in Britain – all of our products are made in the rolling hills of the British countryside. We’re a British brand through-and-through, and so this is incredibly important to us.
• Sustainability – we do all we can to tread as lightly as we can on the planet. Our ingredients are all sustainably and ethically sourced, cruelty-free, and our packaging is fully recyclable.

Can you guide us through the whole process of production from idea to development to finished product of your beautifully scented hand cream, for example?

Absolutely! It always starts with our vision and concept, which as I’ve said, is essentially creating bottled fragrance portals to the countryside. This is our initial inspiration, our spark as such.

From there, we work on a fragrance that embodies this. We create a few different fragrance options, and to decide on the final one, we simply blind smell each, and the winner is the one that instantly transports us to the countryside. It has to be fresh, green, uplifting, botanical – just like an overgrown English garden that’s abundant with herb bushes, wildflowers and ancient fruit trees.

Then, we work on infusing that fragrance into a super-nourishing, efficacious formulation. While we’re strict on all-natural ingredients, it’s also really important that our products actually work. So we’ll develop, refine and test the formulations – ensure our gentle cleansing agents genuinely cleanse, that our creams and lotions are as moisturising and hydrating as they possibly can be, that our all-natural candles have just as good (if not better) scent payoff than standard synthetic candles.

So the vision comes first, then fragrance, formulation and testing, and then finally we always check back in with the vision at the end to ensure we’ve created what we intended to, and have crafted something truly transportive and exceptional.

What is your favourite?

Oh gosh, difficult question! I know it’s easy for me to say, but I genuinely adore each and every product and use them all day, every day. Our hand cream is a permanent fixture on my desk, as is our signature candle), and I always douse my neck and arms in one of our bath & body oils before I go to sleep.

But, if I absolutely had to pick a favourite, it would be our body wash. It makes it easy to jump out of bed on a cold Winter’s morning – the promise of a hot shower with this body wash. The smell is just unbelievably delicious – it turns your shower into a fragrant botanical haven and the scent lingers on your skin and in the bathroom all day too. It’s such a treat every single morning – I slather myself with it, stand under the hot water and close my eyes for 30 seconds for a few moments of blissful countryside escapism before rushing into the madness of the day!

And that’s why we especially love supplying gorgeous boutique countryside properties (like Country Creatures). Not just because they complement our brand concept and ethos perfectly (and vice-versa!), but because it also means that guests use our products during their real-life countryside escape, and then when they’re back home, they can keep us in their daily routines giving them an on-demand way to momentarily slip back out to their weekend in the countryside.