In today’s episode of The Whole Circle Podcast we fill you in on our super exciting announcement! 

We are so excited to be able to fill you guys in on something that for us has happened relatively quickly but something which needed to happen…..drum roll…….lol 

We are relocating our warehouse from Queensland to Hobart!!!

For those of you that are new to our podcast show or Additive-Free Lifestyle, we have an online store at www.additivefreelifestyle.com which stocks over 400 additive-free products and it is how our business all started.  We started with one little product which were the Sinchies Reusable Pouches, which by the way, we are going to get back in stock, so can’t wait for that!

Gosh, this was so long ago, we were using the Sinchies to store baby food and, well, our babies are no longer babies anymore.  Oh, how time flies!

The Sinchies were incredibly popular and we quickly sold out, so we restocked and expanded from there to where we are now with over 400 additive-free products in our store!  It still blows us away at how our little business has grown.

As stated, all our products are additive-free which are free from such things as:

  • Parabens
  • Sodium Benzoate
  • Annatto (160b)
  • Artificial Fragrance
  • Phthalates
  • Phenoxyethanol
  • Artificial Food Colours/Dyes

Sodium Benzoate

Having our store sodium benzoate free is a big deal for us because we see so many other ‘natural’ type stores (ie. stores stocking natural products) but some of their products have sodium benzoate in them.  We simply won’t carry those product lines because they are just not up to our standard.

Sodium benzoate is petroleum-derived and whilst it’s not the biggest additive going around, it’s a no-go zone for us.  It can cause skin irritations and we’ve had people write into us attributing their skin issues with sodium benzoate.  It’s also a really drying ingredient so if you were applying it to your face or body, then consider looking for another product that is sodium benzoate free.

Another issue can be where products not only have sodium benzoate in them but also citric acid or Vitamin C.  When these two ingredients are combined and heated together, they can possibly cause a chemical reaction called benzene which is a known carcinogen.  A lot of products you will find contain these two ingredients together, so our advice is to steer clear of it wherever you can.

Annatto (160b)

We will not tolerate this ingredient in any of our products at all!  It is found in body care products as well as a lot of packaged food.

This additive is pretty much at the top of our worst additives list!

Artificial Fragrance

The word ‘fragrance’ on ingredients lists is a really deceptive word because it can be made up of hundreds of chemical.  It is really scary and one to avoid unless you know that the fragrance is derived from a pure essential oil or a natural source.

Just to give you some frame of reference on how bad ‘fragrance’ is, they’re now calling it the new passive smoking it is considered that bad.

If you are getting headaches or sinus irritations because of a perfume either you’re wearing or someone else is wearing or you simply cannot bear to walk through the fragrance section at your local department because of how it makes you feel, then it’s safe to say that your body is rejecting the fragrance and the chemicals it is derived from.

So, please avoid this wherever you can.

The body care products we stock are fake fragrance-free or the ‘fragrance’ is from a natural source such as pure essential oils.

Phthalates

This is another ingredient that we do not stock in any of our products.  It is a preservative that has been directly linked to hormone disruption and is an endocrine-disrupting chemical.  It is mostly found in body care and cosmetic products.

Phenoxyethanol

This is another preservative which is found in a lot of ‘natural’ branded products.  Products that may say organic or natural ingredients on the labelling can often have phenoxyethanol in them.  This preservative has only been around for a short time which means the research and testing data isn’t available, so we simply don’t know what sort of impact this presentative will have on our bodies long term.

When ingredients get added to products, they don’t have to go through a strict testing regime.  They can simply be added into a product and then we’re the consumer guinea pigs using the products.  The companies then are waiting to see if we react to the ingredients.  Do you want to be a guinea pig?  We sure don’t!

Artificial Food Colours/Dyes

We don’t stock these either.  We do stock all-natural food colours being the Hopper range which you can get here.  These colours are derived from natural sources such as food and don’t contain ingredients that the artificial food colours do such as petroleum which, as we know, comes from coal tar! (Yuk).

Artificial food colours are heavily linked to behavioural issues, hyperactivity, insomnia, headaches/migraines and digestive issues.

There have been reports of a test that was done on a pig (poor little pig) where the pig licked a blue lollipop and from that, they found traces of the blue food dye chemical in the pig’s bloodstream which lasted for 24 hours.

Also, blue artificial food colouring has been directly linked to cancer, which is horrendous.

This is a small portion of ingredients that we choose to stay away from.  The list is actually a lot longer than that but unless you guys want to be here for hours and hours and hours, we simply cannot go through them all! Haha

Warehouse Relocation

Since we are now both living in Hobart and have done for nearly 12 months now, it has been fairly hard to manage the warehouse with it being so far away.  But not anymore, as we can be way more hands-on in the warehouse which you will see on our social channels.

We will also be able to open the warehouse to the public more often as well so if you are in Tassie then we’d love to see you.

We will also be expanding our range which is really exciting as we will have more space for stock in our new warehouse so look out for that and in that expanded range will be our very first self-branded product which we are so proud of and cannot wait for you guys to see it.  So, stay tuned on our social media for that!

That’s it from us for another week.  We will be back next week with another podcast so make sure you hit the subscribe button, so you are notified of when all-new episodes are released.

Links and Resources