Christmas // Balance Me Beauty x RVK Loves

October 15, 2018


I've been keeping a little secret since last Christmas! A whole year where I've been dying to tell you about this exciting collaboration. But I had to keep my lips sealed until now. 

You may remember me sharing my love of Balance Me Beauty over the last few years? It's a pioneering, natural skincare brand that has been co-founded and run by two gorgeous sisters Clare & Rebecca. All manufactured within the UK, Balance Me provides a natural skincare alternative that still achieves visible results through botanically active formulas and consistently wins awards for new products. All Balance Me products are free from parabens, DEA, mineral oils, sulphates, PEGs, petroleum, silicones, propylene glycol, microbeads,
artificial fragrances and colours. They’re never tested on animals, most
formulas are vegan friendly and packaging is over 95% recyclable. 

I've been using their products for a few years now, so was absolutely thrilled when I was asked to co-create gift sets for Christmas, a task where I would be designing the packaging and putting my name to this fab skincare brand. 


Natural skincare brand Balance Me has revealed its new range of
limited edition Christmas gift sets, created this year in collaboration
with interiors, travel and lifestyle blogger, RVK Loves.

“We have co-created this stylish gift set with RVK Loves, one of our
favourite interiors, travel and lifestyle bloggers. It’s filled with our
botanically-active, results-focused skincare and body treatments –
the perfect present to give wellbeing to your family and friends this
Christmas.”
Rebecca and Clare Hopkins, sister and Balance Me co-founders

“I’ve long been using Balance Me skincare which is all natural and gives
amazing results, so I was thrilled to co-create gift sets of my favourite
products. I know you’ll enjoy them this Christmas.”

RVK Loves, interiors, travel and lifestyle blogger


'As a long-time friend of Balance Me, this partnership brings together Rebecca’s favourites from the Balance Me range into beautifully presented festive golden starry packaging, inspired by her signature homewares look.' 



I'd love to share some of the events from the past year if you'd like to see...



Back in January at Balance Me HQ. Sat in the design office with Gil talking through my design ideas and how we could make them translate into packaging.




Choosing Pantone colours and finishes.


Seeing my design come to life.



As always, compromises had to be made. I don't have a background in retail at all so I was keen to hear Gil's thoughts as to what would, and wouldn't work with my initial ideas. It was such an education to learn about the design & marketing process, about considerations such as retail shelf space, packaging that can be recycled, materials that can be sourced and in budget to name a few.


Here's where my inspiration came from;

It was actually this piece of Cox & Cox wrapping paper that kick started this whole design process. I had bought it for wrapping presents last Christmas and was just obsessed with the dark, matt background and the metallic gold stars. It reminded me a little of our snug room too, and my love for Farrow & Ball Downpipe. I thought it would be perfect for this packaging, we wanted something that would stand out on the shelf, be eye-catching and different to anything that Balance Me had produced before. Stars to me just scream Christmas. And as Gil, the designer, quickly realised, my house is full of stars!


Equally though, I knew that I wanted to introduce a soft pink. These products, although not 100% gender specific, will be marketed to females I presumed. I have a lot of this pink dotted throughout my house so I was keen to include this with the packaging. I loved the idea of a velvet ribbon and big blousy bows on the boxes, but it just wasn't feasible for production or supermarket shelves {there was so much to learn that I'd never even considered before}. I also loved the idea of a stocking filler that could be hung on a Christmas tree and was keen to explore the different shaped boxes we could use for stocking fillers.


I gathered photos that inspired me and created an old fashioned mood-board. Pinterest is amazing but for the meeting with Balance Me I wanted to have physical images to hand to layer up with the templates. Cutting out the images felt so old school but visually, felt like the best way to visualise it all.



I remember this day so well, at the very start of January and Christmas felt miles away! How fast that time has gone.



Over the next few months, Gil and the Balance Me team sourced materials and started getting the packaging mocked up. We talked colours and finishes. But the biggest focus was now on our event to get ready to launch the collection around November time to the press. I travelled into London to meet PR's and source a venue, working out menus, the kind of event we wanted and guest lists.

Then, this summer, with the products all in production, we talked about the best way to shoot the collection. It was decided that it would be nice to have my house, where the collaboration was partly inspired by.


So in August, we pretended it was Christmas! And the team arrived for a day of shooting.




Behind the scenes...




Pretending it's Christmas... in summer! 








And now, it's such a privilege to be able to share with you the final products which are on sale right now!


There's this set, The Best of Balance Me (RRP £26, worth £43) which is the ideal

gift for someone looking to begin their introduction to
natural skincare. Containing four of Balance Me’s best
sellers Pure Skin Face Wash, Moisture Rich Face Cream,
Wonder Eye Cream and Super Moisturising Hand Cream.


For loved ones in need of ‘me-time’, the Bath & Body
Collection (RRP £10, worth £26) is an indulgent set of
extremely nourishing, ‘spa-at-home’ body care products
that will inspire relaxation; with Super Moisturising Hand
Cream and Body Wash and Rose Otto Body Wash.


For festive party-goers, the Hand, Lip & Eye Collection
(RRP £15, worth £31) features three must-have products for
brighter eyes, hydrated lips and seriously smooth hands
in even the coldest winter months; Wonder Eye Cream,
Stellar Balm and Super Moisturising Hand Cream.






Last, but not least, is the pocket-sized Super Moisturising

Hand Cream (RRP £5, worth £10), boxed up in festive
packaging and ready to hang on the tree. The perfect
stocking filler, Secret Santa, festive place setting or end
of term teacher’s gift – if you can bear to give it away!


I can't thank Balance Me Beauty, and the founders Rebecca & Clare, enough for asking me to partner up for this collaboration. It's been my best project to date and has been so much fun seeing it through from start to finish. I'm still not over the fact that these have my name on, and I think every time I see them I'll do a little dance. I really hope you love it as much as I do and hope that it might help with some of your Christmas shopping this year. I hope there's something for everyone, and for those difficult people to buy for, hand cream as a sweet stocking filler will always be a fail-proof gift.

You'll be able to find these products on the Balance Me website along with selected supermarkets up until Christmas. 

#BalanceMeXRVKLoves

Thank you, so much, as ever for your support and sharing the excitement with me!

R <3 xx 

{This isn't a sponsored post but this is detailing my paid partnership with Balance Me Beauty. All opinions are 100% my own}

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1 comments

  1. Wow they look fab! What a wonderful achievement you must be so proud!

    ReplyDelete

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