Hello conscious humans! Today I am EXTRA stoked to tell you about this company because I personally know the amazing humans who started it. Marine and Thomas are not only the business owners of Unwrap LA but also a couple and members of the Surfrider LA community, which is how we met. Also… fun fact, they are French! Check out below to read my interview with Marine and Thomas who really identified a problem and aligned it with their values to create such a wonderful business and business model.
So first let’s get the viewers to get to know you a little more personally and then learn more about Unwrap LA!
Tell us how you two met. “We met 13 years ago at university in Bordeaux, France. We were studying economics and didn’t have any idea of what we wanted to do for a living.”
Was the environment/sustainability important to you both prior to meeting? “In 1999, the Erika oil spill was a disaster for the West coast of France. Marine’s father was working for an oil company at that time. This event was a wake up call. Besides, as a teenager she had the chance to surf a little and the amount of plastic trash in the water, even twenty years ago, was stunning. The dots started to connect but a call for action seemed impossible.”
How did you two come up with the Unwrap LA business idea? “When we arrived in California 5 years ago, we wanted to start volunteering. Beach cleanups were an easy and obvious choice because we were lucky enough to live close to the beach and were shocked by the amount of trash we were seeing, especially in the winter season. During one of the beach ups with Heal-the-Bay, they shared a 5 to 10 minute presentation of the water pollution cycle and we realized that we were part of the issue. We started our waste reduction journey. It was tough, it is tough and still ongoing. We wanted to ease the process for our community, promote local brands that would agree to go on this journey with us and make it affordable. We decided to become the milkman for cleaning products.”
Tell us in a nutshell what Unwrap LA is. “Unwrap LA curates personal care and cleaning companies that produce efficient, affordable and sustainable products, buy them in bulk and resell them with limited packaging. Our goal is to reduce the amount of trash our community produces by easing the refilling process and source more sustainable items locally (when possible).”
What kind of products do you offer? “We focus on essentials. Greenwashing is terrible and selling non-essential items would not be aligned with our goal. For personal care, we have shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, bar soap, hand soap, toothpaste and tooth brushes. For cleaning, we have laundry detergent, dish soap, all purpose cleaner and sponges.”
What type of packaging do you use for your products? “We highly encourage our clients to refill their existing containers but we understand it can be a deal breaker, so for the 1st delivery we offer glass bottles for free. We either deliver in boxes or baskets depending on our ability to find used wood or jute bags from local cafes.”
So you guys have a subscription, BUT it is super flexible, which I think is awesome… Tell us more about this. “Right now we offer 2 options, the big box (6 items) or the small box (4 items). Clients pick a size, make their items selection and will get their delivery (free) on the next scheduled route for their area. One month later, they receive a reminder about their upcoming order. If the customer does nothing they’ll get refilled with the same products, otherwise they can change their selection, double down on any product they want, pause their subscription for an unlimited time or even stop their subscription without any cost.”
What is your vision for Unwrap LA? “Our vision is that instead of offering many brands or scents of the same product, we prefer to make strict selection, test it on friends and family and pick the winner. We want to offer more essentials and potentially expand to other categories.”
Anything else you would like to share? “Going on the low waste journey is not easy. There are ups and downs but since we started it it added value to our lives. By talking and doing we can influence. Last week some friends told us that they started making small changes and being more mindful on their day-to-day life pretty quickly after our first discussion on this topic. We don’t know if they realized it but that was one of the nicest things they could have told us. We love to quote the amazing Anne-Marie Bonneau: ‘We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly’.“
Shout out to Marine and Thomas for taking the time to share about their personal lives and their journey to be more intentional in their consumption, and the opportunity to give others to do the same too! Sending you two and baby Gabrielle lots of love and good vibes. Can’t wait to see her shred in the water and on the streets!
Find Unwrap LA on instagram @unwrap_la or website www.unwrapla.com.
Peace and Love,
Jo