One of the most satisfying things about running our FreeFrom Skincare Awards is entrants who are thrilled when they receive good news and do well – and put their special Awards logos to good, and proud, use!
This year, for the first time, we introduced an official ‘Entrant’ logo, and we were delighted to see so many use it, especially on social media channels.
But one of the hardest things for us is disappointing some entrants, who may not have made the commended lists or shortlist. It’s the nature of Awards that some do better than others, but that doesn’t make it any easier for everyone involved. We hope that those brands who weren’t as successful as perhaps they’d hoped they would be do enter again next year, and continue to strive to impress the judges – and in future get their chance to show off some logos too!
For some examples, you might want to look at Rob from Miessence’s page entirely devoted to success in the FreeFrom Skincare Awards.
And here’s Shea Mooti – the first ever brand in the Free From Skincare Awards to be shortlisted three times in the same category.
And let’s not forget our proud sponsors NATorigin, who have logos galore – as three-time sponsors and as previous ‘medallists’ – on their site.
There are many other examples we’ve missed … do let us know if you’ve spotted any creative examples!
Meanwhile, this last week has seen the small Skins Matter team faced with a mountain of over 1,000 shortlisted skincare samples, and 120 boxes and large envelopes in which to stuff them – and send off to our expert panel of Beauty Bible testers, who will trial them for a month throughout May, and then let us know their thoughts on each one via detailed questionnaires.
It has been quite a job – not quite driving us completely loco, but almost! I think we got through about six rolls of brown tape … and can only apologise to our testers if they have to fight their way into their parcels to get to their goodies …
But before we did that, we had to decide on which tester would receive which products. That took three long days …
Obviously, those with problem skin issues had to be offered products suited to their conditions – and not too many of them, or else they may struggle to differentiate the products and work out which might have been helpful.
But just as important as deciding what people *should* receive, is deciding what people should NOT receive …
Because vegans could not be allocated goats’ milk, propolis or beeswax containing products (of which we had many this year), and those allergic to certain foods or fragrances couldn’t be allocated products containing them – which involved a great deal of ingredient checking, as you might expect – and expectant mums had to be given pregnancy-safe skincare, and people with only showers could not be allocated a bath oil, and people without children couldn’t be given a kids deodorant … and so it went on and on and on …. We even had to be careful not to send bearded men any shaving gel or bald men the men’s shampoo!
Overall – it took us three long days just to decide and allocate …
But it is worth it, and we got there, and now we can take a little breather until the exciting time at the end of the month when results start coming in, and we can start to see who might win big in the Free From Skincare Awards 2014 ….
For the Shortlist, click here. Winners will be announced at the Love Natural, Love Organic Show (co-located with the Allergy and FreeFrom Show) on July 4th 2014.