Vegan and sustainable skincare brand, Wild & Wood, won the ‘Best New Business Award’ at the Wakefield Business Excellence Awards.
The awards, which were held at Wakefield’s Theatre Royal, saw businesses across the city recognised for their achievements in what has been an unpredictable year.
Though this year, and the lasting effects of the pandemic, has caused struggle for many businesses, Wild & Wood’s strong online presence has meant that, although we may have spent much time isolated, their strong community of online followers never felt too far away.
It's this online community that founders, Hollie Sharpin and Lorna Hirst have cultivated, that has helped the brand exceed all expectations.
At the very start of this year life couldn’t have looked much different for the pair as they took the plunge and withdrew the last of their overdrafts in the hope of starting a new future for themselves.
That future being found in their bold new business venture, Wild & Wood.
Just 10 months ago, Hollie and Lorna were standing at their kitchen sinks with their babies strapped to their backs whilst hand crafting bath milks.
That picture is now firmly in the past as the team operate from their very own unit and have recently opened their first high street store in Featherstone.
The brand, whose sustainable concept has garnered the attention of many, including the likes of TV personality Stacey Solomon, have now surpassed 800,000 orders.
This demand sees them continue to launch new products, with the introduction of their essential oils collection just last week.
Speaking of this recognition Lorna said, “It’s just crazy, we can’t believe how far we’ve come. Wild and Wood really is a labour of love so to see something that you love so much, and have put your all into, to take off in this way is incredible.”
Hollie added, “We knew that launching our own business would be hard, and we knew that launching our own business with newborn babies would be even harder, but we wanted to show that being a mum doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your own dreams, you can have both happy babies and a successful business, it doesn’t have to be a choice between the two!”
Family is something that the girls have always put at the heart of their business, often sharing snippets of their children playing alongside them in their shop.
Hollie said, “We’d been so looking forward to attending the event for months so, when I gave birth this week, I knew that it wasn’t going to let that stop me from celebrating our success, new baby was with her when she collected her award from Harry Gration. We’ve always tried to show our followers that mums’ can have it all so I knew I needed to practice what I preach and, if anything, it made the night even more special having Hudson be a part of it.”
