2021 - challenging, enlightening and extraordinary!
Beginning of year has always been the time to set goals. When doing it for 2021 I have a feeling everyone was being rather modest considering what a strange year 2020 had been. We only wished for a slightly better year than previous. And, oh, what a year it’s been - challenging but exciting, successful and full of new things. Regardless of Covid life continued in the new normal. We bought out many new products, learned a lot in the process, received major international awards and our advent calendar made a comeback. Let us look at some of this year’s moments more closely.
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It’s raining awards
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We started the year off with awards from Estonia’s beauty magazine Anne & Stiil beauty awards. We were victorius with 3 products:
* Sunless tan body lotion was awarded in „Local beauty“ category
* Sunless tan facial drops was singled out "Sun & tan“ category
* Softening and deodorizing foor lotion was awarded in „Mani-pedi“ category
* Plus, one of our partners - beauty salon Siluett got an award for their „9-step Joik Organic facial care routine“
And the awards kept on coming. Estonian magazine EMA (Mother) gathered the coolest and most sustainable companies and creators to bring them all into one shopping guide called „Beautiful life guide“. JOIK was picked as one of the sustainable brands and they chose our Sunless Tan Facial drops as our flagship product, that anyone should have at home.
In the beginning of March Beauty Shortlist Awards announced their winners and 4 JOIK products were either winners or honourably mentioned.
We’ll bring the winners to you by categories:
• MEN: BEST MOISTURISER: JOIK Organic for Men Moisturising Facial Cream – joint winner
• BEST SELF-TANNER – FACE: JOIK Organic Sunless Tan Facial Drops – finalist
• EDITOR’S CHOICE: JOIK Intense Moisture & Repair Balm for Hands and Feet JOIK Organic Sunless Tan Body Lotion
And then we hit the jackpot! We submitted our sunless tan products to the internationally acclaimed The Beauty Shortlist Awards and were picked as finalists with 4 products. Meaning we were among 20 best products out of hundreds.
Best New Natural Product: JOIK ORGANIC, SUNLESS TAN BODY LOTION
• Best New Organic Product: JOIK ORGANIC, SUNLESS TAN FACIAL DROPS
• Best New Hand and Nail Product: JOIK ORGANIC, MOISTURISING NAIL & CUTICLE OIL
• Best New Natural Face Product: JOIK ORGANIC, ILLUMINATING & BRIGHTENING AHA PEELING MASK
In May, we received the most wonderful news, that our facial drops had won first place in the very prestigious Organic category!
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New scented wooden beads
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In 2021 we retired our scented plastic beads. Those sachets, filled with scented plastic beads were extremely popular and had perfumed many cars, closets and wardrobes for 10 years. However, we had long wondered how to make our popular product more environmentally friendly and sustainable. After a long road of product development we found wooden beads. They look great and luxurious, they can be re-scented and they are made from natural wood. Luckily for us we found a local company producing wooden furniture and they make our beads out of residual wood, which would otherwise just be thrown away. This also reduces our ecological footprint as the transport route of beads is incredibly short. In the beginning of 2022 we are bringing out a refill product to rescent the wooden beads at home.
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Colorful candle glasses and rapeseed wax
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Spring brought us several good news. First one was our new yellow candle Narcissus Poeticus, which smells like spring itself. Together with the new candle we decided to start making our candles out of rapesweed wax. Soy wax had many wonderful qualities, but we could not get over the fact that it had to be transported to us from very far away, from USA. How to diminish the long distance footprint? Over the years more natural waxes became available and we started testing various plant based waxes. Finally, several European wax producers started looking for ways to use local raw materials and that is when rapeseed came into play - it can be grown in whole of Europe, also in Estonia. While testing we discovered rapeseed wax has many good qualities, making it an excellent candle wax. Some of them are similar to soy wax like long and clean burning and easy cleaning. And some are even better like its ability to spread aroma and a smoother, silkier look of the wax. Also, rapeseed wax is GMO-free, biodegradable, vegan and environmentally friendly as it’s not a monoculture.
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Over the year we transitioned fully to rapeseed wax and all our candles moved into gorgeous colourful glasses. We previously used coloured wax but now the candle glass is coloured. All the candles are divided into spring, summer, autumn and winter collections so you can find your favourite each season.
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„Pink ribbon“ May and charity
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Over the years JOIK has supported various charity projects. Our main focus groups are women and children. As 90% of our clients are women, breast cancer is also a topic close to heart and we have previously supported Estonian Cancer Society with fight against breast cancer. Pink ribbon campaign is designed to draw attention to the illness and to the early discovery so that women would go to checkups before it’s too late. We marked 4 of our „pink“ products from Home & Spa raspberry bon-bon series with pink ribbon. From each pink ribbon product sold in May we donated 50 cents to Estonian Cancer Society. We gathered over 600 euros of donations and will surely participate also in 2022 and hopefully grow the donation.
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All-natural sun defence products
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Before summer arrived we decided our customers need safe, effective and natural protection from sun’s harmful effects. So, we brought out our own sun defence line. JOIK sun defence products contain natural origin mineral filters forming a transparent barrier on skin and protecting from both UVA & UVB rays. Scent free and quickly absorbing products are gentle but effective against harmful effects of sun. We use non-nano zinc oxide is completely safe both for human skin as well as for corals and other marine life. The products quickly received a lot of praise - many liked the natural ingredients, others were amazed that it absorbs so quickly and does not leave a white layer on skin.
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It all seemed too good to be true. But, mistakes happen even for the best of us. We discovered that the first patch of our sun defence products had a problem when staying on shelf for too long - it became layered and the liquids rose to surface. We couldn’t have anticipated this when sending the product out to shops. It also never occurred when product was in use, so many customers could use the product with absolutely no problems. But of course we collected all the faulty products from the shops, made corrections in the recipe and soon sent out a new and better product. However, if you are reading this and were one of the few getting a faulty product, please let us know and we’ll send you the new version.
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Advent calendar comeback
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In 2020 we were certain that the time for advent calendars is over and had decided to continue without one. However, seeing how many of our customers were utterly disappointed we had to reconsider and in 2021 the advent calendar came back - better than ever. For the first time it featured an actual painting on it. A painting called „Abundance“ by Estonian artist Katrin Karu. The painting was created in Abu Dhabi and was inspired by the bright lights and abundance there.
The calendar holds bestselling items of both JOIK Organic and JOIK Home & Spa ranges, also products which are not in our regular assortment. One of the biggest surprises is some news from the future, meaning first colour cosmetics which will be added to our selection in 2022. We can say without exaggerating that the advent calendar was hugely popular. But, will we continue with it in 2022, let that remain a secret by now.
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Thank you, 2021 And welcome, 2022!
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All-in-all it was an exciting and enlightening year. We did not expect much but received so much more. Big thanks to all our partners, clients and customers for being with us. Thanks for all the orders, kind words, good reviews, comments and social media likes. Thanks to all of you we can repeat ourselves and say that this has been the best year so far and it’s a great start for the upcoming year 2022.
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Best offer for our bestselling products
We will now bring you the list of our best selling products of 2021. You will find the favourites both from JOIK Organic as well as Home & spa ranges.
We are happy to offer the best 21 products with 21% off until January 21st.
check it out here
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