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Want to be a Good Steward of the Outdoors? Stay Clean Responsibly With Action Wipes
Good outdoors hygiene doesn’t have to be disposable. Action Wipes help you clean and conserve.
What are Action Wipes? Picture traditional baby wipes, but with a crucial difference: they’re reusable. They’re extra big and extra thick so you don’t have to throw them away after one use. And when the time comes to send them on the way, the fabric they’re made of is recyclable.
And of course, Life Elements, maker of Action Wipes, is offsetting its business through the CarbonFree Partner Program. Offsetting was always a key component of the Action Wipes plan. “For us it’s important we’re offsetting what we’re doing,” Martha Van Inwegen, founder of Life Elements, said. “We chose Carbonfund.org because it’s an easy, simple and cost effective way to get involved and do our part. I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. The program was already in place.”
The story of how Action Wipes came to be is an interesting one. They were originally created for Life Elements’ C&M Couples Bath & Body Collection as the Tela D’Amour®, a luxurious, thick and soothing wipe that smelled good and wouldn’t leave you smelling like you just changed a diaper.
Then Van Inwegen had an idea. She decided to make a generous offer to participants in Burning Man 2007: she would ship them wipes for just the cost of shipping, in return for valuable market research: what did users like about the wipes? What would they change? The participants reported that the wipes worked perfectly in the desert-environment to wipe off the dust and prevent the dreaded “playa foot”—a malady caused by alkali dust of the desert.
Van Inwegen set about rebranding her wipes to fit their newfound use for outdoor hygiene. The enterprise had always been a labor of love for her. She printed new labels on her home printer, and posted the entire story of the product’s transformation on its website.
An early success came when athletes in the Wildflower Triathlon used Action Wipes, leading to exposure through the Los Angeles Triathlon Club. Grassroots exposure like this has enabled Van Inwegen to grow her business with virtually no marketing budget.
For more information about Action Wipes, visit www.actionwipes.com, or call 800-634-1158.
