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Materials Matter: Bathing Culture

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Bathing Culture
A Bathing Culture personal product next to four views of its box

Suds, sustainable packaging and Renewal Straw: How a personal hygiene company puts people and the planet first.

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Tim Hollinger and Spencer Arnold, NorCal transplants and life-long friends, started making soap back in 2015. They created Bathing Culture, sustainable, biodegradable, self-care and personal hygiene products, to serve people and planet first. The pair have since grown Bathing Culture beyond soap, offering products today that range from hand sanitizer and face & body oil to their signature Cosmic Rainbow towel and fish-shaped terracotta detox scrubber, all made from natural ingredients. Their liquid, oil and mineral products' bottles are either refillable glass or made from recycled plastic collected from the California coastline.

Spencer Arnold (left) & Tim Hollinger (right)
Co-Founders, Bathing Culture
Bathing Culture's co-founders standing next to each other in white shirts
“We celebrate the simple necessity of bathing. How it bonds humanity and cultures across time and space. We embrace the power and peace of bathing. Its ability to transform and bring joy. We believe in the art of bathing, the traditions it holds, and the future it will bring. In health and happiness. Bathe in culture.”
Bathing Culture
Bathing Manifesto
A lifestyle arrangement of Bathing Culture products with a moody shadow
Post consumer recycled plastic bottles are great, and a glass bottle you never have to recycle is even better.
Bathing Culture

While their products are encased in glass or recycled plastic, and wrapped in colorful, contemporary design, they still need to be packed and shipped in secondary packaging for protection. Bathing Culture offers radically natural, environmentally friendly products, so naturally, their packaging needed to be as environmentally friendly as their organic ingredients.

After much-scrutinizing research (they are obsessively-ethical) about everything from fiber sourcing to environmental impact, Bathing Culture ultimately selected Mohawk Renewal Straw, Rough, Harvest White, 140 Cover for their secondary packaging — but why? We had the opportunity to sit down via Zoom and ask Bathing Culture co-founder, Tim Hollinger, just that.

An open box from Bathing Culture
Mohawk Renewal Straw Harvest White
Bathing Culture
Five Bathing Culture boxes stacked on top of one another
Printed 1-Color Offset
Bathing Culture

"Partnering with Mohawk on this project was so important because the environmental crisis is the ultimate threat multiplier for all of these challenges that we’re facing as a society," Tim explained. "It’s imperative that businesses work together to make and put products into the world that do less harm and that can make the world a better place."

“The straw fibers in Mohawk Renewal Straw give the packaging added texture and a dimension that reminds people that it is natural and that these products come from somewhere, and were made with care.”
Tim Hollinger
Co-Founder, Bathing Culture

"We’re incredibly honored to be able to show the world some of the most innovative paper that has been created," Tim declared. "You know it’s funny, it sounds cheesy, but it is the millions of small steps and these types of collaborations that are really going to move the needle in addressing climate change. And we’re really proud to be able to show how truly beautiful some of the solutions can be. The straw fibers in Mohawk Renewal Straw give the packaging added texture and a dimension that reminds people that it is natural and that these products come from somewhere, and were made with care."

"We’re super excited for people to get their hands on these and to continue to push for innovation in the paper and packaging industry," Tim concluded.

Several flattened boxes of Bathing Culture products
Printed on a Heidelberg XL106 at Moquin Press
Bathing Culture

Printed and scored at Moquin Press, one of the first shops in the country to complete a packaging project on Mohawk Renewal, Tony Navarra of Moquin had this to say about Bathing Culture's Mohawk Renewal Straw packaging: "Simple and elegant, black only artwork has a beautiful contrast against the fibery cream shade. The Bathing Culture box project was a perfect design to showcase the paper, which is such a dense sheet. Our Heidelberg XL106 pulled up to color easily and the job ran smoothly. The die-cutting and finishing were just as easy. The paper cut, scored and folded cleanly, and without cracking. Mohawk Renewal is a great paper — Bathing Culture one of my favorite jobs to showcase!"

An all-ivory arrangement of Bathing Culture boxes with a botanical shadow over them
74% of customers would pay more for products with sustainable packaging.
Trivium Packaging Study

Mohawk Renewal was also recently featured on The Dieline, where editor and writer, Bill McCool, was quick to point out that this line of premium, crafted papers are "part of a concerted effort to get more sustainably crafted papers into the world, because not only do consumers want more sustainable packaging but according to a recent survey from Trivium Packaging, 74% of them would even go so far as to pay more for it."

Bill then went so far as to state that for Mohawk, "there's an even larger story at play, and when you look closer, you get an idea of how the packaging industry as a whole can move toward a better tomorrow."

Mohawk Renewal swatchbooks arranged in a grid pattern
Mohawk Renewal is a paradigm-shifting portfolio of sustainable alternative fiber papers made with hemp, straw, and recycled cotton fiber.
Mohawk Renewal
An assortment of views of Renewal swatchbooks on a blue background
The Mohawk Renewal swatchbook was designed to display the breadth of the product line while clearly revealing the story behind Renewal.
Mohawk Renewal

So, don't take it from us, take it from Tim, Tony, and Bill — radically sustainable, beautiful packaging made with renewal fibers are both here to stay, and recyclable.

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Production Notes

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Print Process
Offset Printing
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Packaging
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Materials Used

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