Remembering Phillby

In June of this year, we lost our beloved Phill “Phillby” Mantell after a long period of illness.  Not only my partner in life, but an integral part of L’essence.  I have written previously about how, when we initially launched L’essence, we also offered beeswax candles as part of our range.  We would drive into the country to pick up wax from our bee guy, something we always enjoyed doing together.  Working with beeswax became a real passion for Phill, that he even hoped for his own hives one day, something that unfortunately he would never come to realise due to his health. 

For the majority of L’essence, Phill was the one packed up our car in the early days to take our products to market.  He was the one who cleaned up after soaping in the studio – it’s quite the job!  He was the one who packaged each soap for our stockists – I apologise if I haven’t quite reached his standard these past few years.  And he was the one who made me endless teas and coffees, and meals, as I worked into the early hours of the morning filling orders.  I was also very particular about the soap – I still am lol – and he had to endure my own high standards.  That can be stressful in itself, yikes!

Phill also loved sunflowers.  He would buy me bunches of these big smiley happy faced flowers, and grew them at times too.  Such a perfect companion to the bee, an absolute buffet for them to feast on.  Until the day I can fulfill his dream of having a hive, we must always grow sunflowers so our bee friends can come to visit and dine.

I was going through some of Phill’s writings when I came across these words:

Each blossom

I land on

will grow a fruit

Life never stops

said the bee

Forever in our hearts Phillby, we will continue to grow something beautiful.

A little note about L’essence

This year has been a fundamentally challenging one, and I will be easing my way back into L’essence.  I don’t want to over promise for fear of under-delivering. 

I will be offering Christmas ordering to stockists and will be in touch next Monday. 

And over these next few months, I want to be curious and explorative, focusing on creativity with soap making rather than mass production with my online retail offering for Christmas.  But it will be happening.