Small Thinking

Thank you for visiting this page. It takes a special type of person to read extra about a company and we are glad you're here.

A note from our founder:

There’s a hollowness to companies that call themselves “green” and then go big.

Once upon a time, many of us grew up in a time of malls, radio, network television and the rise of convenience culture.  American culture was homogenized and almost spoon-fed to us:  wear GAP, listen to Britney (I didn't mind this!), watch "Friends", read Seventeen, wear Nicole Miller to prom.

I remember feeling an "ick" to all the sameness around me.  I wanted out.

Like many, to detach myself from the sameness of everything--I turned to music & to the counterculture that existed in the record shops & live music.

I found off-beat artists, appreciators of the weird, and a place where others wanted "out" of the masses.  I found myself often chatting with strangers about new music in small music stores whenever I could find them and it filled me with joy to know I wasn't the only one who wanted to dip out from what everyone else was listening to.

Fast forward to 2021. 

The relief of the democratization of music with Spotify & TikTok, shopping with Etsy & the internet, TV with youtube and streaming companies, and popular culture in general feels like it has been cured. 

Everyone can find his or her niche now instead of plopping down to watch "Full House" or something else with canned laughter because that's what was available for everyone at the same time.

But that feeling of sameness has crept up on me again in a different way... 

  • This time the ick is coming from seeing how detached people have become from the earth & its resources. 
  • This time it is watching people do shopping hauls and order huge amounts of sh*t online only to return it and not ever wondering where those items go (it's to a landfill in most cases, so cut it out!). 
  • This time it is seeing abundance done wrong--with loads of plastic tchotchkes given to every child at every school or with every birthday goody bag.  

To me, a refill store is the new record store.  A surf shop is a place to talk about ocean conservation.  A small boutique hotel is a great way to find people who want avoid homogenized traveling.

I've learned to dip out of mainstream shopping, and to frequent the refill stores around me--and it has made me so much happier to know I'm not contributing to more waste

I've learned that there is a counter-culture movement happening and that learning to abandon your cart makes you the new Rebel with a Cause.

From the sustainable & zero waste community, I've found my people. 

With this brand, Dip, we are not chasing big box retailers, we will not sell on Amazon and we will focus on being exclusively in purpose driven refill stores, surf shops, boutique hotels, and small gift stores.

Small stores are the heartbeat of any community--and they are the key to sustainability.

It only takes one conversation with the type of person who opens a re-fill store to know:  this person is trying to change the world, on a micro level, in a community.  These people don't complain about change, they make themselves part of the solution.

That's where real change happens, and that's where we will be:  in the small, community based stores or mission based retailers that improve the quality of the planet by being part of the solution.

Written with love,

Kate 

 

 

Still reading?  I'm impressed...

...This is my Ferris Bueller moment (us old folks will get that reference)

In marketing I've always been told that "people don't read" which is so stupid because I am "people" and I read everything!

Thank you for proving them wrong.

Dip's focus is a small, single minded obsession with plastic. I think that "big picture" thinking is imaginary. It promises false goals with false sentiment. I truly believe that "small thinking" is where it’s at.

Small businesses

Small actions

Small measurable steps

With all the hidden costs and plastics behind going "big", companies start to obsess themselves with carbon neutrality because you can’t see it. It’s a claim you can make without having to provide evidence for its change.

Our mission at Dip is visible:

our mission is to inspire you to reduce plastics and micro plastics by encouraging you to buy better, buy less, buy slow, and shop small.

  

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