The standard is straight f*cked. Never have I felt more justified in swearing like a sailor, or as my business partner Blair claims, her incessant swearing is because she is from Alaska, and things are just a little rougher around the edges out there. But honestly though, the fact that young people know pharmaceutical anxiety meds by name, or the idea that Americans have access to pretty much any kind of agricultural product, in season or not, whenever we want it, not only are these things unnatural, they are compromising the health and wellbeing of our bodies and our planet!
The W Hotel campaign Whatever Wherever has become the American motto, and it is killing us. We realize the politics around what we are saying walks a fine line, but it feels passive, manipulative and even apathetic to not put it out there... Our commercially driven choices are killing us.
Just right now, the biggest fires in recorded history are burning forests and towns to the ground (over a million acres in California to date and the entire town of Phoenix, Oregon is gone). Global Warming is real. We make choices to buy products from companies that compromise the planet, because we think we are entitled to whatever whenever. It has to stop.
All products sold on Poplar must meet standards of environmental consideration - from post consumer recycled content, to recyclable packaging. We have started a takeback program and are focusing on refillables. Less packaging is more, and the considerations go on. This is just one of 8 commitments we have made in a series of promises to you.
Data source: NASA
Data source: NASA
From the moment my doctor told me "not to get off my meds" I knew I had to do better than they were going to do by me. I am a 40 year old mother of two very active boys. I intend to be active with them for many years to come. Prescription drugs were compromising my body, and I knew better. I knew there were alternatives. I just wasn’t sure what exactly what they were or where I could get them. That is what led me to the vision of Poplar.
I wanted to find what wasn’t available to me via the recommendation of my doctor, the healthcare provider who is supposed to have my best interest in mind. And while, to a degree he did/does have me in mind, he also has to watch his back and make sure he isn’t sued or isn’t cut from “insert Board Name here” for not supporting hospital agreements with pharmaceutical companies. (If it sounds scary that’s because it is!) The system is broken - we are not disenfranchised with health care for any reason other than it is broken by capitalist demands and expectations.
We, the patients, are not integrated into the system of care, but rather the symptoms are. You will never get to the root of a problem if you treat only the symptoms; psychological, physical or otherwise. If you are like me, you want to actually fix what ails you, not just bury it or delay the ailment hoping that it one day doesn’t catch up with you.
In response to a broken western healthcare model, western wellness was born - and guess what - it too is broken - developed in response, as a reaction, also within the same system, but with a disclaimer "This item has not been approved by the FDA..." (Do you know who runs the FDA? This is an answer for another time.) The western world of wellness still takes a western capitalist approach, and while there are more, smaller, well intentioned businesses and practitioners in the mix, the voices of big business buying into the space are loud, because they can be and for them, it’s a money game. This wellness paradigm takes pieces from ancient traditions and eastern philosophies and tries to apply a patchwork of them to westerners.
We see it as our responsibility to go back to the root of the problem and weave together a tapestry of solutions that integrate individual well being into the fabric of business. It is more complicated to achieve that level of customer care and consideration. It will be invariably harder to scale, but we aren’t doing this because it is easy, we are doing this because WE are worth working for. Real care takes work.
Our Elevated standard requires that our products are natural, plant based and clean, not just for the environment but for our bodies well being too - Nothing toxic EVER, and we take into account volume - because too much of anything can be dangerous or toxic, even water! We make sure all of our products are tried and tested via experts in the space. We wouldn't sell you anything we (experts and ourselves included) wouldn't use or don’t use. Our Promise, has a set of 4 of the 8 standards speaking specifically to the safety and quality of the products we are offering you.
