A bottle lasts eleven weeks, and we would rather you knew

On every product page in this shop, above the button, there is a line that says how long that bottle lasts if you use it twice a day. The Serum is about eleven weeks. The Almond Oil is about four months. The Rose Mist, if you are generous with it, is six weeks.

We put it there before you have paid anything, which is the only place it means anything.

The arithmetic nobody prints

A brand knows exactly how long its bottle lasts. It is the first thing the finance side of a business works out, because the reorder interval is the whole model. It is also the one number that almost never appears on the page, and when it does appear it is on the packaging in a size that requires good light.

Say it out loud and two things happen. Customers buy the right size instead of the big one, and they notice when a bottle runs out faster than it was supposed to. Both of those cost the shop money in the short run.

The refill

Five of the twelve come as a kraft refill pouch at twenty per cent less than the bottle. The pouch is not a gesture at sustainability; it is thirty grams of laminate instead of three hundred grams of glass, it ships for less, and the saving goes to you rather than into a certification.

A shop that tells you a bottle lasts eleven weeks has decided not to sell you fourteen of them a year.

That is the trade, and we are happy with it.