With work looming tomorrow, Tonight I decided to get rid of 2 weeks of beard growth and review my shaving routine for it’s Britishness. Thankfully, I scored pretty well. However, my shaving routine is a little unusual in this day and age. I lived a short time in Turkey and while there was taught to use a straight razor, so this is what I use on a regular basis. The unforeseen advantage of this is that my shaving stuff is already mostly British and should I need to replace it I would have little problem.

The straight razor I use is one that I got from Turkey about 10 years ago and is still going strong. It was about £3 and uses disposable blades, made by the very British Wilkinson Sword. My shaving cream and brush both come from Taylors of Bond Street and proudly made in the UK. I also use a Turkish Lemon aftershave which I bought about 5 years ago and has about 3 year’s worth of shaves left in the bottle.

In short: I am not going to have to grow a David Bellamy style beard in order to stick to our British Challenge.

– James

It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I approached Waitrose, Biggin Hill this afternoon. Not something that usually happens as I actually quite like grocery shopping and thinking up what tempting meals I can put in front of the family for the week.

This week however was the first time I had ever set foot into a shop determined to only buy things produced in the UK and I am astonished that it was not more difficult. Thankfully any items that were Waitrose own brand were clearly labelled with where they were produced, and whether they were produced in a single country or in multiple countries.

Non Waitrose things were more difficult and there were some items that I went without as I couldn’t find an obvious manufacture location. I w as astounded how far and wide our shopping used to come from.

The back of the carrots clearly showing that they were produced in the UK. Good on you Waitrose for making this easy 🙂

As we have yet to officially start our challenge (1st Jan), I must admit that, as we have just moved house, the larder is not quite all I would like it to be and so there were a few little staples that found their way into the trolley to be used sparingly through the year. Things such as soy sauce, Dijon mustard (a Unilever brand!), rice wine vinegar, sunflower oil (although I fully intend to spend time later on today finding a true British source of oil to keep us going for the rest of the year) and Clementines (as they are my little boy’s favorite and he is currently poorly).

One thing I found very intriguing was how difficult it was to find British bread flour. The flour that I would normally buy was made in multiple countries and at 66p makes bread making well worth the effort, as you get a delicious home baked loaf for about 50p of ingredients. However the only bread flour I could find was one produced by The Women’s Institute and at £1.79. Although not making home bread production expensive, it does make it more of a luxury. There was also no yeast to be bought that was made in the UK, so as a result I will be creating my own culture over the next few weeks in the hope that as the year progresses it will help to keep me in fresh bread.

It may sound as though I am blowing the trumpet of one supermarket and not testing out others, especially as we have a Tesco, Sainsburys and a Morrisons all relatively local. I will be testing them all in the weeks to come to how well they compare to what really was a trauma free first shop (Stay posted).

Although the fridge is fairly chock full, there are many items I would not normally buy and some that I have had to swap to something similar. Butternut squash for example has been exchanged for the tougher skinned squashes that can survive here over the winter. Parsnips are not something I would normally buy but as we were a little short on veg I have decided it might be a taste we should acquire. One the fruit front, we may not be sad to see the end of apples and pears as they are the only thing available that’s British. However, as James commented there are many farm shops where they sell frozen fruit which is still British!

Looking forward to starting to receive the Abel and Cole fruit and veg boxes as of the 8th Jan and I’ll blog to let you know how it goes filtering out the non British. Otherwise a very Happy New Year to you all and we’ll see you on the British side.

– Emily

As the jeans finally gave in today the hunt for some new ones has intensified rather dramatically.  My next discovery is that there is no requirement for any non-food item to disclose where it was made unless the retailer wants it.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consumer_protection/product_safety_and_labelling/standards_for_product_labelling.html

This means that sourcing true British clothes could be more tricky than I thought and the likelihood of  having to settle for just a British brand is growing.

I am busy researching some independent brands as well as looking at some of the more well known high street brands and will let you know how I get on. One thing I am starting to notice is that many of the items that are designed and made in Britain are more designer items and are not really everyday items for everyday people. This is only an initial observation but one that seems to keep cropping up. I’m hoping that I can find somewhere that is more mainstream and a little more appropriate for a getting close to 30 year old as I’m afraid uber trendy is not really my style.

Plenty of hunting still to do and looking forward to the start of a very exciting New Year!

– Emily

Well here goes, we will be starting the adventure in 8 days time and already from the research I am doing there seems to be a key factor to buying British and that is cost. I’m starting by looking at clothing as I will be needing some new work clothes in the New Year and as the sales will beckon very soon I thought it wise to starting hunting for pure British.

There do seem to be a number of people who design and make British and I am comforted that as my jeans have just gone at the knee that I will be able to replace them. The big stumbling block however is price as most are ‘designer’ or ‘independent’ and so jeans start at £150!

This has made me really think therefore how it is that my wonderful standard Gap jeans can be made for £40?

Are they substandard quality? Well I can answer that instantly with a no! These jeans have lasted nearly 2 years of every weekend use which I think is pretty good going.

Are they made somewhere or by someone that makes them cost pence to make? Well this one is more tricky and not one that I would go into for one particular store over another, that’s not really what we’re looking at.

However this does raise the question of do you get what you pay for? Does knowing that the people who have produced your clothes, food and everything else have been over 18 and have been paid fairly for the work they have done, make things that are substantially more expensive than you would usually buy worth it?

A tough one for the start of the project but I think an important one. At least by buying British we should be safe in the knowledge that what we buy, although heavier on the wallet, should be lighter on the conscience.

-Emily