‘Treehugging’ female entrepreneurs bring business to Lancashire

Sisters Lou and Vix Lawson got sick of the London rat race and volunteered for six months on organic farms in Portugal, which is where they decided to move back to Lancaster and set up in business together.

Now they are supporting the #imnotjohn campaign after being shocked by the statistic that there are more men called John who are chief executives of FSTE100 companies than there are ANY women.

Read their unusual story to success here.

We are Vix and Lou, sisters on an eco pleasure seeking mission to run a fun, friendly and fantastic business with respect and consideration for people and the planet at its core.

These values are important to us and we weave them into every aspect of how we run Bough to Beauty Bespoke and into how we live our lives.

As eco pleasure seekers we are passionate about the planet and feel that actively behaving in a way that is beneficial to everyone, doesn’t have to mean wearing tie-dyed sacks, playing mediocre guitar and surviving on a diet of mung beans.  It is actually fun and very rewarding.

We love using creative and innovate design to solve problems for our customers that don’t involve destroying our environment. We take the earth and earthlings seriously and we take our business seriously.  We do everything we can to exceed expectations as you can see from the testimonials from our clients, including Jameson Irish Whiskey, Waitrose, Greenpeace and Hawkshead Brewery.

Before we launched Bough to Beauty and Bough to Beauty Bespoke, we both had successful careers in London. Between us we have over 30 years experience in creative industries, from PR, marketing, TV, theatre, publishing and research.  So as tree huggers, we’re pretty darn conscientious, professional and we care passionately about what we do.

In 2013, after months of staring at her computer screen wishing she could be doing something more meaningful with her life, like working at her allotment, planting, nurturing and growing, Lou did a crazy thing. She quit London.  Not only did she quit London, she quit to live in a tent.  A tent with no electricity, no running water and goats as neighbours.

Vix had just returned from adventures down under and London was losing its charm. So Vix also did a crazy thing. She quit London.  Not only did she quit London, she quit to live in a tent.  A tent with no electricity, no running water and Lou and goats as neighbours.

And that’s how we spent six happy months, living in tents, travelling around Portugal, drinking wine, feeling fine, meeting people from all walks of life, from all over the world, and of course, hanging out with goats.

We’d done it, we’d escaped the rat race, we had head space to think about what was important, what we were passionate about, what mattered.  We had planned to go back after our adventure, back to the same old same old, but our journey gave us courage and we decided to take a detour, but carry on our adventure and set up an eco business.

We returned to our native Lancashire and got to work.

We heard about the #imnotjohn campaign via LinkedIn and the figures initially shocked us but then when we thought about it – it made sense – women were not seen in the room a lot of networking meetings.

We are passionate about women in business, we have had a lot of help and inspiration from women in Lancashire – and men too!

When we started on the networking circuit, it was predominantly men, which if we were on our own as a women in business, it would be intimidating, but we have encouraged more and more women to get involved and one group that we go to is now 50/50 and is a much more friendly environment.

We hope the #imnotjohn campaign inspires improvements for women in business.