Snazzipants - Pippa Jinks

Pippa Jinks may well be the public face of Snazzipants, but she credits her son, Luka, with being the real creator of Snazzipants.

When Pippa was pregnant with Luka, her first child, she planned to use cloth nappies. After all, cloth is easier on the environment, but more importantly, on the budget. Her family and friends laughed at her and swore she'd be using disposables within weeks, but their scoffing only strengthened her resolve and when Luka was born in 2003 Pippa set about nappying him in good old traditional cloth nappies - the same white cotton squares and fluffy pilchers her mother, Maria, had used on her when she was a baby.

It was hardly smooth sailing. Nothing Pippa tried would last Luka more than a couple of hours, let alone overnight. But she wasn't going to give up - she was determined prove her doubters wrong and make cloth work.

She began researching cloth nappies on the internet and soon found that there were a host of different options available overseas - but nothing in New Zealand. So she came up with an idea - a way to make modern cloth nappies accessible to a local audience without the prohibitive costs of ordering from overseas.

And so Snazzipants was born. With the backing of her mum, Maria, and Luka as their official "nappy tester", Pippa began working on prototypes that would suit the New Zealand market. Six months on she was ready to take on the world, and take on the world she did at the 2003 Parent and Child Show in Auckland.

"We were so nervous," says Pippa. "We waited for the doors to open and we had hundreds of nappies stacked up behind us, and we were thinking 'are we the only ones in New Zealand interested in cloth nappies?'"

The answer was a resounding no - and so began the reusable nappy boom!

Four years on, Snazzipants has grown from a tiny mum-and-daughter home business into a one-stop nappy-shop, through their website www.snazzipants.co.nz. As well as their signature fitted nappies, Snazzipants now also stock a full range of different styles of nappies including prefolds, covers, pockets and all-in-ones which they import from overseas.

"Because we sell all the major nappy styles, we can be honest about the pros and cons of each system," says Pippa. "What works for one baby, might not for another. The birth of my daughter Pearl, who was 4 weeks premature, taught me a lot about skinny little newborns. She was a great tester for Snazzipants. And I learnt that girls are so different from boys! They have totally different nappy needs."

When Snazzipants first began selling cloth nappies in New Zealand, they were selling to a small, dedicated minority - cloth nappies were still seen as an inferior choice, but the tide has turned and now cloth nappies have become much more mainstream.

Everyone knows someone who uses cloth, and according to Pippa that's how Snazzipants has grown.
"We have been so lucky, we've had great support from our customers who spread the word and advertise us for free by converting their friends and family. We've had whole Snazzi coffee groups come by, it's great - we are so grateful for their enthusiasm!"

In fact, Snazzipants has grown so much that they recently moved out of their home office into their very first retail store in Milford, Auckland.

"We were finding it impossible to keep up with production and dispatch," says Pippa. "It's hugely demanding running a home business with two small children, and the store will enable us to extend the Snazzipants range even further."

As well as imported nappies, Pippa keeps a section of the store especially for showcasing the boutique nappies made by local work-at-home mums. The nappy revolution has grown far beyond Snazzipants and provided opportunities for New Zealand mums to make their own nappies and build home businesses around their family commitments, 
"Their creativity inspires me," she says, "its one of the things that gave me my love of nappies in those early days."

"The time has come to expand, and with the retail store we hope to open up to a whole new segment of the market. The large majority of babies in New Zealand are still wearing disposables, and we hope that the Snazzipants store will enable parents to see and feel what makes reusable nappies special - because we think they are!"

Pippa Jinks with Pearl and a Snazzipants fitted nappy