The White Company

'Added Value' is the jargon.  I learned the words twenty-five years ago as a Junior Account Executive in a successful 'Added Value' PR consultancy.

It means you can charge more, offer a better service, get nicer, more discerning customers, your profit margins are larger, and everyone's happy.

I love The White Company's products - they're very added value. I spent hours when first setting up, trying to source their specialist B&B toiletries on the internet, getting nowhere. Then, after several days' of frustration,  I finally stumbled across something called 'Pacific Direct' which represents the hospitality arm of The White Company, as well as other luxury brands including Asprey, Conran, Floris, Elemis and Penhaligon's.  But on speaking to Pacific Direct, they said I wasnt worthy of supplying! What a bloody nerve!

Anyhow, last week I called them again, and I'm now allowed to stock their products! Hurray!  I've clearly now Really Arrived!

So I'm sitting here, up in my attic, surrounded by 100s of little bottles of shampoo, conditioner and titchy soap, and all smells divine! 

Needless to say, this shift to utter luxury costs three times as much as the equivalent products from on-line specialist 'Out of Eden', which I have been using to date, but who cares?  Most of my guests, despite my best offerings, continue to bring and use their own things, and don't even take home what I put out!  This is totally unlike me when I stay somewhere posh. I have been agreeably shocked!  

Since I've been in this business I have discovered what a terrible guest I make. In the good old days, when I had some money and could occasionally stay at smart hotels, I would always come home with anything I could lay my hands on, including bath-hats, although not normally towels or bathrobes.  I would turn the heating up to full and open the windows, leave all the lights on and telly blaring, and the bedclothes and towels in a filthy, damp, tangled mess.  In contrast, my guests are so tidy that sometimes you can't tell if I've been in to straighten their room while they're out, as there's nothing left to do! "Leave a rose on the bed," commented one of them, when I drew their attention to this astonishing fact.

One of my other luxurious little offerings includes fresh orange juice with bits in, unpasteurised so it has a three day shelf-life and it doesn't freeze properly, at £2.49 a bottle.

I've just ordered five bath sheets, not towels, from Christy's, with 650gsm - whatever that is, but it sounds good, and guests have already commented on their thickness, softness and fluffiness.  

I've never compared the cost of the most delicious sausages I have managed to source in the area with 'Tesco's Value', and my various specialist bakery loaves cost twice as much as my children's much preferred 'Bit of Both'.

I haven't done the sums as I'm not interested in cutting corners, but with laundered bedlinen, fresh flowers, lots of Sashka's hours, the heating and hot water turned up full and electric heaters on standby, I've a feeling that all adds up to quite a lot.  But so what.  It's fun!

And now I must pop out to buy some compost and flowers for the garden, and attempt to change Wydemeet's image from 'rustic' - a word used by my lovely Russians to describe the feel of my house; to 'boutique'.  Now there's something that I'll never attain.

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