Do we actually make our own products?
From Raw Materials to Finished Product: Why We Make BOKS In-House
There’s a reason BOKS Car Care doesn’t simply buy a load of chemicals, put them into bottles and stick our label on the front.
I couldn’t do that.
Every BOKS product is made from scratch, in-house, starting with the raw materials and ending with the finished product that eventually lands on your doorstep.
And it all started with an Alfa Romeo 166.
It started with cleaning my own cars
I’ve always enjoyed cleaning cars.
But at the time, I was already working in the paints and protective coatings trade, so I had a bit of an advantage when it came to understanding what was actually inside these products.
I started reading labels.
Then I started asking questions.
“Could I make this myself?”
That question became a bit of an obsession.
My first product wasn’t even a car shampoo or wheel cleaner.
It was leather paint.
I’d bought an Alfa Romeo 166 with faded leather and wanted to restore it properly. The product needed to be flexible, durable and, most importantly, capable of being colour-matched to the huge range of colours used by different vehicle manufacturers.
So I started developing it.
And then things… escalated.
Quite considerably.
From one product to an entire range
That was back in 2013.
A lot has changed since then.
The basic raw materials and principles behind formulation haven’t suddenly become obsolete, but the operation around them has grown massively.
Over the years I’ve collected factory machinery, mixing equipment, filling equipment and parts from automated production lines.
I needed to.
As demand grew, doing everything manually simply wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
But there’s one thing I was determined not to change:
I wanted to remain in control of what goes into our products.
We start at the beginning
When we make a product, we don’t start with somebody else’s finished chemical.
We start with the base.
That might be charged water, a solvent or another appropriate starting point depending on what we’re developing.
From there, I build the formulation from the ground up.
Raw materials go in.
The formulation is developed.
It is mixed, adjusted, tested and refined.
Eventually, it becomes the finished product.
That’s how I want BOKS to operate.
Not:
“Here’s somebody else’s product. Let’s put it in a BOKS bottle.”
That’s never been the idea.
I’ve never wanted to work with a chemist to make our products
This might sound slightly unusual, but I’ve always wanted to develop the formulations myself.
I’ve never wanted to simply hand the job over to a chemist or chemical supplier and say:
“Make me something that cleans cars.”
Because, honestly, I hated the thought of simply rebottling somebody else’s shampoo.
That’s cheating.
If we’re going to put the BOKS name on something, I want to know what’s in it, why it’s there, how it behaves and what happens when we change something.
That control matters.
Testing doesn’t stop when the formula is finished
A product isn’t finished just because it looks good in a mixing vessel.
I test things constantly.
On my own cars.
On customer cars.
And with existing BOKS customers who are willing to put new products through their paces.
I’ll send bottles out, get feedback, make changes and test again.
Sometimes a product can look perfect on paper and then behave completely differently when you actually start using it.
That’s where the real development happens.
Use it. Test it. Change it. Test it again.
And only when I’m happy with it does it become a BOKS product.
Even the colour can be a battle
One of the things people probably don’t think about is just how difficult it can be to keep a product consistent.
Take something as simple as colour.
The raw materials can affect colour and opacity.
pH can affect how a product looks.
Scent needs to be consistent too.
Then you’ve got raw material prices changing, suppliers having shortages and occasionally materials becoming difficult to obtain.
All of those things can create headaches when you’re trying to make the same product today that you made last month.
But that’s another reason I like manufacturing ourselves.
I know what’s happening.
If a particular raw material becomes difficult to get, I know about it.
I’m not just relying on somebody to send me a replacement ingredient because they’ve decided that’s what they’re using now.
Everything we can make, we make ourselves
There are very few things in the BOKS range that we don’t manufacture ourselves.
Cloths and towels being the obvious exception.
And quite honestly…
Why would I want to try making those?!
But the actual chemical products?
That’s our world.
So why does all of this matter?
Because I think there’s a big difference between selling car care products and actually making them.
When you’re responsible for the formulation, the raw materials, the mixing, the production and the testing, you develop a completely different relationship with the product.
You know it.
You understand it.
And when somebody tells you they’ve used it on their car and something wasn’t quite right, you can actually do something about it.
That’s important to me.
I don’t want BOKS to be a label on somebody else’s chemical.
I want BOKS to be something we’ve built ourselves.
From an idea…
To raw materials…
To a mixing vessel…
To a bottle…
To your garage.
And there’s a bigger plan
The long-term goal isn’t for someone to order one lonely bottle of car shampoo from us.
I want BOKS to become the sort of brand where you open the door and there’s a BOKS waiting for you.
A box packed with products.
Something that feels like you’ve received a proper car-care haul rather than simply having another bottle arrive in the post.
Because if we’re going to make all this stuff ourselves…
we might as well make loads of it.
And that’s exactly where we’re heading.
2013 → today → whatever comes next.
I’m still developing.
I’m still testing.
I’m still changing things.
And I’m still asking the same question I asked when I first started:
“Can I make this myself?”
Most of the time, the answer is still yes.
— Tom
BOKS Car Care