Example box, pictured for illustration. Every box is composed by hand, so the contents vary.
Curated Collection · the middle size
The Bloom
£42
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- Delivery
- Free UK delivery on every order.
- Returns
- 30 days to change your mind, for any reason.
- A surprise you did not warm to is a perfectly good reason to send it back.
- Allergies
- Allergies or ingredients to avoid: tell us in the checkout notes and we compose around them.
- Contents vary, so we cannot guarantee a Collection is free of any given ingredient.
- Where it comes from
- Small British makers, established UK suppliers, and carefully chosen surplus — over-produced, discontinued or displaced stock.
- Never damaged, expired, returned or defective. Why we buy that way.
- Reviews
- No reviews are shown on this page yet. They come only from verified orders and are published here as written, from the first one we approve; an overall score follows once five exist. How reviews work.
- Questions
- We reply to every message personally.
Pieces composed to sit together rather than gathered to fill a box.
Pieces drawn from a range of categories across our shelves, chosen to complete each other. More to open, and still entirely unrevealed.
The standard this box is held to
Every piece answers four questions before it earns its place: good of its kind, judged against the alternatives we set aside; something we would be glad to receive ourselves; sits well beside the others; never filler.
A composition that does not hold together is taken apart and made again. The Petalby Standard, in full.
- One pair of hands. Every collection is put together by one person and checked as a whole before it is packed.
- Never filler. Nothing goes in unless it earns its place. The Petalby Standard.
- No surprises at checkout. Free UK delivery on every order. 30 days to change your mind.
Our promise
What we promise before you order
A mystery Curated Collection is composed piece by piece by someone who has handled the alternatives and set most of them aside, and the finished box is looked over as one thing before it is packed. What you are buying is that judgement, and nothing is included to fill space.
If it arrives damaged, or something inside is not what it should be, tell us and we will replace it or refund it — whichever suits you better. Our Promise, written down.
The Petalby Standard
Four questions, asked of every piece
- Good of its kind. Not adequate — good, judged against the alternatives we set aside. A piece we made ourselves is held to it just as strictly.
- Something we would be glad to receive ourselves. If the answer is not an immediate yes, it does not make the cut.
- Sits well beside the others. A composition, not a container.
- Never filler. A smaller box of three good things over a fuller one padded with a fourth that doesn’t belong.
You will always receive pieces drawn from a range of categories across our shelves, chosen against each other for how well they sit together.
You will never receive novelty filler, duplicate pieces, or anything applied to skin that we did not make and that did not come from UK-market wholesale or a maker already selling in Great Britain.
What is inside a Bloom
A shape the pieces have to make together. What goes in changes with what we can source; the shape does not.
Every Bloom is composed to the same shape: pieces from a range of categories across our shelves, each chosen for how well it sits beside the rest, with nothing in it as filler. We do not list the categories in advance; the standard each piece is held to is published in full.
Which pieces arrive is the mystery. The standard is not, and that is what makes the surprise safe to give: you know what every piece is held to, and you know none of it is filler.
The one we photographed
The Bloom on this page arrived in a kraft tray, which is how the pieces sit together rather than loose in a box.
- A pouch of bath dust in oriental musk — a scoop under running water rather than a whole bomb at once, which makes it last several baths instead of one.
- An amber glass diffuser with rattan reeds and dried flowers at the neck.
- An exfoliating mitt, cream-coloured, tagged as biodegradable by its maker.
- A rolled waffle cotton cloth, tied with jute.
- A soy candle in a cork-lidded glass jar, linen-fresh.
- A bath block wrapped in tissue, pressed flowers set into the wrapping.
Look at what that adds up to: pieces that belong to the same evening, and two of them still there after the rest has gone. That is the shape a Bloom is composed to, and no two are composed alike.
How a composition is decided
The pieces are not picked independently and posted in the same box. Each is weighed against the others before it goes in, which is a slower way to work and the reason we do not take orders for particular items.
In practice that means a scent that does not fight the one already in the box; a colour palette that looks like it was intended when the tissue comes off; and a balance between something used up in a fortnight and something kept. A box of good things that argue with each other is a worse gift than a smaller one that agrees.
It also means a Bloom holds what it should rather than as much as it could. Nothing goes in to make up the number, and padding a box to make it look generous is the exact habit this brand exists to avoid.
The standard a Bloom is held to
A Bloom holds enough to make a set and few enough that a weak piece shows. A Bloom is checked as a whole before it is packed — not item by item, but as the thing that will be opened — and a composition that does not hold together is taken apart and made again.
That check is the same on every order, and it is what we would rather be judged on than any claim we could make about it. How a composition is made, in full.
Delivery is free on every order, and Klarna is available at checkout if paying in three suits you better.
Who The Bloom suits
This is the size for occasions that need to feel like occasions without becoming extravagant.
- A birthday, for a friend whose taste you admire and cannot quite predict.
- Mother's Day, when flowers have been the answer for several years running.
- A friend who has had a long year — things to open one by one, and one of them asks them to run a bath.
- Someone who has everything. This is the one problem a Curated Collection answers better than a chosen gift can: you are not competing with what they already own, because they are not expecting anything in particular.
It suits the giver too. It is enough to look considered on the doorstep, and the composition work is done before you order.
Where it is the wrong choice
If the recipient has a settled routine and firm views about it, a Curated Collection will be the least welcome format on the shelf. If two are being bought for two people who will compare them, note that no two Blooms are identical — they are composed by hand from what is available that week.
In either case the Spa Edit is the better answer: fixed sets that state exactly what they hold.
What happens after you order
- The order. Stripe takes payment and a confirmation email follows once it has. Delivery is free on every order. We deliver to addresses in the UK, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
- The composing. One person puts your Curated Collection together by hand in the UK, and nothing is packed until the whole box has been looked at together.
- On its way. A second email arrives as soon as your order leaves us, with a tracking number if Royal Mail has issued one.
- The opening. Nothing is revealed until it is unwrapped. You have 30 days to change your mind, for any reason — see delivery and returns.
The three sizes
- The Bud — £22. The smallest composition.
- The Bloom — £42. Composed to sit together. You are here.
- The Bouquet — £74. The fullest composition, with one piece reserved for this size alone.
Everything about Petalby Curated Collections — how a composition is made, why we buy the way we do, and what is never inside.
Composed to sit together
The Bloom, £42
Free UK delivery, Klarna at checkout, and 30 days to change your mind.
We post the next working day. Royal Mail 2nd Class aims to arrive within two to three working days — an aim, not a guarantee.
Sending it to someone? Add the handwritten card at checkout and we write your message out by hand.