Meet the Chemical Collective Team

Who are Chemical Collective?

We are a family operated cooperative, established in 2019 by founding member Jack. As the company grew, despite superhuman efforts (and a trusty hand-writing robot – no joke), Jack soon realised he would no longer be able to manage the workload without extra pairs of hands.

The unfortunate thing about hands is that they generally (though not always) come attached to humans, who Jack at this point had determined to be wholly unreliable creatures. He wanted to make sure that whoever he hired had the same level of care and dedication he had for Chemical Collective and its customers. He’d poured his sweat and blood into the company and he wanted his colleagues (i.e subordinates) to do the same. What better way to ensure this than hiring his own flesh and blood? (also he realised family members will accept far below minimum wage – but this was irrelevant to his decision).

Enter Matt, Jessica, and Cookie.

Matt

Matt is our graphic designer/content creation/pugilism specialist. His expertise ranges from Photoshop, After Effects and content management to throwing a mean left hook to the body (both Jack and Cookie can attest to this).

Matt’s ability to inflict terrible violence while inside the “squared circle” is matched only by his soft and gentle nature outside of it.

He gives out hugs (much to Cookie’s chagrin) as generously as he doles out straight right hands to the temple.

When he isn’t downstairs in our home-baked gym (AKA “The Dutch Oven”) teaching Cookie the finer arts of face-punching, you’ll likely find him sweating over his latest creation in Adobe Illustrator or shadow-boxing to “Eye of the Tiger” in the middle of the stock room.

Jessica

Jessica loves food. No, no. I mean, she really, really loves food.

You know how you love your own mother? Well, you don’t. Not compared to how Jessica loves her pain au chocolat. I can only hope that if I one day have a child, I look at it the same way Jessica gazes at her “pud pud” (as she calls it).

Jessica does like (note – “like”) other things; raising her two cats. Crocheting. Short bike rides (with a picnic destination). Luxury skincare. Practicing jiu jitsu. Watching anime. And reading BL manga.

On a serious note, Jessica is our customer service extraordinaire. She channels her love for food into her communication with our customers (or her “little crumpets” as she calls them) and this is evident in the care and diligence she takes in solving the problems of our community.

Cookie

Cookie is a true jack of all trades (and perhaps even a master of some). His skills include (but are not limited to):

• Camel riding
• Imitating humans
• Painfully dry humour
• World record holder for most cat memes produced in 24 hours

Many believe Cookie isn’t a real human and is in fact a cat. Although these accusations have not yet been disproven, we here at Chemical Collective have come to appreciate – even love – Cookie’s strange yet subtle cat like ways of showing affection for humanoids.

Cookie brought this wide range of skills and relentless work ethic with him to Chemical Collective. You can generally find him working on project development, social networking, plotting to take over the world, licking himself or staring expressionlessly into the distance.

Jack

The only thing matching Jack’s toughness and grit (and dashing good looks) is his profound and overwhelming sense of humility. Although Jack is the boss, he is also undeniably a man of the people. He knows what it’s like being down in the trenches and on the front lines of the working man. He’s watched over three episodes of HBO’s “The Wire” (he still has mild PTSD from the ordeal), which has given him an unshakeable understanding of life on the streets. It is for this reason that despite his undeniably great qualities (creativity, innovation, intellect etc), he’s still able to treat his subordinates with a level of fairness and understanding one would simply not expect from a man of his stature.

Jack also wanted me to add that any rumours of him underpaying/mistreating his employees/family members are nothing but baseless accusations and that his employees/family members are more than grateful for his generosity, which they express to him on a daily basis (as is stated in their contracts).

History of Chemical Collective

Chemical Collective was founded in September 2019 by Jack, who entered the RC industry somewhat accidentally. He had been working in construction during his 20s, helping build houses and manage a small community in BC, Canada in the autumn and winter months, while spending summers traveling Europe helping run a pizza restaurant/live stage in a black and white circus tent (inspired by the novel The Night Circus). It was due to his proximity to the festival circuit that he befriended many prominent members of the RC scene (why there is such a large cross-over between scientific researchers and festival-goers is still a mystery to him).

It wasn’t until mid 2019 when Jack came to the Netherlands to do some repair work on a friend’s house (with a return ticket booked two weeks later) that he saw first hand that there was a gap in the RC market for a well run, professionally maintained business that put the customer first. It seemed to him that many vendors took for granted the ease of selling RCs online and so were able to get away with business practices that simply would not fly in other industries. And so, Jack forsook his €89 EasyJet plane ticket back home to the land of fish and chips, yorkshire pudding and crumpets, and instead took up arms in the land of clogs and stroopwafels.

Initially, Jack partnered with the owner of the website ChemTheory; but it quickly became evident that their business ethics and vision were incompatible. So two months later in September 2019 he started his solo career and Chemical Collective was born.

Why we don’t stock certain research chemicals

While Jack and the rest of the team believe strongly in an individual’s right to choose what they can and cannot conduct research with, we still believe it is the responsibility of RC vendors to decide which chemicals they will sell and which they will not, since in doing so they make it possible for people to obtain said chemicals at the simple click of a button.

The general rule we stand by is that we will not sell anything we would not conduct research with ourselves. As such, we do not sell any benzodiazepines, cathinones, cannabinoids or synthetic opioids. While this rule is admittedly somewhat arbitrary, we have to draw the line somewhere (in our opinion) and so this is where we choose to draw it.

One argument against this stance is that in doing so, we force people who want to purchase these products to look to less trustworthy and reliable sources. With us (the argument goes) at least they know exactly what they’ll be getting and they can be sure of the purity and will receive a good service.

While this is indeed a powerful argument and it certainly holds merit (and abiding by it would be of significant financial benefit to us), the situation we want to avoid is that in stocking these chemicals and offering them in a “nicely presented and convenient manner”, we could potentially encourage customers who have come to our website solely to purchase chemicals such as lysergamides and tryptamines into experimenting with chemicals that have a much riskier safety profile.

We don’t hold anything against researchers who choose to experiment with these chemicals nor against vendors who choose to sell them; this is simply our personal choice when it comes to the matter.

Our Mission

It’s no secret that the research chemical industry isn’t exactly a bastion of high morals and ethical business practices. Stories and posts from disheartened and frustrated researchers who have been mistreated or even scammed by vendors are depressingly common. This malpractice ranges from shoddy customer service and mistreatment to poor quality/impure chemicals, mislabelled products and outright scams.

We see absolutely no reason why researchers should have to accept standards far below what they would expect in virtually any other industry. For whatever reason, RC vendors have been able to get away with an overall quality of service, presentation and usability that simply would not survive outside of this market.

Our goal with Chemical Collective is to provide a safe and professional environment for researchers to acquire high quality, third-party tested chemicals. We aim to be as honest and transparent as we can be (without jeopardizing our or our customers’ safety) and to provide as much useful information about our products as possible. Obviously, due to the nature and laws surrounding research chemicals, we can’t always provide as much precise information as we would like. For this reason we strongly recommend researchers familiarising themselves with useful resources like Reddit, Erowid and Psychonaut Wiki.

We also strongly believe that research chemicals – if used safely and responsibly – can play a positive role in peoples’ lives and their development. We don’t think anyone should be judged, condemned or ostracised for sensible experimentation with RCs. We (Jack, Matt, Jessica and Cookie) have all benefited and grown from the research we’ve conducted over the years and I’m sure none of us would be where we are today without it.