The entrepreneur who solved the problem of non-biodegradable balloons, CEO and co-founder of Bioloon, Charlotte Melia joins us from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to tell the astounding story of her discovery.

Her story starts with humble beginnings on the Isle of Wight. As a child she dreamed of becoming an actress, but after returning from a theatre tour pregnant, she realised she couldn't fulfil that dream and be a mum. Instead, she started a children's party company as a side hustle, dressing up as princesses at weekends. It quickly took off and, by 2018, Dazzle & Fizz had become the go-to company for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, royals and A-listers, with offices in London, New York and Saudi Arabia.

She shares some hair-raising stories from parties for the ultra-rich, including transforming The Dorchester ballroom into New York City for two-year-old twins. The average spend on a three-year-old's birthday party? £55,000.

Although fiercely environmentally conscious—banning single-use plastics long before it was fashionable, upcycling sets and redistributing food waste—Charlotte says party balloons remained a huge problem. With thousands being used and discarded after just a few hours, she became increasingly troubled by their environmental impact.

The latex balloons she bought claimed they would biodegrade as quickly as an oak leaf. Charlotte jokes that, despite only getting a double B in science, even she knew something didn't add up. After conducting some "cowboy science" of her own, she discovered they definitely weren't biodegrading.

Digging deeper, she uncovered years of greenwashing and found research proving latex balloons don't biodegrade as claimed. Instead, they contribute to microplastic pollution and are responsible for the deaths of around one million seabirds and 100,000 turtles every year.

Determined to find a solution, one of Charlotte's shareholders introduced her to Professor Jason Hallett at Imperial College London, who suggested funding a PhD student to develop an alternative to vulcanised latex.

With her party business losing 95 per cent of its revenue during Covid, while raising a son with special needs and going through a divorce, Charlotte risked the last of her money to fund researcher Juliana Cumming. Three years later came the call she'd been waiting for: Juliana had found the winning formula.

The result is a material that is both biocompatible and biodegradable, with the potential to replace vulcanised latex across the $40 billion industry—from balloons and gloves to medical devices and condoms.

Charlotte also shares the three objects that matter most to her: Rabbit, the soft toy she's slept with since birth; her well-travelled passport, which represents the freedom and purpose she finds in exploring the world; and Terrance, a small turtle attached to her backpack that reminds her every day why she's doing this work.

Her life hack? Turning her stubbornness into her superpower and swapping her morning coffee for functional mushrooms.

What a remarkable woman.

Find out more about Bioloon at @wearebioloon on Instagram and connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn at @charlottemelia.

To view our guests' special bits, please follow us on Instagram @showusyourbitspodcast

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From Jilly Cooper to Take That what do they have in common? This week’s guest, international bestselling author, entrepreneur and inveterate traveller Tasmina Perry. Long before the bestselling novels and publishing success, Tasmina was a bored trainee lawyer, working in a hot dog caravan at Granada Studio Tours, dreaming of becoming a journalist. Then one day she spotted a group of young dancers outside — “the red shoes”, as she describes them, dancing around in cycling shorts and bright red shoes and decided to pluck up the courage to ask if she could interview them. The nearest boy said yes. His name was Rob. The band was Take That. And Rob was Robbie Williams. That very first interview helped take Tammy from trainee lawyer and hot dog seller to a writer at More magazine, launching the journalism career that would eventually lead her to becoming editor. In this episode, Tammy also takes us behind the scenes of her glamorous new novel, Seven Nights in St Tropez, the ultimate summer page-turner, and reveals why she couldn’t bear to say goodbye to one of her favourite characters, the formidable paparazzi boss Mimi. From luxury mansions to the seedy underbelly of the yacht scene on the French Riviera, she explains how her love of travel inspires her writing, and why creating a vivid sense of place is at the heart of every book she writes. Tammy shares how a honeymoon search for the perfect beach read sparked the idea for Daddy’s Girls, the novel that became her breakthrough international bestseller, and why she later took another leap of faith by leaving traditional publishing behind to launch her own independent imprint. As always, the conversation is brought to life through four treasured possessions: a dazzling brooch gifted to her by her great inspiration and guiding light, Jilly Cooper, shortly before Jilly died; framed handwritten lyrics from her teenage hero Lloyd Cole; a photograph of Sherpa Tenzing summiting Everest; and a gold swan gifted by her husband, reminding her of the magazine where their love story began. Jilly’s encouragement and belief in her had a huge impact on Tammy, inspiring her to keep writing and trust in her own voice. It’s a conversation about creativity, reinvention, friendship, entrepreneurship and the power of simply asking the question: why not you? Tasmina’s message is simple: opportunities are everywhere, most people are kinder than you think and extraordinary things can happen when you’re brave enough to ask. Find Tasmina at tasminaperry.com and @tasminaperry on Instagram.

To view our guests' special bits, please follow us on Instagram @showusyourbitspodcast

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We’re on a health and wellbeing vibe this week talking about being off the booze and our love of Pavari cocktails, plus our secret addiction to the new season of Rivals. We’re also having a very down to earth honest chat with our guest - actor, podcaster, public speaker and coach, Salima Saxton.

Salima’s candid talk for The Moth has had millions of views on YouTube and is the story on which her forthcoming memoir ‘The Undoing’ is based. She talks about what happened when her husband, Carl, someone she’d always thought of as her ‘oak tree’ as he was so stable, called time on how they were living. She recalls the surprise of his frank admission about how he wasn’t coping, and her realisation that his mental health was in jeopardy. She sprang into action, dismantling their so-called ‘perfect’ London life, moving their three children out of their private school and back to her childhood home in the countryside. In doing so, she had to confront the ghosts of her past, but says that the upside is that in jettisoning all the ‘stuff’ she considered to be important, she’s reclaimed her younger self and what really matters in life.

Despite having alway marketed herself as great in a crisis, Salima was surprised by the way in which she reacted to her unexpected diagnosis of colon cancer last year and the news of the difficult treatment she had to undergo. When one of her friends described her as a ‘bad patient’, her incredibly popular Substack newsletter was born. Salima says that she doesn’t have a filter at the best of times, but she found comfort in sharing everything she experienced - from the silly questions she asked her surgeon, to her deepest inner fears. Unsurprisingly, her fans have deeply connected with her honesty, her humour and her compulsion to help other people.

Salima, who has been in shows such as This is England, Trigger Point and Twenty Twelve says she’s ready to move back into acting. She says her mantra for getting through life is to keep curious and to keep moving forward.The special ‘bits’ she brought to show us included a framed picture of her husband and son in a chippie. It was taken just at the end of her treatment when she’d lost her appetite, but suddenly had an overwhelming urge for big fat salty greasy chips. Her family drove to a chip shop in town and this moment reminded her that life would once again be ‘normal’. When she looks at it she says she feels emotional because she’s so proud of how her family pulled together and got through such a tough time.

With her three teenage children growing up fast, she brings a child’s jacket that has gone through her two girls and her son and reminds her of her beautiful moments of their childhood in London. We talk about the nostalgia of motherhood and how we navigate the emotions of our children changing and moving away from us.

She also brings a painting of honeysuckle that grew in the thatched cottage in which she grew up. It was painted by her late father, from whom she was estranged. It reminds her of the good parts of her dad and how she’s come to the realisation that he tried his best.

If you haven’t discovered Salima’s honest, funny, engaging Substack, find her https://substack.com/@salimasaxton and also on Instagram @salimasexton

Watch her emotional talk for The Moth here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA0BBHoMLuM

To view our guests' special bits, please follow us on Instagram @showusyourbitspodcast

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