Last night I was really tired, I'd had a very good but busy day, watering the seedlings, picking Blackcurrant leaves, distilling, bottling and labelling Rose Face Mist, making Menopause Tincture to bottle and label (labelling feels a little like painting the Forth Road Bridge, an endless task of trying to apply labels straight and bubble free on repeat)
I briefly helped Sam make Face Cream 3, made essential oils blends for Ellen's latest round of shampoo bars, then sat down to order essential oils that were running low, bottles and jars that also needed replenishing, I talked to some of our customers in the shop, did a little restock of Wild Beauty Balm on the shelves, fiddled around with the new under shelf (not so) sticky lights that kept falling off and finally answered lots of emails.
I got to our local community co-op shortly before it closed to buy some ingredients to cook for dinner. The fresh fruit and veg section was pretty much empty, there was no fresh milk, in fact there was very little of anything. Our co-op is an absolute lifeline and it's brilliant. It's the only shop in South Harris and they do an incredible job at making sure we have a good selection of food. Today though, through absolutely no fault of their own, it was different.
Pretty much all of the ferries are broken that run between us and the mainland, and have been for several days. The ancient vessels have collectively given up the ghost leaving our food on one side of the Minch and us on the other. Greg, one of the co-op staff members gamely volunteered to drive to Stornoway 1.5 hours away to collect an order for meat and a few pre-made pies.
So, at the end of a long day, there were slim pickings. I found a pre-made meal and came home. I cooked it and we sat down to eat, but as we ploughed through it, I was really struck by the lifelessness of it, the absolute absence of energy. It was tasty enough but somehow entirely lacking. At the end I felt full but not nourished.
The food we ate last night is typical of what so many people consume every day, mass produced, machine made, pre-cooked, fairly expensive (compared to home-made) reasonably good quality ingredients, but somehow, somewhere in the mix, it loses all its vitality. Made without love, each silver tray, plastic wrapped is identical to the next.
In contrast my normal approach to food mirrors my approach to skincare. It's all about the ingredients, the care and the joy. In our work we grow or wild harvest to make beautiful ingredients that are as close to their source as possible turning them into products for the skin or for health and wellness. Every step is considered, every product made by hand with good intention and every jar or bottle filled by us and finally labelled and sent out to you.
Mass produced products feel different energetically, they lack the intention and the energetic input of a human hand stirring imperfectly with a constantly changing rhythm, guided by the product itself. When we make a cream, there is one single person concentrating on that one bowl for as long as it takes to make. The patient waiting for all the temperatures to be right from one stage to the next, the constant checking of consistency, texture and readiness for the subsequent action. The pour into bottles and jars, slow and gradual. With the balms, the first pour, then the wait for the final top up to make the surface even and the texture divine.
Every action creates energy that flows from our hands into that pot and then to you, every time you apply it. It creates vitality that goes beyond the ingredients themselves, becoming so much more than the sum of their parts.
And that's the difference.
In food you can taste the difference when it is made at home from scratch, there are the wonderful last minute flourishes, the little crispy edges, the unevenness of it all, the feeling that what you are eating has life and is nourishing you. There is the freshness, the lack of machine led ingredients, the knowledge that it hasn't included excess salt or sugar or the multitude of hidden flavour enhancers. But most of all, it has the energy that every home cook pours into making a meal.
What we put on our skin should be as good as we can make it and so should our food because good food and good skincare promote health and wellbeing. They are transformative in a way that mass produced products simply can't be. They are also cost effective - a little good food or good skincare goes a long way.
Buying cheaper is not necessarily more economical, 1 slice of sourdough versus 1 slice of cheap white bread - there's no comparison in satiety, benefit or flavour. One pot of cheap, highly processed face cream may show fast results initially but at the expense of balance, strength and sensitivity, the more natural counterpart usually needs less product, acts more gently and over time it strengthens and enhances the skin permanently.
In the end for us in food and skincare, it's about making sure that every ingredient has earned its place, choosing fewer, really good quality ingredients. In my experience, true beauty rarely needs over complicating and good health starts with good food.