Where It All Began - Cyprus and the Classic Range

I enjoy reading origin stories, the moment that someone, looking for a product that they can't find, choose to make it themselves, or they need to fix a particular problem and think of a novel approach to achieving that, or they admire someone, a parent's work or someone they meet and feel they want to continue the legacy. If you're of a certain age the TV ad for Remington Steel Shavers still makes me laugh with Victor Kiam proclaiming, "I liked the shaver so much I bought the company."

For me, it wasn't any of those motivations. I wasn't looking for a particular product, I didn't have a problem that needed fixing (a 'pain point' in modern marketing speak)  there was no particular legacy to follow and Victor Kiam I am certainly not. I had 6 children, various cats, chickens, ducks and geese, a degree in Law, a postgraduate degree in teaching, a diploma in Homeopathy, a love of Herbal medicine, was a fine knitter and an excellent potter, I barely had time to brush my hair let alone engage in an elaborate skincare regime.

I hadn't used a great deal of skincare through my life, the creams my mother used were expensive but unappealing. I didn't like the heaviness or the strong scent. I didn't like feeling as if something was coating my skin. As a teenager the routine was cleanse with a milky liquid, tone with something akin to paint stripper and moisturise with Oil of Olay (now Ulay!). I read a report recently that 49% of used skincare and 24% of unopened products tested from the 1970s were contaminated with Pseudomonas, a particularly nasty little bug that can cause rashes, pus filled skin lesions and deeper tissue damage. In retrospect I'm glad I used so few products.

Instead, for me, it was a slow dawning, a coming together of ideas about what skincare could be, what years of organic plant work might offer, how my training in Homeopathy and work with Herbs and Tinctures could be combined to make a real difference. 

The skincare available in my adult years were paraben heavy horrors, perhaps in response to the totally inadequate preservation systems of my youth. They were about big business and big scale production, huge profits and half-truths. They pushed the anti-ageing trope, they capitalised on vulnerability and the products felt energetically dead. 

In 2005 I moved to Cyprus. It was a turning point. Walking the mountains and valleys amongst the flowers and herbs, spending time in ancient Olive groves, going each weekend to the local market piled high with affordable fresh fruit, veg and herbs, I realised what I had failed to see in the UK, that there could be an alternative and it could be amazing.

And then by chance I met a Herbalist and distiller - Mariam Khan. She was the final piece in the puzzle. Through Mariam I learnt about distilling hydrosols and essential oils from plants that were growing in abundance - Orange Blossom, Lavender, Sage, Thyme, Mint, Grapefruit, Mandarin, Lemon and Rose which is still my favourite plant. Then I met beekeepers who supplied me with honey, propolis and wax and Olive oil producers who pressed the olives in the traditional way to make a peppery polyphenol rich oil. I bought it straight from the mill, unfiltered, unlabelled, totally fresh. I watched the baskets of olives arrive on old pick ups covered by a blanket and the damselflies gather around the piles of discarded pressed olives Then I started to gather resins from the trees, high in the mountains and applied my herbal knowledge to extracting the therapeutics. I bought herbs from the women at the market who sat under umbrellas with small tables and bunches of Dill. Parsley and Mint and jars of homemade Hellim. Every ingredient was bursting with life and vitality.

Armed with my own hydrosols and oils I started to make my own products. I began with olive oil soaps because the ingredients were so readily available and so many of my patients had skin issues, in part from the horrible soaps they were using. I sent my sister on a course in the UK and then she came to Cyprus and taught me how to make it. It was joyful. The soap was incredibly lovely on the skin, packed full of natural glycerin and scented with herbs and essential oils. My little kitchen became a workshop in the day and then everything was put away and washed down ready for the kids returning home.

Then I started looking at commercial skincare much more closely, what struck me was how far it had moved from the natural, how by scaling and being solely profit driven it had lost its soul and more importantly its connection to the living world of plants. It had no vitality and no love, it was made by machine so there was no intention in the stirring and mixing. Ingredients were added to facilitate its movement through the machine, not for the benefit of the skin. In response, I decided to expand my range.

Months passed by, testing and testing, failing and failing. Batch after batch, learning more each failure but never quite right and then, one day, I cracked it and made Face Cream #3. It was utterly beautiful. Made with Labdanum, Frankincense and Myrrh, Rose and Bergamot in a light but really nourishing Olive oil base. Strangely I succeeded because I made a much bigger batch, it allowed the ingredients to mix properly with enough volume to create a really strong emulsion. We still make that cream. It's still our best seller after so many years. It is the perfect moisturiser if you use makeup. It sinks in rapidly, is non-greasy, smells divine and that trio of resins is the holy grail of support for mature skin.

When I smell it, it instantly transports me back to Cyprus, I can feel the warmth, recall the sensation of picking Cistus up in the mountains, hands sticky with the Labdanum resin, remember the warm breeze and sitting on a sun-hot-rock, under an ancient Pine tree looking out to sea. Very happy memories.

From the Cream, I developed other products as I understood they were needed. I've never made anything without understanding its need and purpose, a constant stream of products for novelty's sake has never felt right. Women were looking for a routine rather than a single product so I made an incredibly lovely Cleansing oil #5 - oil cleansers are fantastic, they remove make up and the grime of the day effortlessly and simultaneously balance oil production on the skin. Far from causing breakouts, the right oil cleanser will balance sebum production and help to restore the skin microbiome that is damaged and undermined by harsh cleansers.

Then came the Serum #3, the most beautiful mix of powerfully therapeutic oils. My friend Mariam had a seed oil maker in which she made Black Seed oil and Pomegranate Seed oil, I bought one and used it to make the Pumpkin Seed oil in the Serum, I don't do that now but I did love it and still have the machine.

As a routine, the Cleansing oil followed by the Cream for the day and Serum for the night are really excellent but the crowning glory was and still is, our distillations. The Rose Face Mist and Rose Geranium & Witchazel Face Mist both began their lives in Cyprus and then we carried on growing and distilling them in Sussex, and now in Harris we have found the Rose Geranium to be happier than ever. Our greenhouse is overflowing with it which makes me endlessly happy. Cuttings of plants that we grew in Cyprus, came with me when I moved back and over the years, with good propagation they have continued to flourish.

I look at the product range that we have now and see how it is a part of each phase of my life, how every product is founded on an individual landscape, on capturing the very best therapeutics and quite literally bottling them. There is no doubt in my mind that working as we do makes for the very best quality skincare you can buy. We don't have the hype or the marketing budget, our instagram feed isn't polished or glossy but it's real. We concentrate on doing what we do best which is looking after your skin and supporting you in any way we can. We exist to make life a little bit better for the wonderful people who choose to support us. That's what matters to us.