While soil may not sound like the most exciting and glamorous topic, our team at the farm has a different take. The rich nutrient dense tunbridge soil of the Champlain Valley nurtures the botanicals used in our Farm Beauty Complex, so we thought it was only right to share the excitement. Come follow along as we share the process of true farm to face skincare, starting with our soil. We will be updating this series throughout the summer as our garden transforms from seedlings to some of our favorite beauty botanicals.
The Garden
Our certified organic skincare garden is located just around the corner from our headquarters on our farm in Vermont. At our headquarters, our products are ideated, formulated, batched, and packaged all under the same roof.
"A quick walk down a dirt road will take you from the offices to our skincare garden: where the magic truly begins."
The Farm Beauty Complex
Our organic skincare garden is where we grow our Farm Beauty Complex, a skin nutritive maceration of Vermont native herbs that is used in almost every formula. This complex features a concentrated blend of Arnica, Borage, Alfalfa, Meadowsweet, and Calendula.
This maceration is a skin superfood that provides a full spectrum of skin-essential nutrition for optimal skin health. The blend of Vermont native herbs features 2 essential fatty acids, 6 minerals, 11 vitamins, 9 antioxidants, and 18 phenolic compounds & nutrients.
The Process By Month
Our organic skincare garden has been run for over a decade by Doreen, the garden manager. She oversees the entire process to ensure every herb is given attention, and care.
In the winter, locally sourced seeds of these Vermont native plants are purchased by Doreen and her team. Then, the team anxiously awaits for the temperamental Vermont weather to turn warm enough to begin planting.
May: May is known as mud season in Vermont. But our team knows these rainy days are essential for a healthy harvest. The soil is raked, tilled, and tended to daily to ensure it is fully prepped for planting. By the end of the month, planting has begun. Seeds are placed in the nutritive soil by hand, and gently covered. Then, we wait.
June: In June, our skincare garden is tended to daily by our in-house team with the utmost love. Seedlings are watered and weeded daily. Each herb is tended to by the loving and nurturing hands of Doreen and her team. By June, all of the herbs in our Farm Beauty Complex have been planted are being watched with a careful eye to ensure a healthy harvest.
July: Excitement buzzes as summer on the farm is in full swing. There’s cows, chicken and sheep galore: summer barbeques, and new product launches. We invite friends of the brand to come witness the magic season themselves: and the most exciting? The garden is in full bloom. The team anxiously awaits August harvests, and guests are able to enjoy the beauty of our fully flourishing skincare garden.
August: In August, calendula, alfalfa, borage, meadowsweet, and arnica are all hand-picked one by one at their peak potency by the very team that planted them only a few short months back. They are carefully moved to the greenhouse and placed on drying racks, and then left out to dry for a few days to a week — depending on humidity levels. Luckily, Doreen’s an expert and has perfected the proper timing.
Once determined to be dry by Doreen and her team, the flowers are carefully garbled and cleaned to remove any non-nutritive stems and leaves. When deemed ready, the dried flowers are carted along the dirt road up to the office buildings (typically by golf cart — truly).
September: Once the herbs have been cleaned and brought up to our offices, they are then checked and approved by our Quality Team to ensure the harvests are up to our standards.
After passing through many loving hands, it’s finally time to create the magic potion. Our Batch Team takes the dried flowers and begins the maceration process. We weigh each of the garbled flowers individually. Our Farm Beauty Complex is made in a temperature controlled maceration process to capture the full spectrum of nutrition and extract the powerful phytonutrients from each flower.
When the maceration is complete, we have our Farm Beauty Complex: our proprietary skin superfood that elevates the nutritional capacity of all of our formulas.The maceration is then kept on hand to be used in all upcoming batches.
We put a little bit of this maceration into almost every formula. It’s our way of providing your skin with the phytonutrients it needs, while also giving you a drop of Vermont in every green glass bottle. Directly from our farm, to your doorstep — and made in Vermont by our passionate teams.
