Plant People
Meet three inspirational women who credit plants as the key ingredient for business and for pleasure.
How plants are a key ingredient for success
Sandra Clair, Artemis
Happy. Alive. Nurtured. Strong. That’s what Sandra Clair feels anytime she’s surrounded by nature.
Clair is a plant medicine expert, former journalist, and historian, currently studying a PhD in Health Sciences. New Zealand has been her home since 1995, and unsurprisingly plants are at the root of her personal passion and business – she’s also the founder of Dunedin-based plant medicine company, Artemis.
“Growing up in Switzerland, I spent much of my time learning about plants; their medicinal qualities and how they can keep people healthy,” recalls Clair.
“Over there, natural healthcare is a living medical tradition that stretches back hundreds of years – physicians and traditional healers still prescribe medicinal plants extensively.”
And many plant remedies are funded by general health insurance, she says.
Clair says that nature provides us with everything we need to support our existence – and the best part about plant medicine is that it can be used for self-care.
She extols the use of plant medicine to support the liver as part of a daily ritual.
“An optimally performing liver will see a host of improvements made to both your physical and mental wellbeing; more energy, a boosted metabolism, a stronger immune system, better circulatory and lymphatic function, more restful sleep, a balanced mood and clear skin.”
She acknowledges that our health and wellbeing has su ered, due to the extra stresses of modern life and the detachment from nature.
“Now more than ever, we need plants, and plants need our stewardship back. Not just for our wellbeing, but for survival.”
Georgina Langdale, Archeus
While visiting a dear friend that was very ill, Georgina Langdale wished she could somehow “wrap her up in goodness”. This thought lead to the idea of dyeing natural textiles with medicinal herbs.
Herbs that heal was already a succesful part of Langdale’s business, Archeus, an apothecary studio providing personal care in the form of skincare and herbal therapies, based in the Hawke’s Bay.
“I started by combining natural textiles and medicinal herbs,” says Langdale. “What came of that was a beautiful merino shawl for my friend.”
This spurred her to team up with traditional hand-loom weavers and Ayurvedic doctors in India to create yoga mats as well as herb-dyed linen.
“The fabric of our yoga mats and bed linen is dyed with concoctions of medicinal herbs, and all the colours come from the herbs,” says Langdale, whose background includes a stint at prestigious UK botanical institution, Kew Gardens. “The blue hue comes from indigo – a plant that has been used in natural dyeing for a very long time and has natural benefits like toxin relief. Yellow comes from turmeric, the herb du jour right now, which has amazing antiinflammatory benefits. Red is partly from sandalwood, and the browns and greenybrowns come from ingredients including tulsi.” Langdale says she has always been a healer. An only child who grew up on a farm, she remembers regularly disappearing into nature. She’s been sleeping on her just-launched bed linen for a few months now, and insists they make a big difference to sleep quality. “It’s amazing. The bedding is very soft and if I go back to my normal sheets that I bought from high street shops they feel kind of inert – although the downside of sleeping on natural linen is that it’s so much harder to get out of bed!”
Kati Kasza, Evolu
Plants are in Kati Kasza’s DNA. Making kombucha might be on-trend today, but it was what her family always did growing up. “Food was our passion,” admits the Evolu skincare founder. “At breakfast we’d be talking about what we were planning for dinner, sourced from our garden.”
The child of a botanist and herbalist mother and a winemaker father, Kasza was destined to infuse nature and nurture into her passion.
There’s a science to working with plants, she says: the function and the aroma need to work well together to make consumers feel good when they use it.
“Plants don’t need to smell sweet,” Kasza clarifies. “It’s about what makes us smile, what makes us feel good on a parasympathetic nerve level, often called the rest and digestive system.”
The plants that feature in Evolu’s products are also high in antioxidants, including geranium and kiwifruit seed oil.
Kasza’s wellbeing tip is to slow down. “Cleansing your skin isn’t just about taking the dirt off your face; [think of it as] a kind of plant meditation. Connect with your breath and yourself; your cleanser could work in a completely different way.”