NURTURED BY NATURE
How moving to the countryside inspired Arabella Preston to cultivate a skincare regime better suited to her rural lifestyle
Arabella Preston’s rural route to a skincare revolution
Moving from London to Kent was less a moderate geographical displacement and more a total leap of faith. It has become – in the words of Mary Oliver’s poem ‘The Summer Day’ – what I plan to do with my ‘one wild and precious life’.
We always hope that our holidays will be life-changing; I took one that genuinely was. In the summer of 2015, I spent six weeks zig-zagging up the East Coast of America from Miami to New York with my husband and two children. The majority of the time we spent in deep country, among the peach groves and lakes of Georgia, or on the wild islands of the Carolina Outer Banks. Returning to Kensal Green felt suddenly grey and claustrophobic.
We’d long discussed emigrating to the country, but it had never felt like the right moment. Now every bus rumbling down Chamberlain Road felt like it carried a special message directed specifically to us: escape.
That escape took us to the verdant hills of the Kentish Weald and a home that required family life breathing into its gently neglected spaces. The owners before us had stripped almost every living thing from the garden and heaped a pile of builders’ rubble in the middle of the lawn.
What we did inherit was an apple orchard, a perfectly proportioned oak and a section of yew hedge. Having had a postage stamp of a plot in London, I woke each morning and looked out on a vista of possibility. The first spring, we watched in wonder as the ghost of a former garden revealed itself, snowdrops and daffodils valiantly pushing up from beneath the brick-strewn earth.
Determining the structure of the space became my unexpected obsession. I approached it with all the conscientiousness of my schoolgirl self, learning plant names, soil compositions, and the complex intricacies of placing and pruning. I came quickly to understand the importance of having the instinctive confidence to know when to dig it all up and start over, though I am still learning when to yield to soothing formality and when to plant fast and loose.
And I have, to my surprise, become a country woman. I carry packets of seeds in my pockets. I greet joyfully the arrival of the swallows and the swifts. The boots I wear most often are my wellingtons; I forage for sea buckthorn and wild garlic. My husband and I are now the youngest members of the village Horticultural Society.
My move to the countryside chimed with the very beginnings of Votary, the skincare company I co-founded with Charlotte Semler. It signalled a shift from the preoccupations of my previous career as a make-up artist to the passion of my new one as a beauty entrepreneur; from embellishing the skin to being obsessed with cleansing and nourishing it.
Working with make-up, I had learnt to start with the bones of the face, to pare everything back to its essential beginnings. After making the transition to skincare, I quickly adopted the same philosophy. I became fascinated by the potency of individual plant and seed oils; with creating formulas that would heal and feed the skin.
Away from London, I felt I had more space to breathe;
to attune myself to what was natural. My kitchen table rapidly became my own apothecary. Pipettes, measuring vials and green glass bottles replaced my kit bag of lipsticks, blushers and eyeliners.
The first Votary product I created at that table was the Rose Geranium and Apricot Cleansing Oil that remains our bestseller to this day. I adore geraniums and scented-leaf pelargoniums but, despite everyone telling me they are the easiest plants to grow, I have never managed to nurture a single one through the winter. Notwithstanding this, I am immensely proud of our cleansing oil. Applied with a fresh, soft flannel, the nourishing formula leaves the skin truly clean and glowing with health.
The more I researched, the more natural ingredients seemed to hold all the answers for working with the skin’s microbiome.
What we grow in the garden is a daily inspiration for what goes into Votary products, and they seem to thrive in parallel. My husband is a tomato grower, and we use tomato seed oil in a number of our ranges, as its high lycopene content has fantastic antioxidant properties. The rampant jasmines we have planted against bare brick walls prompted us to make our jasmine and calendula facial oil. Our latest launch is a Super Seed Serum, which has been formulated to protect and nurture sensitive skin. I layer it under my facial oil to nourish, smooth and protect against the elements.
Decamping to the country has made me far more attuned to the changing seasons. My skincare routine steps in time with the march of the months, the patterns that are dictated by the ebb and flow of life in the garden. Skin bears the traces of where and when you are in life’s journey. Looking after it should feel natural, easy and a source of deep pleasure.