Visit to the farm.

Summer is my absolutely favourite time for Woman Divine.

This is the time of bounty, when local healing plants are harvested for our formulations and for our treatments.

Every year, I impatiently wait for the days when I can visits our friend and partner grower, Anne Janssen of Creek’n Tree Farm.

It’s truly a blessing to visit Anne and her land, to get a peak into her day and to be part of the harvest. Even if for a few hours.

I make the point to do this every year simply so I can be close to the growing plants but also so I can always remember how much work goes into growing medicine and food. I find that this keeps me humble and fills me with gratitude both to the earth and to the people who work so hard to feed us and to feed our skin. 

We were chatting with Anne while harvesting her beautiful plants and it is obvious that Anne does what she does simply because it’s her passion. It is a labour of love which is physically demanding and somewhat unpredictable as we never know what weather conditions we will be presented with during a given year. 

Generally, organic growers are not in it for the money. Most find prosperity through providing a valuable service, through doing work which supports healthy life on the planet and they absolutely treasure their connection to the land and to the plant life. 

when I say that local growers feed us well, I really mean it:) all grown with Anne’s hands and on her land.

Anne tends to the soil and grows plants with her hands. She doesn’t use any machines so the process is slow and as she says herself, it’s not efficient. 

For Woman Divine, Anne picks flower by flower with her loving hands. She carefully plans how to group plants so they can support each other as they grow together. There is science and incredible devotion to everything Anne does. 

I am honoured to know Anne. Woman Divine products wouldn’t be what they are without Anne’s love for the land and her hard work.

Nothing that we do, we do alone. Prosperity and success mean different things to different people. My hope for the world is that we will value that which brings wellbeing and sustains life over that which brings profits alone. I see it as the only way to move forward if we are to continue as part of life on Mother Earth. There is no time to waste. We each need to do our part. Voting with your $$$ is a good place to start.

Magdalena xo

My thoughts on Beauty Industry, ingredient sourcing and transparency.

I’m part of a professional group and there was an interesting discussion about transparency and ingredient sourcing in a skin care product formulating.  I would like to share some thoughts with you on this subject because I believe it is an important one.

In general there are very few companies in the skin care industry that are truly honest about their ingredients. Period! First it was (and still is) game playing with the word ‘organic’. Many used one organic ingredient in their formula but made it sound as if their whole formula was such… Some did not use any organic ingredients and still managed to sneak the word ‘organic’ into their packaging and advertising.  Now I can smell the same thing happening in regards to ingredient sourcing…. So watch out! The industry is going to entertain you with words like ‘transparency’, ‘sourcing’ and such for the next little while.

To tell the truth, I don’t spend much time any more on trying to figure out who speaks the truth and who does not. I don’t even consider myself part of the industry to be honest. I do my small thing in my small way and I am content with it. My products are truly a micro-batch creation and when I call it ‘artisan’ and ‘handcrafted’ it is because these are proper and honest words to describe what I do. Tim Hortons has an ‘artisan’ sandwich and a ‘handcrafted’ latte on their menu now. You could think we work in similar ways lol. 

I feel like I am part of something much more beautiful than the INDUSTRY can ever be or offer. I am part of a still small, but very potent movement which is built around TRUST and RELATIONSHIPS and HONESTY and COMMUNITY and a simple belief in surrounding yourself with decent, solid human beings whose intentions and integrity you don’t have to question. 

I thought about my sourcing practices and I must say they are not very complicated at all. I happen to know the people who grow herbs for my product. One of them is a dear friend, the other came to me as a client a long time before I bought any herbs from her. We know and understand each other’s values and beliefs. That’s what keeps us together:)  They have my full confidence. I know how much love and care goes into their growing practices and I’d like to think that they trust I will put their hard work of growing herbs to good use. When I purchase other ingredients which come from far away places (which I had no chance to visit personally yet) I do so through people who have developed relationships with small producers around the world, similar to the one I have with the herb growers. TRUST is a common theme.

I understand, that the bigger the company the more tricky it gets to have this kind of connection. The beautiful values of HONESTY, TRUST, RELATIONSHIPS, COMMUNITY, which I cherish are lost and abandoned in mass-produced product and profit driven industry. Isn’t it ironic that we call it BEAUTY INDUSTRY. Where did the BEAUTY go?

Magdalena xo