Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare blog

The RHS are celebrating a very special occasion at this year’s show in May – our centenary! We’ve used this special occasion as a great excuse to team up with some of our favourite people to create some exclusive products inspired by the floral diversity and rich heritage of the show.

Liz Earle are as passionate about plants as we are, so it’s been fascinating glimpsing behind the scenes to see how they harness plants for their creations. They’ve created Botanical Essence No.100, a gorgeous fragrance which captures the botanical scents of Chelsea, to celebrate our shared love of all things floral. They have been working hard every day on site, come rain or shine to finish their Main Avenue pop-up shop; Jennifer, their In-house Botanist, has planted over 4,000 plants!

Chelsea is the start of the social season and also provides a platform for many to show off their new plants, design styles and the latest gardening products. It never fails to win the hearts of both keen gardeners and those new to the world of plants.

The most exciting moment for us here at the RHS is opening the gates to the show on the first day and waiting to see the reactions from guests. Working with top garden designers and some of the most knowledgeable plants people in the UK is definitely a highlight for me. As soon as the show is over, we are brimming with ideas and start to plan the next year (after a small holiday of course!).

The show is held between 21st and 25th May in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, but if you didn’t manage to get tickets, we also have over ten hours of TV coverage so you don’t have to miss out. Alternatively our sister show, RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is held in July and is also one not to miss!

Sarah Easter photo by Adam Tiernan Thomas

My deep and abiding affection for the Royal Horticultural Society was confirmed in my early weeks in London 16 years ago when I went to my first of many RHS London shows. These used to take place almost every month of the year – marvellous, pint-sized and perfect botanical shows in the Lawrence Hall, a stone’s throw from Victoria and the RHS’s London headquarters at 80 Vincent Square. Here, I found not only incredibly knowledgeable and skilled plantsmen and women selling their wares, but kindred spirits passionate about plants and in search of a specific, and undoubtedly rare, variety.

The Royal Horticultural Society and its mission to advance horticulture and promote good gardening have illustrious roots. In an era of unparallelled botanical exploration and innovation, John Wedgwood (scion of the Staffordshire pottery family, son of Josiah Wedgwood – the inventor of modern marketing, and uncle of Charles Darwin) wanted to share his research and thoughts on plants and best horticultural practice, which resulted in the establishment of the RHS. The society has moved on from its first meeting in 1804 at Hatchards bookshop on Piccadilly, but the same values are still at its heart. And it’s the synergy between the RHS’s passion for growing plants and Liz Earle’s passion for using the best botanical ingredients that has led us to collaborate.

2013 marks the centenary of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and what better way to celebrate a landmark year in the life of the world’s most famous flower show than with a fine fragrance named for it! Botanical Essence No.100 is a fresh floral fragrance inspired by the transcendent joy of floral notes that perfume the air in a terrific florist’s shop…or in the Great Marquee at Chelsea.

With the exception of breaks during the two World Wars, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has transformed the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea  into an exotic garden of botanical delights. From its beginning in 1913, the show has been a blend of nursery exhibitors and temporary gardens, with floristry and garden sundries joining the mix along the way. First erected in 1951, the Great Marquee made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest tent – a whopping 3½ acres covered by canvas.

On entering the marquee, you’d be enveloped by an indescribable heady fragrance – the result of hundreds of varieties of fragrant flowers mingling with warm soil, grass and the canvas itself. When the canvas marquee was replaced with a contemporary modular structure in 2000, I thought I’d never smell that unique perfume again.

So you can imagine my excitement when we began work on what would become Botanical Essence No.100 with the award-winning and oh-so-talented Alienor Massenet. As I described to her the magic scent of RHS Chelsea Flower Show, she tilted her head, and gave me the smallest of grins. “You mean it should smell like when you open the door at a really good florist,” she said. I nodded. “This, this is very difficult. Perfumers have been trying to do this forever. And with naturals?” She began shaking her head. So we knew were on the right track – after all, if it is elusive and nearing impossible to capture, it’s got to be a Botanical Essence!

As I smell the bottle on my desk today, I can’t help but smile. Alienor has captured that magic in a joyful fresh floral, full of the sublime essence of flower blossoms. It pays tribute to all the iconic, classic florals that have gone before while remaining contemporary, modern and totally of the moment. Something I think you’ll find the RHS Chelsea Flower Show to be in this, its centenary year.

As soon as we knew we would be creating a little slice of botanical heaven to accompany our pop up shop on Main Avenue in the showground at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, my brain was ticking away, imagining different plantings and layouts. But from the start, a couple of things were clear: the space would celebrate Liz Earle Beauty Co’s passion for botanical ingredients, our heritage as a British beauty brand, and of course our beautiful Botanical Essences.

We love natural materials and textures, so using British oak to hold our pop up shop was a no brainer. When sourcing ingredients, we keep an eye open for materials handled in a traditional way – our high altitude lavender essential oil is distilled by a family practicing the same techniques in the same spot since 1850.

So when we met the team at Made In Oak, the synergies were obvious. Like Liz Earle, they take sourcing seriously and only buy British… in fact they source most of their oak from Forestry Commission woodlands within a 20 mile radius of their workshop in Wiltshire. The oak for the beautiful pergola that will shelter our pop up shop is from carefully managed sources in Wiltshire and Staffordshire. Nothing goes to waste either, with off cuts, shavings and sawdust fueling everything from the heating and kettle to the compost toilet.

Over the last few millennia, there are hundreds and hundreds of plants that have been processed to create fragrance ingredients. So they were the obvious plant material to use to celebrate Botanical Essence No. 100 and embody our innovative approach to all of the Botanical Essences. We would create a perfumer’s garden. But with all that plant material, where to start? Fortunately, my choice was made somewhat easier by the vagaries of British climate: since every plant has to be in perfect condition for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, it’s not the place to experiment with exotic tropicals you’ve only just met. In addition to stunning Atlantic cedars, the garden will house more than 20 species of plant, each and every one the source of at least one material in the perfumer’s palette.

Our roots as a British beauty brand are something we’re incredibly proud of, and we fly the Union flag at every opportunity – from the living wall on our headquarters to the image of the flag flying at Biskra Beach House (our home for many years on the Isle of Wight) that hangs on the wall of all four of our stores. So reinterpreting the flag as the bones of the planting plan seemed appropriate, and combined together in repeated groups, the plants will make up the colours that bring the Union flag to life.

Of course, we still need paths down which everyone can amble, stopping to touch and smell the plants along the way. These will form the Cross of Saint George in our flag, and are made of Breedon gravel. Another great British material, this golden gravel has been quarried for more than half a century from Breedon-on-the-Hill in Derbyshire. This is the only quarry that makes this amazing self-binding gravel (the property that makes it perfect for walking on in high heels), and holds a Royal Warrant: Breedon Golden Amber is used in the private gardens of Buckingham Palace and other Royal properties, at a number of National Trust and English Heritage properties, as well as in parks, gardens and public spaces across the width and breadth of Britain. Even the meerkats at London Zoo like to burrow in it.  And it’s no Chelsea-come-lately, having graced the paths of several award-winning gardens over the years. You may well have walked on it without ever knowing how special it was!

All these elements will come together with a little…well a lot of help from our talented team over the next two weeks to create what we hope will be an exciting and inspirational space for visitors to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in its centenary year, as well as to those of you who are following our progress on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Every year in May, the great and good of the British and European fragrance world gather in London for the prestigious FiFi Awards. These are awarded by the Fragrance Foundation UK, a membership organisation charged with promoting excellence, innovation, appreciation and education in the fragrance industry.

For a newcomer on the fragrance block like Liz Earle Beauty Company, even being considered in the same category as some of our competitors is a compliment and an achievement in itself. So when our second fine fragrance, Botanical Essence No.15, was shortlisted in four categories, you can imagine the buzz around The Green House.

To win the People’s Choice Award – for Women, was beyond our wildest expectations and we are completely thrilled. As this award is voted for by our customers on Boots.com, it makes it all the more special. We made the decision to join the Boots family last year, and are currently in six stores nationwide with more to come.

You couldn’t have made our Boots welcome any clearer than by voting in droves for Botanical Essence No.15, so thank you to everyone who named our fresh oriental their favourite. You have put us in the company of some perfumery giants with massive distribution and commercial muscle behind them.

With its luxuriously lightweight formulation, the beauty of our new Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil is that you get fabulous, glossy locks whichever way you choose to use it – on wet hair or dry hair…and both ways are fine.

Since its launch last month, many of you have reported the visible differences it has made to your hair, boosting shine and leaving your locks healthy-looking and beautifully smooth and silky! Here are a few of my favourite comments that you’ve already shared with us…

“I love love love it!! I straighten my hair so the ends can look a bit dry at times but it made my hair look glossy and feel so soft. Also smells amazing!”
Anna Walls

“This hair oil is amazing – I love it! It leaves my hair soft and silky, and smells gorgeous. It also tames my son’s tufty hair!”
Victoria Smith

“Wow, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Until now, I’ve never found an oil or serum that tames my fine, frizzy, curly hair, and hair spray and blow dries are a no-no for me. I ordered this as soon as it came out and have only used it once after towel-drying my hair, but it has lessened the frizz already. Even my husband has noticed!”
Elizabeth Gregory

“It smells divine, has a lovely light consistency and you really only need a small amount so I can see it will last for a long time. I have used it on both damp and dry hair and it has really made a difference.”
Abigail Curtis

Healthy, glossy-looking hair isn’t just the remit of supermodels now – we can all achieve energy and luminous shine. And if, like me, you are always looking to cut corners to save time, you’ll love how much this hair oil really does speed up blow-drying time – I keep having to check that I haven’t turned up the heat on my hairdryer, as my hair dries so much more quickly now! Do share your own hair oil tips here, and on our Facebook page. Happy hair to you all!

Caroline

I have wonderful news that I wanted to share with you all as soon as possible. I’ve just returned from the prestigious CEW(UK) 2013 Beauty Awards, which took place in the spectacular ballroom at The InterContinental on London’s Park Lane. Voted for by industry professionals and experts in the field of beauty, these covetable awards are widely recognised as the “Oscars” of the beauty industry.

We’ve been very fortunate to win a number of these over the years, including Best British Beauty Brand in 2011 and Most Revolutionary Beauty Product of the Last 20 Years for our incredible Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser. Today, to add to its impressive tally of over 90 awards and accolades, Cleanse & Polish has been named ‘Best Classic Beauty Product – Prestige’, beating off some very strong competition. I could not be more delighted for everyone at The Green House, and also for our customers who love our iconic cleanser as much as we do. For one product to scoop such wonderful awards two years in a row is a rare achievement, and I feel truly elated and proud to be working with such a respected brand and esteemed products.

To walk away from the day with just one of these acclaimed awards would have been a great way to end the week, so to be able to reveal that we’re actually bringing two CEW(UK) trophies back to the island is truly the icing on the cake! Our Sheer Skin Tint SPF15 also triumphed at today’s ceremony, picking up the award for ‘Best New Make-up Product – Face – Prestige’. How fantastic to see our make up hero receiving the recognition it deserves from the very best beauty editors and experts.

I’ll certainly be celebrating today’s success with the team, plus our customer centre’s 18th birthday is coming up in May with a very special 24-hour anniversary offer to mark the occasion – look out for this one, as it’s a celebratory offer you really won’t want to miss!

Happy Friday everyone!
Julie

Jennifer Hirsch, our In-house Botanist, answers your questions about our Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil.

Q: Does it smell like the rest of the haircare range, or different?
A: Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil contains the same 100% natural fragrance as the rest of the Botanical Shine range. There are eight delicious essential oils lending their aromas to the blend:  rosemary, lemon peel, rose-scented geranium, spearmint, patchouli, sweet orange, Virginian cedarwood and carrot seed. The same fragrance will smell slightly different in a shampoo compared to a conditioner, or in a treatment compared to a hair oil because of how the blend of ingredients hold on to the fragrance – something you might notice across the Botanical Shine range.

Q: How does it compare to pure argan oil?
A: Neat (not diluted or blended) plant oils like argan, and 100% plant oil blends like Superskin Concentrate, are effective at moisturising the hair and scalp. However, if left in the hair, they can make it feel greasy or lank, especially finer hair types. In fact, fine hair can feel weighed down even after washing the plant oils out of the hair. Plant oils can be difficult to spread evenly throughout the hair, meaning some areas will be oilier than others. Additionally, plant oils may not protect your hair from the heat resulting from heat-styling tools. This intense heat can affect the keratin in unprotected hair, causing it to be brittle and potentially resulting in damage.

Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil contains a blend of silicones and plant oils to deliver the benefits of both. A carefully selected trio of plant oils are included for their conditioning, shine-promoting properties, and the formulation has been carefully composed so it can be evenly distributed throughout the hair, provide protection from damage caused by styling, reduce blow-drying time, give the hair a great, natural-looking glossy shine, and be effective for all hair types.

Q: How do I use your hair oil?
A: Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil lets our customers enjoy multiple benefits in one easy-to-use product, making it the perfect new addition to our simple, fuss-free haircare regime. We chose to formulate a hair oil rather than a serum because hair oils can be used on both wet and dry hair. You can use Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil every time you wash your hair, after shampooing and conditioning. Applied to wet hair, it will reduce blow-drying time and protect hair against damage caused by styling. Or you can use it as a finishing product on dry hair to tame frizz and smooth. You can even use it to retouch hair throughout the day. The lightweight formula means it won’t weigh your hair down.

For more top tips and hints on how to make the most of Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil, tune in to QVC tomorrow, Friday 12th April, at 10.00am and 8.00pm!

Q: Is this any good for fine hair?
A: Absolutely. Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil is formulated to be lightweight, easy to use and flexible enough to slot into any haircare regime.

Every Liz Earle product is developed as a result of customer requests, and this was no different. Almost as soon as we’d launched Botanical Shine Shampoo and Conditioners, you were on the phone, emailing, posting on Facebook and tweeting, asking us for a finishing product that would provide protection from damage caused by styling and address split ends and frizz, while continuing to give you that great natural-looking shine.

And it wasn’t just those of you with one particular hair type that wanted these benefits, so we made sure our multi-tasking Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil is the perfect finishing touch for all hair types. For fine hair, we’d recommend using half a pump on wet hair before blow-drying, and a little less than half a pump on dry hair to tame flyaway hair and frizz.

The Willamette Valley is situated between the Oregon Coast and the Cascade Mountains in northwest America. Its rich fertile soil and high levels of rainfall have made the valley one of the largest seed crop producing regions in the world. In 1983, seven farms began growing meadowfoam seed for what would eventually become the cooperative OMG (Oregon Meadowfoam Growers). Since 2000, Mike Martinez has led the cooperative’s efforts to commercialise meadowfoam seed oil, found in our Botanical Shine Conditioner for normal hair, and identify other interesting crops to grow, including the Daikon radish seed oil found in our Botanical Shine Nourishing Hair Oil.

From the field

JH: Mike, tell me more about OMG?
MM: OMG now has over cooperative 50 member farms, over half of which are multi-generational, all dedicated to the production of meadowfoam and Daikon radish seeds. We hold regular meetings with our growers and have a staff agronomist to support, monitor, and maximise sustainable crop production.

JH: Describe the Willamette Valley and the farms of OMG.
MM: The valley is 100 miles long, stretching from Salem in the north to Eugene in the south. Around 400,000 acres is given over to grass seed production, with vineyards, vegetable crops and nurseries making up another 5,000 acres of production. Valley agriculture is dependent both on longitude and latitude. One of our greatest challenges is to find crops that benefit the greatest number of our farms. Some farms have very heavy water-logged soils or land with thin top soil and both these scenarios constrain crop choices. Other farms have remarkable river bottom soil that is arguably some of the best in the valley. For the most part, they can grow anything.

JH: What makes growing in the Willamette Valley special?
MM: Oregon agriculture is different from the mainstream American staples of corn, wheat, soy and cotton – all big commodity products. The Willamette Valley is smaller scale – market-oriented, contract-driven, and attuned to niche ingredients. I like the concept of linking market-oriented producers with a seed predilection with the right market. The personal care market is constantly changing, looking for a good story, sustainability, new ingredients and good science. My job is about marrying up what the market is looking for and what is going on in the valley.

JH: Why did you select Daikon radish seed oil to be your second product?
MM: There are three reasons behind choosing Daikon as our second product. First, it is a viable rotation crop in the Willamette Valley.  Second, it is an oilseed. Third, that oil had a chemistry that was relevant to personal care.  Basically, we could grow it, it contained something we know how to make and sell, and we were willing to bet our customers would find it interesting. Daikon represents a good balance for the cooperative. Meadowfoam was so broadly liked because it grew on all soil types. Daikon isn’t perfect, but it can be viably grown on most soils – save the high clay, high water table soils in the southern part of the valley.

JH: What’s special about radish seed oil?
MM: Radish seed is a lightweight oil with a texture more commonly associated with esters and silicone than with a typical seed oil. It is this unique feel, resulting from its chemistry and different fatty acid composition, that sets it apart from the typical cosmetic oils and makes it interesting for our customers.

JH: How many of the farmers in the cooperative are producing Daikon?
MM: So far, we’ve had eight farmers produce Daikon radish seed. Our estimate is that approximately half of the cooperative has grown radish for other companies at some point. The growers selected so far are those that have the most experience producing Daikon, which allows our field department manager to rapidly learn the nuances of the crop as he works with those farms.

JH: How is Daikon different from the meadowfoam and grass seeds the farmers have been growing?
MM: Radish has two primary differences: first, it is a spring-planted crop; second, the harvest equipment is slightly different. Since radish seed grows in a pod, the combine used to harvest seed has a modification that cracks the pod before threshing the plant material. The other differences – nutrients, disease monitoring – are fairly subtle.

JH: Can a farm grow both Daikon and meadowfoam in the same season?
MM: We could not actually double crop (two crops in one season) meadowfoam and Daikon. However, Daikon has the same benefit to the farms that meadowfoam does: it is a rotation tool that removes the need to go a year without economic return. With a fall-planted crop like meadowfoam, a farm would harvest grass or grain in summer and plant meadowfoam in October. That would be harvested the following July.  With radish, the grower would allow a perennial crop (like perennial ryegrass) to grow through the fall, possibly grazing it with sheep, remove the crop in spring, and then plant radish. Radish seed is harvested in August.

JH: So what’s next for you and the farmers of OMG?
MM: A lot of the farmers are starting to look at farming methods, riparian impact and how they impact sustainability. We’re researching small and alternative grains that fit in with the other seed crops the farmers are producing. We’re still a small shop, at the ‘tween’ stage, so we’re careful and selective about what we do next. A new crop for those high clay soils is one of our current projects!

Eating chocolate chip cookies helps us make Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser. How, you might ask with a note of incredulity? Cocoa beans are fermented, roasted, cracked and ground to make cocoa, chocolate AND the cocoa butter we use in Cleanse & Polish and Gentle Face Exfoliator. In fact, cocoa butter is almost exclusively a by-product of the chocolate industry. So it’s not that enormous a stretch to say making chocolate chip cookies enables us to give the gift of great skin to more people across the globe… and some evidence suggests dark chocolate has been shown to have mood-boosting benefits. Happiness and good skin… how life-changing can one recipe get?

These cookies are the perfect treat to share with family and friends after a long Easter Sunday ramble, or a mouth-watering alternative to chocolate eggs. You now have a deliciously good excuse to indulge…

You will need:

150g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
110g butter unsalted
100g caster sugar
110g soft brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g dark chocolate chips
50g milk chocolate chips
1 tsp cinnamon
50g chopped nuts (optional) – pecans, walnuts and almonds are all delicious choices.

Placement in your oven is critical to baking success (why didn’t I learn this earlier?!). If you’re going to use two baking sheets at the same time, make sure the bottom rack is in the lower third of your oven and the top rack in the upper third. If you’re only using one sheet at a time, make sure the rack is in the middle of the oven. Proper placement makes for a more uniformly chewy batch of cookies. Preheat the oven to 190°C and cut parchment sheets to fit your baking trays.

In a bowl, sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt together.

In a food processor, combine the butter and sugars until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and blend for a further two minutes. Add the flour mix in two lots, blending between additions until it disappears.

Place in a bowl and fold in the chocolate chips and chopped nuts. Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Drop dessertspoonfuls of dough onto parchment-covered baking trays, allowing lots of space between each cookie, which will spread when cooking. Bake until golden brown – somewhere between 12 and 15 minutes. If you’re using two baking sheets at a time, swap the sheets roughly halfway through baking time.

One final tip: let the cookies cool on the tray for a full five minutes before placing on a wire rack. Your patience will pay off in perfectly moist, chewy cookies.

This March marks our 17th anniversary with QVC, the home shopping channel – and what an energetic, fun and wonderful adventure it has been!

We officially ‘joined’ QVC in 1996. Launched by anchor host Julia Roberts and Liz herself, our first show set a precedent – in less than 30 minutes we completely sold out of our cleanse, tone and moisturise essentials and Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion (all in their original pink packaging).  The rest, as they say, is history.

Our partnership with QVC has allowed us to bring our naturally active skincare to life, with monthly on-air product demonstrations and access to Liz and our experts from the comfort of your home! I joined the Liz Earle team in 1999 having already been a customer, and now sit on the opposite side of the screen, where I’ve been presenting our QVC shows since 2007 alongside our team of experts.

Liz will be back on air next Monday to mark this special anniversary – a wonderful chance to take a trip down memory lane as we reflect on the past 17 years. Please do share your own stories with us live on air via tweets, texts to the studio, live calls or our Facebook page. We’d love to hear how you discovered Liz Earle – and how it’s changed your life!

Whether you’re planning on refreshing your skincare wardrobe for spring or simply stocking up on all-time favourites at great prices, tune in to discover some great kits coming up. We will of course also be unveiling some very exciting anniversary line-ups…

Do join me on Sunday 17th March, and watch Liz herself on Monday 18th March (1.00pm, 5.00pm and 9.00pm, both days). We can’t wait to celebrate with you!