My research trip to Switzerland…

I am constantly researching new ingredients, suppliers, growers, farmers and initiatives looking for the highest quality natural actives obtained and extracted with the utmost skill. A visit like the one I made to the Swiss Valais a few weeks ago is just the first step when considering a botanical for inclusion in a formulation.

Anyone who clambers up mountains can tell you just how incredible the plant life is. Alpine plants are generally considered to be those growing above the tree line and at this altitude have to contend with some of Mother Nature’s toughest assaults.

In their struggle, alpine plants have developed mechanisms to survive low temperatures, protect themselves against UV damage, hang on to water when it is in short supply or when the wind or sun conspire to steal it and most importantly ensure that their genes are carried forward. Tiny size, mound-forming, furry and/or succulent leaves are just a few of the adaptations alpines exhibit. Alpines produce extra flavonoids, phenolic acids and iridoids (potent chemistry that protects them against environmental assaults) and these can be extracted to make effective naturally active ingredients for skincare.

My hosts were alpine farmers who organically grow a range of native alpine plants with painstaking care. Each seedling is hand planted, weeded around, and nurtured before the flowers, leaves or roots are hand-picked…all in all a labour of back-breaking love. They were incredibly enthusiastic when welcoming us (as you can see from the six piece alpine horn ensemble). The income generated from selling their herbs for extracts enables these farmers to stay in the Alps working the land their families have been connected with for generations and hopefully for many more years to come.

6 piece alpine horn ensemble

The wonders of aloe…

While all these days of sunshine are just the ticket for making my garden grow, they do leave my skin parched and gasping. Fortunately, I can rely on the hydrating power of aloe vera to refresh, revitalise and rehydrate my thirsty skin, activity that has been harnessed for more than three millennia.

All that hydration is the result of some very clever adaptations aloe has developed over millions of years to cope with the stresses of its native environment. Aloe vera (properly called Aloe barbadensis) and all of the 300 plus other species of aloe come from Africa and the islands off its coast. The ability to store and retain nutrients and moisture is vital for surviving in arid environments. Aloes are able to close their stomata (tiny openings on the epidermis of the leaf) to ensure that as much water as possible is retained within the plant and not lost through evaporation. This capacity to conserve water allows aloe to survive long periods of dry weather and even drought conditions.

Another clever adaptation to hang on to water is the way aloes (and lots of other plants) hold their leaves. Aloe leaves are arranged at specific, predictable distances in a spiral around the stem. This mathematical arrangement is known as the Fibonacci sequence and appears repeatedly in the plant kingdom. Each leaf provides shade for a different neighbour as the sun moves through the sky over the course of a day. This way, less of each leaf is exposed to the water-sapping sun and the whole plant conserves more water. Not an adaptation we can harness to benefit your skin, but a fascinating example of just how complex plants are.

Aloe leaves are a half-oval shape: the upper side of the leaf is flat, while the underside is convex. At the leaf’s centre is a translucent gel surrounded by a sticky layer, then a sap layer, and finally the tough, grey-green outer skin or rind. When that skin is pierced, the gel and sticky layers flood to the surface and almost instantly create a barrier, ensuring that a minimum of precious liquid is lost. Research has shown that applying aloe vera to superficial skin wounds can help accelerate healing.

The large amount of moisture in aloe’s leaves is responsible for its reputation for cooling. To maximize the amount of liquid in the leaves, the aloe in Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare is picked early in the morning. A single leaf can yield up to 500g (one pound) of gel.

On hot summer days, bottles of milk jostle for space in my refrigerator with Botanical Aftersun Gel, Instant Boost Skin Tonic and even our new special edition Foot Spritzer as I take advantage of aloe’s benefits. After all, where else would one store cool drinks for the skin?

Introducing James Lambe…

At the heart of every Liz Earle product are the best botanical ingredients. We do an enormous amount of research to ensure that you get fantastic products you can trust. This research takes us to fields, libraries, laboratories and kitchen tables around the globe. And on these travels we have built strong relationships with suppliers, exchanging knowledge, the latest research and a lot of laughter. I’d like to take you back to James Lambe (we first shared a visit to James in our 2007 Autumn newsletter), just one of our inspiring suppliers, he brings great naturally active ingredients and ideas from the fields of his farm to the bottle on your bathroom shelf.

James and his wife Emma supply us with (among other things) echinacea, which we use in our Skin Repair Moisturisers, Nourishing Botanical Body Cream and Hand Repair.  They gave up life in London to farm in Ross-on-Wye in 1977. Growing and processing herbs at Castle Farm since 1980, the Lambes have defied convention, with Emma running the farm and James shepherding Blue Sky Botanics, the extracting business that grew out of processing herbs. Although he’s fond of playing down his reputation as one of Europe’s leading lights when it comes to herbs (he was the founding President of the European Herb Growers Association, and Treasurer of the British Herb Trade Association), there is no disguising James’ passion for the environment, people, herbs and extracts. I’ve asked James a few questions to find out more …

1. How did you and Emma get started growing herbs?
During the late 1970s Emma was growing a field of flowers for drying. This news spread locally and in 1980 we were asked to grow some fresh parsley to be used in Marks & Spencer Chicken Kiev. From this first enquiry we expanded the business to supply fresh herbs to the ready meal industry.

2. When did you convert Castle Farm to organic and why?
When we acquired Castle Farm a large part of it had been farmed in a traditional way without the use of herbicides and pesticides. The flora and fauna on that part of the farm were more diverse and numerous than on the areas that had been farmed using chemicals.  As a passionate naturalist, Emma quickly decided that the whole farm should become organic. It was first certified organic in 1986 by the Soil Association, and soon after, the farm won the Silver Lapwing national award for wildlife conservation and commercial farming.

3. How did growing herbs lead to extracting them?
As our herb growing business expanded we continually researched the market and the properties of various herbs.  I also became involved with other European herb growers and this led to a fascination in the techniques of extraction which capture the essence of plants.

4. Why is traceability so important to you?
Full traceability of our raw material is an essential legal requirement for any business like ours but we have a strong interest in understanding the origin of all our herbs. For those herbs that we don’t grow and dry on the farm we like to know the exact farm or wild area where they have been grown; this is best achieved by using certified organic or fairtrade herbs.

5. What values do Blue Sky Botanics and Liz Earle Beauty Co. share?
Both companies care passionately about the power of plants to enhance people’s lives. We also believe that to bring these benefits to the public, plants should be grown and processed in ethically acceptable and sustainable ways. Blue Sky’s commitment to biodiversity and green chemistry allow both companies to achieve these goals.

So each and every time you use any of our Skin Repair moisturisers, Nourishing Botanical Body Cream or our Hand Repair, you can have confidence in the quality of the echinacea extract we’ve used. After all, from seedling to extract it only makes a journey of 100 metres, and all under the watchful eye of the Lambes.

Vitamin E: Some Plants do it better

Plants have one thing on their mind: continuation of the species. Over millennia, they’ve evolved amazing strategies to ensure the continued success of their offspring. Lucky for us, too! Our skins benefit from these evolutionary efforts. Take vitamin E, for example. Only plants make vitamin E, and different plants make different amounts of this precious antioxidant. If you stress plants by not giving them sufficient water or providing too much sunlight, they actually make more vitamin E to protect themselves.  How much they make usually relates to their propagation strategy.

Wheat has a one-shot deal. It’s an annual, so it is dependent on the success of one year’s offspring to pass on its genes. Relying on the wind to spread its seed far and wide, evolution has eliminated a heavy, hard shell in favour of a feather-light husk (bran). Then there’s the germ - the part of a plant that grows. The wheat germ is packed with vitamin E to preserve it against nature’s assault from heat and the light of the sun. All that vitamin E ensures that the seedling is able to send the energy it makes and produce the necessary chemistry to grow. A coconut tree, on the other hand, invests a lot of effort in protecting its seed with a big fleshy fruit and a hard shell. All this physical protection means there is little need for the plant to produce vitamin E. Wheat and coconut are just two extremes of a whole range of vitamin E levels plants contain.

With its wonderful moisturising and skin-conditioning properties, vitamin E plays a huge role in our range, where you’ll find it in beauty must-haves from Superskin Moisturiser to Daily Eye Repair and almost anywhere in between. And to make sure that our skin reaps as much goodness as possible, we only use natural-source vitamin E - which is demonstrated to be between two and three times more potent than synthetically produced. Plants simply do it better...

Eyebright

I think it is one of life’s great ironies that as soon as the weather is perfect for gardening, everything that can produce pollen does and I am struck down with hayfever. Fortunately, Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion comes to the rescue of my weepy eyes.

The eponymous eyebright, or more properly Euphrasia officinalis, is a small annual herb found on dry, chalky grasslands from Britain to western Asia. Our eyebright is wild-harvested from the Podlasie area of north eastern Poland where it is known as swietlik. When it blooms in June and July, the plants are sustainably harvested by hand from midday to early afternoon.

As with so many plants, there is more to eyebright than meets the eye (apologies for the pun). Above ground, eyebright looks like any other plant with bright green leaves. But below the soil’s surface, suckers from its roots spread around and tap into neighbouring grass roots to absorb extra nutrients. In this way eyebright supplements the energy it gets from photosynthesis with nourishment from the grasses it grows with. This vegetarian vampire depends on this extra energy and will only grow with these grasses, a characteristic which makes eyebright difficult to cultivate.

The ancient Greeks named the plant Euphrasia after Euphrosyne, one of the three Graces and the goddess of joy and mirth. Eyebright is chock full of potent plant actives like tannins, flavonoids and glycosides that have well-established reputations for helping to reduce puffiness and soothe irritation. For millennia, it has been known that eyes can get back their gladness and sparkle with a little help from eyebright extracts.

I like to combat itchy eyes with soothing compresses made from a cotton pad soaked in refrigerated Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion while I dream of spring rains that will push the pollen levels down. Add a generous dollop of Superbalm for my tissue-worn nose, and I’m back out digging in the dirt in no time.

Find out more about Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion in the UK, IE & US.