My recent travels...

The generous quantities of high quality, naturally active ingredients are a key reason why our range is so phenomenally effective. We literally go to the ends of the earth to source the very best, most effective botanicals and then use them in amounts that really work. Researching and sourcing these wonderful ingredients is one of the most interesting and challenging parts of my job and I’ve just returned from a fascinating field trip to East Africa, on the trail of a truly amazing new plant ingredient. I can’t say too much about it at the moment (it’s still being tested and reviewed for a really exciting, brand new, product range for next year…watch this space…), but I can tell you a little about my extraordinary trip and give you a flavour of the excitement soon to come.

As you probably know from recent pictures in the news, there has been a major drought across sub-Saharan Africa for the last six months or so and this has had a major impact on all kinds of crops and harvesting. For us, scheduling our production and the availability of key ingredients, such as shea butter and essential oils, takes great skill from our supply team as they forecast crop requirements often far more than a year ahead. Most botanicals only harvest once a year, so once they’ve been used up there are no more supplies until the following harvest-time. Unlike standard synthetics, we can’t simply step back into the lab to concoct more chemicals. We’re also subject to the vagaries of nature and the recent climatic catastrophe has played particular havoc with the flowering shrubs and trees. So when I arrived in the Great Rift Valley (a vast expanse of land that runs down the entire Eastern side of Africa, running from North to South) ready to film some special flowering trees, I discovered acres of forest – but not a single blossom in sight; not even a bud, let alone a petal! This was not great news for our filming and photographic mission as we had hoped to capture some flowering footage prior to harvesting for a new website clip.

Our trip had been planned for some time and we’d arranged to meet representatives from the Kenyan Forestry Commission whose job it is to protect the Rift Valley’s trees from illegal logging and deforestation. We were set to meet by a petrol station in a small shanty town at the foot of the main escarpment and, sure enough, two hours after the appointed time (not bad for a country where transport and time-keeping is erratic at best), a pick-up truck arrived with an official and several camouflage-clad armed guards. It’s somewhat nerve-wracking walking through the bush accompanied by complete strangers armed with AK47s, but we were told they are armed to deter poachers, bandits – and buffalo! Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any of these…just plenty of smiley, waving children from the local Kikuyu tribe, intrigued and excited to know why we were there. We also saw several of the local harvesters who will hand-gather the precious botanicals we’ll need and whose communities will greatly benefit from the income this will generate for them.

Suddenly, shortly after we set off on foot, the heavens opened…yes, the six-month long drought decided to break on the very day we embarked without so much as a folding umbrella between us. The weather changed unbelievably quickly – from sunshine to stair-rod rainfall seemingly in seconds as rain-filled storm clouds darkened the immense Rift Valley skies. I sent a quick text to Kim back home to let her know the situation and she summed it up with her SMS reply “fabulous and miserable all at the same time!!” The rain ended up pouring down across much of Kenya for several days without a break, especially on the coast where bridges collapsed and many roads were washed away, making our transport tricky. It certainly made sense of the phrase “it never rains but it pours”. The good news is that these welcome rains are at last turning the dry, dusty arid African plains green again and we’ll be returning once the blossoms are in full bloom to bring you more news of the very best botanicals this remarkable region so abundantly provides.

Globe-Trotting Skincare

I’m on the trail of finding a good organic source of avocado oil here in Kenya and so spent the day with a farmer friend in Naivasha who grows many different tropical fruits. Avocados grow well here and are a cheap, plentiful food for the local people – I bought a big basket full and worked out they cost about 3p each! They were twice the size of anything I’ve seen back in the UK and far tastier too as they ripen naturally in the Kenyan sunshine. Avocados are fabulously good for the skin as they are naturally rich in essential fatty acids which help prevent moisture loss. They are also a good source of lecithin (useful for processing cholesterol in the body) and also provide good amounts of Vitamin E. We eat them chopped into salads at lunchtime almost every day here. After strolling through her fruit trees, Colleen showed me the latest addition to her family – three tiny baby warthogs, recently rescued. They are so young that they have to be fed powdered baby milk with mashed up Weetabix and Colleen has started to add oils to their feed as their skins are so dry. I told her that this is exactly what I did for my four children when they were small and suffering from patches of dry skin and eczema! These babies really were very cute and incredibly friendly – although they’ll soon outgrow the small, fuzzy stage and grow sharp little tusks, so they’ll have to be re-integrated back into the wild before long. Returning home in the evening dusk we had our own wild animal gathering at the waterhole which was just teaming with game. A herd of young buffalo were there, alongside half a dozen huge hippo, twenty or so zebra and some impala. It was fascinating to watch the animal hierarchy – first the buffalo came and dominated the water, seeing off the hippo who waited in the wings. They were only allowed to drink once the buffalo had finished, followed by the zebra and lastly the antelopes. Finally a lone warthog trotted up when all was quiet.

A funny thing then happened later in the evening. I went to supper at a friend’s house to celebrate the birthday of a young Dutch vet who has recently moved here with her flower farmer husband. There were only about 8 of us there and I took her a small bag of skincare treats as a birthday present – a Cleanse and Polish Starter Kit (UK, US) (of course), the Instant Boost Skin Tonic Spray (UK, US)(perfect for the hot weather here) and a Smoothing Line Serum (UK, US) to help rehydrate after sun damage. She unwrapped the products and we started chatting about them when I saw one of the other guests staring at the packaging in disbelief – “where did you get that?” she asked. “My mother came to stay at Christmas and brought me some of this – she’s just started buying it on QVC and says it’s fantastic – I’ve been using it since Christmas Day and my skin is so much better, I love it – how come you have it here too?” When I told her who I was, her chin nearly hit the floor! What a very small world we live in – it seems Naturally Active Skincare is a real globe-trotter and you’ll find it in even the most remote homes.

Liquid Treasures

This morning I flew with Claire Jones, my glamorous commercial pilot friend in her small safari plane across the vastness that is the Rift Valley from Naivasha to Athi River. We passed Mount Longonot and flew over the famous Ngong Hills, that resemble a row of knuckles on a fist. Whenever I see these green hills I’m always reminded of the first line of Karen Blixen’s famous Out of Africa “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills”. Actually she had a farm on the outskirts of Nairobi (the area of Karen was named after her), but that’s poetic license for you – at least she would have seen the Ngongs from her veranda view.

We landed on a grass strip on the edge of environmental researcher David Hopcraft’s ranch where we were met by Wayne Barrett of Earth Oils. I’d come to visit his oil processing plant at Athi River and to see some of the many wonderful botanical oils that pass through his doors here. A former farmer forced to flee his essential oil farm in Zimbabwe with little more than the shirt on his back, Wayne and his business partner Campbell have built a wonderful plant oil processing company, with high quality facilities to cold-press many different organically grown oils, including sweet almond, passion flower seed, macadamia nut and shea butter. It’s interesting to hear how these plant oils directly benefit so many small scale family farmers here in Kenya – and other African countries such as Uganda and Sudan too. For example, passion fruit juice is a popular drink here and many small farms sell their passion fruit to the juice pressers. Previously, the seed would have been discarded, but now, these families can in effect sell their crop twice – once for the juice and again for the seed oil. Even the left-over ‘cake’ of empty seed husks can be sold for high-protein animal feed so nothing is wasted. I especially admire the enterprise Wayne has set up for the local macadamia nut farmers: The nuts are collected from the small farmers and graded, with the best going to the snack food industry and the less perfect specimens going for oil processing. All the nuts are now used in this system and the left-over mulch again goes for animal feed – even the macadamia shell husks are used as renewable fuel for the oil pressing machine – a completely perfect eco-system with no waste and lots of benefit for the local economy (and the environment). Brilliant.

Wayne and I discussed many different plant oils – a shared passion – and I learnt a lot more about the way these liquid treasures are processed, which is just as important as how they are grown when it comes to assuring the best quality. Cold-pressing produces the highest grade as the oils are broken down by any form of heat, which encourages rancidity. Unfortunately, cold-pressing is very much harder to do as the cell structure of the oils is harder and so yields less oil. Cold-pressing is also time consuming and expensive, but the resulting oil is far superior. Earth Oils are committed to their cold-processing production and it was encouraging to make contact with a company as committed to quality ingredients as we are.

North to Samburu

I have been in Kenya since just before Christmas, combining family festivities on our small farm here with some botanical research and field trips. So I must begin this entry by saying a big Thank You to all those who kindly sent messages of concern after the turbulent elections here. I’m pleased to say that we haven’t been anywhere near the pockets of tribal unrest, which have been in far-flung areas of Western province and in some slum areas of Nairobi. The international media painted a picture of an entire nation in flames, which has been very far from my experience travelling around the country. I have only seen calm good humour from those around us – coupled with great sadness for those affected by the localised riots. Everyone here hopes and prays for a swift and peaceful electoral resolution, but in the meantime, fears the damage has been done to the country’s economy which relies so heavily on tourism. Each employed Kenyan feeds 10 other people and the Kenyan Association of Tour Operators estimates the industry’s woes will affect around a million people, plunging more families here into hardship. To put the awful headlines into perspective, there hasn’t been a single incident involving a foreigner or tourist since the crisis began, yet the holiday and travel cancellations has already lost the country $1 billion in the last 10 days. Kenyans are an incredibly industrious and entrepreneurial people but this will be a very difficult time for them and a slow road to economic recovery.

On a happier note, I have had wonderful trips to stunningly beautiful parts of this lovely country, travelling firstly north to Samburu, home of the eponymous Samburu tribe, some of the most remarkable people in all Africa. I stayed with friends from the UK at a new eco-lodge called Sasaab, perched high in the hills in the middle of what seems like nowhere. Sasaab is one of a new breed of eco-friendly co-operatives, where the Samburu lease the land to investors, who in turn run an eco-friendly holiday sanctuary. The revenue is shared and the Samburu use these essential funds to pay for their children’s education and medical care. You can see pictures of this extraordinary Kenyan hideaway at www.tamimiea.com and I highly recommend it (and the other eco-lodges featured) as a holiday of a lifetime with a real difference, that makes a difference.

One of my trips involved travelling by camel train and I visited a Samburu village, where I was greeted by women dressed in colourful beads who danced, sang and clapped as I arrived. They put beaded necklaces over my head as a welcome gesture and made me dance a strange neck-bobbing jig with them before showing me how they live in this extraordinarily harsh but beautiful landscape. My translator (a very fit Samburu warrior called Matthew) explained how the women do 95% of all the work (nothing new there then), including building the low huts out of twigs, sticks and goat skins. They tend and milk the goats, bring up the children, cook and clean as well as make beaded bracelets and necklaces for the women and warriors to wear, as well as to sell to travellers like me. As for the males, the young boys herd the goats between grazing; in their late teens and early twenties they become warriors (watching over their cattle, protecting their community) and in later years they are the village elders who sit under trees playing games and deciding important tribal matters. Not much grows in this arid landscape, although they do use the medicinal properties of the Leleshwa bush, which has antiseptic properties similar to tea tree. In some areas, this pale green leaf is being collected and distilled into a therapeutic essential oil, and I’m bringing some home for us to investigate further. They also use twigs from the toothbrush tree to clean their teeth and massage gums, as these have useful antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties to prevent gum disease. The vast Samburu landscape is coloured a deep brownish red from the earth, with dots of Leleshwa green and the wait-a-bit thorn bush (which gets its name from the annoying way it snags skin and clothing as you pass by, causing you to ‘wait a bit’ as you carefully unhook yourself from its prickles). Every now and then there is a vibrant splash of shocking pink flowers on a Desert Rose bush, which looks very beautiful but is actually deadly poisonous: It’s what the Samburu warriors use to make poison-tipped arrows. It causes instant paralysis, which I guess makes it a tribal version of Botox.

Christmas and Research in Kenya

I’m now back in Kenya for Christmas, combining time spent with family and friends with some new botanical ingredient research in the New Year too. One species our botanist Anna Macleod and I have been investigating for several years now is the fascinating ‘sausage tree’, so-called because of the long sausage-shaped pods that hang from its tall branches, not unlike salamis hanging in an Italian deli’s window. The sausage tree (real name Kigelia africana) has some very unusual and interesting skin-tightening and firming properties, as well as being a useful local antiseptic and anti-inflammatory ingredient used here in herbal medicine. It’s also a very attractive tree, with large, dark green, fig-like leaves that provide useful shade cover in very hot climates. We have an extensive tree planting programme here on our small farm and one of the first things we do on arrival is to check on their progress. I spent the best part of today in thick-soled, thorn-proof boots walking the boundaries to make sure that all our newly planted trees are being regularly watered and protected from marauding giraffe, who like nothing better than to nibble out the tasty central crown shoots of a young thorn tree. I was especially keen to check on the progress of the three small Kigelia africana planted last time I was here. We chose a hot, dry, dusty area at the back of our boundary for these, in the hope that they will one day provide a useful respite from the relentless sun. Fortunately, they don’t seem to be to the giraffe’s liking and they all look healthy and strong, with lots of shiny green leaves sprouting.

There’s no doubt that extreme sun exposure causes many problems for the skin, especially in tropical countries or locations close to the Equator. The arid desert plains of Kenya are especially harsh as there is low humidity and little moisture in the air, so the sun over-dries the face in an instant. I’ve been especially pleased that I packed several jars of our Superskin Moisturiser, as its high levels of skin-repairing Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) and plant oils are fantastically re-moisturising without being in the slightest bit sticky. It’s so rich and nourishing that I can feel my skin being instantly replenished and soothed after a long day in the extreme heat. I’m obviously using our Sunshade SPF25 when outside too, but the additional antioxidant benefits of the pomegranate and natural-source Vitamin E are especially soothing and repairing. By contrast, I’ve just received the last instalment from Dr Amy Rogers, the researcher we helped sponsor for new research into climate change on an Antarctic expedition. There are probably not many skin creams currently being exposed to two such climatic extremes so many thousands of miles apart – and it’s good to know that Superskin’s botanical formulation holds up well under pressure! Here is Dr Roger’s last journal entry:

Dr Amy Rogers writes:
“I’ve now been in Antarctica for about 5 weeks. We were due to fly out last week, on December 10th. Unfortunately an Antarctic snowstorm has meant that we have been stranded here with no possibility of an aircraft landing to pick us up. We haven't seen the sun for nine days now and have had total whiteout conditions. At the moment visibility is down to a few metres. We've also had snow drifts up to six feet high, so we have been busy digging our tent out of the snow each day to ensure we don’t end up buried. The weather has cleared and we are hoping that it will be possible to clear the ice runway of over 6000 tonnes of snow by tomorrow morning. If the plane from Punta Arenas can’t land tomorrow, then we will most likely be stuck in Antarctica for another week. This means that we could be spending Christmas in Antarctica. We’ve all got our fingers crossed that the snow-blowers will be able to move the snow off the runaway before the weather closes in again. This last week has brought some new challenges to test my Superskin moisturiser. Now back at the main basecamp we spend a lot of time moving between mess tents and the outdoors. This can involve temperature changes of 30-40 degrees. Moving between these different temperatures doesn’t seem to have presented too many problems. I’ve been really pleased with the way that the Superskin moisturiser has worked at protecting my face in such extreme conditions. It’s made my Antarctic expedition a lot more comfortable. Instead of the lasting skin damage that I was worried I would get from being here, I think that my skin feels better than it did before I went away.”