Can I Eat it? Advice About What to Put on Your Body From Tow Bay Area Herbalists

Here at Makers Market we’re all about using natural materials and keeping it simple. We select independent makers who stay true to their raw materials – products that are boiled down to their simple purpose. No fluff, nothing extra, just the basics. So when it comes to body products we vet makers who stay as close to Mother Earth as possible. We work with makers that know how to compliment the healing power of nature with simple ingredients, not replace that power with synthetic ingredients.

We recently spoke to three of our Bay Area makers who make herbal body products. We asked them among other things–if we put it on our skin, should it be good enough to eat?

Rachel Budde of FAT & THE MOON (shop her products here)

“To have a direct relationship with the origin of ones food and medicine is how humans have lived for thousands of years.”

Because you live on a farm you are able to grow many of the herbs used in your products organically. It must be quite empowering to take control of your product’s origins like that. Do you need to use any preservatives? What are some of the herbs you grow? Could you give us a glimpse into the process from farm to store?

To have a direct relationship with the origin of ones food and medicine is how humans have lived for thousands of years, so it is empowering on many levels to live on a farm ecosystem. I wake up in the morning and get to walk by calendula, lavender, chamomile and yarrow – get to see the bees buzzing around them, my friends adding compost to their beds. The plants are beings that lend their medicine. Cutting the herbs, drying them and then infusing them into oil is such a pleasure-the process feels so intimate.

Like food, when products are made fresh and with high quality ingredients, you have confidence that they will be eaten up. For that reason firstly, I don’t use preservatives in my products.

Your packaging design is simple, gorgeous, and sustainable. Can you tell us a little about the design process for that?

Thanks so much! I am an artist so design is one more layer where I can express the ethos of Fat and the Moon. The design is where the personality comes in. It’s such a blast to make drawings for plant medicine!

What plant or plants do you find is the most versatile and effective for skin care?

Calendula and chamomile have been plants I come back to again and again. Chamomile has special significance for me, since it is a commonly used plant for myriad issues in Slovenia, where my mom’s side is from. Both calendula and chamomile have antiseptic properties and cell repairing properties, so they support the bodies ability to balance and repair.

Which of your products are good enough to eat?

The first thing that comes to mind is creative uses of the Poison Oak Mud by the Fat and the Moon team who are a bunch of practical farmers. Poison oak is a real force, so everyone keeps a stash of the mud around. One day, it was discovered that the Poison Oak Mud also makes a damn good tooth paste. One jar, many uses- I love that! The Growing Belly Balm has also been known to end up in a taste from time to time.

Are there any plants you recommend our customers should grow and develop an understanding of if they are interested in herbalism?

There are so many plants out there to grow, so what I would recommend is folks stopping to appreciate the weeds- many which are potent medicinals. My interest in herbalism started with the weeds, which forever changed the way I see the landscape. Dandelion, fennel, mugwort and plantain were no longer ugly nuisances, but trickster messengers.

Alana Rivera of ETTA + BILLIE (shop her products here)

“I think there is no way to truly mimic what mother nature has created and the only way to feed our skin is to choose ingredients that come from natural sources.”

When we scroll through your instagram feed we get hungry. Why is it
important that the things we put on our skin should be good enough to
eat? Do you use any preservatives? Could we really eat your products if
we wanted to?

I think it’s important to be as conscious of what we put on our bodies as we are of what we put into our bodies. While synthetic ingredients can be effective, I think there is no way to truly mimic what mother nature has created and the only way to feed our skin is to choose ingredients that come from natural sources. These ingredients have been used for years to nourish and heal. Residue from all the products we use, will eventually end up in our water system and choosing natural ingredients helps reduce the harmful impact on wildlife and plant-life. I do not use preservatives in any of my products with the exception of the lotion, it is a aqueous based formula that needs a preservative to maintain it’s integrity. I suppose you could eat the products, but I wouldn’t recommend it, they taste terrible!

What are your favorite California plants to work with? Do you get any
of your herbal ingredients locally?

I find myself working with a lot of plants that aren’t necessarily native to California but love the Mediterranean climate. My absolute favorite is Lavender with Rosemary as a close second. My Lavender comes from a variety of farms located all across the US. The Rosemary is wild harvested from various areas around San Francisco.

There is quite a bit of science behind soap making. You’re often clad in goggles and rubber gloves attending to a precise and time-sensitive recipe. Who did you learn these skills from and how do your recipes evolve the more skilled at your craft you become?

I taught myself soap making from a book (Susan Miller Cavitch’s, The Natural Soap Book) and then took a few classes from The Nova Studio in Point Richmond. The soap I make now is very similar to what I started with but the nuances of ingredients and technique has changed significantly since 2006.

Making your own skin products allows you to take control of your own health as well as get really creative. Where do you find inspiration for your products and why are natural ingredients important to you specifically?

I find a significant amount of my inspiration comes from food. I’m constantly pouring over recipes on Bon Appetit, Pinterest and menus of local restaurants. I find inventive and fresh combinations which are incredible and I love the challenge of trying to emulate something in the food world. Natural is important to me because making a choice amount the products we buy and the food we eat can have a significant impact on the environment. Supporting organic and natural helps keep our waterways, wildlife and plant-life safer from the devastation of farming chemicals and mass farm production.

To learn more about each of these maker’s stories and view their products, click here.

All photos courtesy of the respective maker’s websites.