How We Make Herbal Extracts for Our Skincare Products

People ask: “Since your products contain herbs, do you still make them in the winter when nothing is growing?”
The answer is YES — we make products all year long so they’re always fresh. The secret lies in how we harvest, store, and process our herbs.

Harvesting in the Growing Season

During the summer, we grow and harvest herbs on our Certified Naturally Grown Farm. Most herbs are carefully dried on racks in our “herb hut” to preserve their beneficial compounds. The aromatic herbs, like lavender and rose, are distilled fresh to capture their aromatic essence. That distilled hydrosol becomes our face and body mists and is blended into other products as well.

Storing for Year-Round Use

Once dried, our herbs are stored on shelves on the farm, arranged (more or less) alphabetically. Calendula is by far the herb we use the most, thanks to its skin-soothing and repairing properties. You can read more about the benefits of calendula here.

Here is some of our calendula stored on a shelf. It's bright orange color is retained all year.

Turning Herbs into Extracts

Throughout the year, we transform those dried herbs into extracts. Depending on the final product, we extract them in oil, alcohol, or water to capture their full range of beneficial compounds. These extracts are stored in jars in our lab until they’re ready to be blended into creams, balms, and more.

Our dried herb blends for bath teas and dream pillows will go directly into the product without extraction.

 You can read more about the science of herb extracts here.  Here you see some of the oil extracts on our shelf.

Why It Matters

We dry or distill our herbs at the peak of summer, then use those stored botanicals to make fresh extracts and products all year long. Even in the depths of winter, when the fields are resting under snow, our summer harvest allows us to keep crafting effective skincare. It’s all part of our Farm to Skin philosophy — overseeing every step from seed to final jar to ensure the highest quality for your skin.