From Summer Harvest to Year-Round Skincare with Farm-Grown Herbs

Do We Only Make Skincare in the Summer? 

I’m often asked whether we only make skincare products in the summer, when our herbs are growing. The answer is no. We harvest during the growing season, store the herbs, and use them to make extracts and skincare products all winter long.

We are not simply selling finished products made during the summer. Making extracts and blending products continues throughout the year, even when nothing is growing in the fields. Here’s how our summer harvest supports year-round production.

Harvesting During 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” for use throughout the year. Aromatic herbs, like lavender and rose, are distilled fresh to capture their aromatic essence. The resulting hydrosols become our face and body mists and are blended into other products as well.

Storing Herbs 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. We value it as a botanical ingredient in formulas for soft, comfortable-feeling skin.

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

Making Herbal Extracts Throughout the Winter

Throughout the year, including all winter, we transform those stored, dried herbs into extracts. Depending on the compounds we want to extract and the final formula, we use oil, alcohol, or water. Different plant compounds dissolve in different liquids, so choosing the extraction medium is part of the formulation process.

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 go directly into the product without extraction.

You can read more about the science of herbal extracts and solubility. Below are some of the oil extracts on our shelf.

The Fields Rest, but Skincare Production Continues

Our harvest is seasonal; our skincare production is not. Stored herbs allow us to keep making extracts and products throughout the winter, rather than limiting production to the months when the plants are growing.

It’s all part of our Farm to Skin philosophy: staying closely connected to the herbs we grow and the formulas we make. The growing season may be short, but the work in our lab continues all year.

Bring a little of our farm into your daily routine with our farm-distilled Face and Body Mists or Springtide Gold Face Cream.