Genuinely Natural Beauty Products
ELIZABETH ALLEN
A new range of beauty products with a gorgeous smell, produced by local herbalist Mary Valentine and with the attractive name Wildcrafted Skincare: what’s not to like? Although the very name might make some of you suspect that here we have yet another example of so-called ‘greenwashing’, this time, the product lives up its name.
Mary Valentine, brought up in the Sussex village of Bodle Street Green and now living in Hastings, has twenty years of experience and research in this field, being an educator who has in the past worked with local schools and libraries. Wildcrafted Skincare has recently become the first UK company to be certified by the FairWild Foundation – with its rigorous demands for evidence of ecological sustainability, including wild harvesting, and of community responsibility.
The ‘wild’ of Wildcraft wins its justification in the gathering of plants from natural habitats, the woods and hedgerows of East Sussex and collaboration with organic-certified Stonelynk Farm in Fairlight. The ‘craft’ is justified in the intense preparation, each infusion holding up to ten botanicals, which may include calendula, nettle or rose-hips, every batch pressed and blended by Mary. She promises that the process cuts out “all the nasties” that creep into less ethically processed products. “The only preservative is the jar.”
In recent years there have been so many scandals designated as ‘greenwashing’ that I had assumed it was a term very generally understood. But a brief survey – admittedly one with no claims to statistical reliability – has suggested that the workings of ‘greenwashing’ are less well-known than I had believed. It is a practice of which many different kinds of business, from car manufacturers to fast fashion, cosmetics to coffee capsules, have been found guilty. Publicity is designed to make products and practices appear more environmentally friendly than they really are and so appeal to consumers concerned about the impact of their choices. Sometimes, as in the notorious Volkswagen ‘dieselgate’ scandal, this involves outright lies and cheating. Often, it is rather a matter of vague language (eco-friendly, natural), nature-inspired images (waving grass, gentle waves) all packaged in plastic bottles of soothing green.
Growing recognition of the way this branding has been designed to misinform and mislead can, of course, undermine the efforts of companies honestly working towards environmental sustainability. Companies like Wildcrafted Skincare with its genuine commitment to fulfil, in product and practice, the claims made by the name.
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