One of my New Year’s resolutions was to make our home healthier and greener. It’s quite a task and I’ve adopted the ‘eat an elephant in small chunks approach.’
The first area that I focused on was cleaning products and as most supermarkets have launched their own eco-friendly range, made from plant based, non-toxic, bio-degradable ingredients, this was quite an easy job.
Finding affordable sulphate and paraben free hair products was a little trickier but we did manage to find these as well. In terms of skin care products, I was seriously procrastinating!
I just didn’t know where to start, and then in the same weekend I came across three fantastic North Somerset based family businesses, and today I’m going to tell you about the first of these wonderful businesses, Grace and Hartland who have a regular place at the Clevedon Sunday Market on the Alexandra Road site.
This family team, Sheila, her husband Ray, and her daughters Amy and Nicola love being at the market because they are able to talk to customers about what they offer, people can sample the products, advise about how to use them and discuss future products that they would like to see.
The venture began when Sheila developed an interest in creating natural skin care products suitable for her sensitive skin that didn’t cost a fortune. Due to imminent retirement Sheila had some time to research and explore the possibilities and like many women of this age who have had successful, primary careers, the thought of a second one was uplifting and motivating rather than daunting.
Around the same time, Amy and Nicola were becoming more mindful of the added chemicals in the cosmetic products they were using. With the support and skills of their significant others they formed a small family team. Following much research, training programmes and many long discussions and experiments with formulations they created Grace & Hartland’s unique recipes with no sulfates/SLS, no parabens, no silicones, no phthalates, no palm oil, no artificial fragrances, no artificial colours, no artificial preservatives, no animal testing, and no plastic bottles or packaging…..
Grace and Hartland believe that you should love your skin naturally whatever your age and giving your skin the best ingredients without chemicals, preservatives or additives is what they are all about and was exactly what I was looking for.
Grace and Hartland support the growing movement towards eco-friendly and chemical free beauty products and all their products are hand-crafted using natural, high quality ingredients sourced from UK companies that have similar ethical values.
During small batch production, no plastic equipment is used and their aim is to keep packaging to a minimum. They use only recycled paper (even for the handmade paper bags) and all products come in glass bottles or aluminum jars. Their products do not contain added chemicals of any kind. They have Cosmetic Product Safety Reports (CPSR) on all products and are fully compliant to the EU cosmetics regulations.
Grace & Hartland have created six beautifully scented Body Butters. These are made from organic shea butter, sunflower oil, vitamin E and a blend of essential oils and come in a range of scrumptious perfumes: pure lovely lavender, patchouli and lime, lemon and rosemary, ylang and frankincense; neroli and sweet orange and ylang and frankincense.
They have also produced a beautiful Facial Cleansing Oil that I would thoroughly recommend. It’s made from sweet almond oil, caster oil, sweet orange essential oil and a dash of lavender. You massage it into your face and then remove it with a warm damp flannel, cotton pad or muslin. It leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth and while I was using it, I felt as though I didn’t need to use any night cream which was an added financial bonus. It also lasted ten weeks which at £8 was is a real bargain!
You can then follow on with their Original Facial Serum made from macadamia oil, apricot kernel oil, sunflower oil, olive squalene, vitamin E and frankincense and lavender essential oils. This was such a beautiful rich product, the smell was gorgeous, it left my skin feeling very smooth and was a great base for makeup. While I was using this, I stopped using a primer. The Advanced Facial Serum is a focused blend of high performance oils notably rosehip, camellia seed and avocado. It’s suitable for all skin types but particularly for more mature skin.
The exfoliating Bath Scrub which is new to their range uses a full mineral Dead Sea Salt as the base along with grape seed oil, a natural vitamin E antioxidant and their signature blend of Grace and Hartland essential oils in three different blends including Raspberry and Sweet Orange.
Also new to their range are the Body and Bath Oils – Exotic and Sensual or Restoring and Uplifting, these are made from grape seed oil, rich in vitamin E, combined with lemon seed oil and rosehip oil and their own unique blend of essential oils.
The final product in the current range are their Lip Balms – Sweet Orange and Lemon, Pink Grapefruit and Tangerine, Peppermint or if you prefer it – just Pure and Simple scent free.
It was lovely meeting Sheila, she’s a wonderful example of someone flourishing in retirement, creating a range of eco-friendly, sustainable beauty products that mean good skin care at an affordable price.
I’m looking forward to featuring Sheila at a later date for ‘Humans of Clevedon’. Check out the ‘Humans of Clevedon’ blog posts here:
Check out the Grace & Hartland website here: or on Facebook here: