Herbalism and Botanicals in Skincare Ft. Leaf People

0:02Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. Today's guest is going to be talking to us about a wonderful brand that she's created that is really founded in the principles of herbalism. a lot of botany. I know a lot of you love plant-based ingredients and plant-based products because a lot of times they just resonate better with us, right, as consumers. I know with the clean beauty movement, many, many of us kind of gravitated towards this idea that there's a lot of answers to skin health questions in botany and herbalism. So with that in mind, I would love to introduce you guys to Julie Williams, who is the founder of Leaf People.

0:37Welcome, Julie. I'm so excited to host you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, I want to kind of have you walk us down memory lane. You know, what got you involved in just, I guess, the skincare space, but also going down this route of like herbalism and, you know, wanting to dive deeper into like plant-based ingredients and solutions? Well, I think it started really early in life for me. I grew up in rural Alaska. And so, you know, surrounded by the forests and all kinds of wild plants, most of which were medicinal. And so from an early age, you know, I had that influence in my life.

1:16And then additionally, I grew up in a sustainable household. So we also caught and processed a lot of our own food. And so just utilizing nature to survive was commonplace for me growing up. And then after leaving home, after finishing college, I ended up going on an extended trip around the world. And that was where I was formally introduced to botanical medicine. And the first stop was Australia. And I met some fantastic herbalists down there that really helped me with my own health. And that was a real eye opener and understanding that you could actually utilize these medicinal plants on a more grand scale and for really specific purposes.

1:55And so I decided to turn the theme of my trip into studying botanical medicine everywhere that I went. So whatever continent I was on, I tried to find some plant medicine teachers, herbalists. Even at times I would just be working with farmers, you know, and what they were growing locally for food because what they were growing was very different from what we grew up here in the United States. Just trying to learn and gather information as much as possible everywhere I went. And I had a beautiful opportunity to study under some amazing herbalists from South America and in Hong Kong and in Europe and Australia.

2:31And then when I returned home, I decided to go to school formally and a more broad education here. And so in the United States, I went to school for Western herbalism. And then I also have studied under a master herbalist, Lillian McCracken, for decades. AIDS. She unfortunately left us two years ago, but I spent at least 20 years studying under her as her primary student. So it was a beautiful weaving between both having education in the old world style where it's passed from teacher to student and you spend a lot of time together and you're out in the forest together and in the wild together and kind of just really absorbing all of the information from nature itself and from your teacher and from like their ancestral lineage of teaching and then also being in you know a proper classroom and with books and studying chemical constituents and blending and the more practical aspects right no that's that's fascinating because i think that's one of the most intriguing parts about anything that has to do with botany or understanding like how you know plants and herbs fit into the overall our overall understanding of health and wellness is like it takes such a long time to truly understand right I mean that must have been quite a journey for you because most of us don't get that opportunity where we can really like study how do plants how do they fit in right with normal human biology and I know a lot of times we hear things like you know there's like eastern medicine I mean I'm Indian so I grew up in a culture where it was very very normalized to talk about you know like I guess plant-based remedies for various things you know across the board and but the the biggest part was always like you'd hear about an herb or you'd hear about something but you never really understood like how does this work how is there an ability for nature to have these healing properties so readily and so that's I think one of my big questions for you is like what was the first I guess point in your journey in your education when you realized like there is a lot more here than what even you might have considered in the beginning of discovering botany and herbalism.

4:42Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so complex and you can go so many places with it. I mean, it's amazing, truly. So yeah, my first introduction was really more of like the nuts and bolts side of it. You know, these tinctures, these from these plants will help restore your liver and, you know, this will cleanse your digestive tract or whatever, you know, more herbalism like that, but not really getting into the energetics of the herbs. And then when I came back to the United States and started studying under my teacher, my master herbalist teacher, that's when we really started getting into the, and I did this in South America too, actually quite a bit, but where you'd go out into the forest and you'd be meditating with the plants and learning how to talk to them and really blend almost like your own soul essence And so your own energetic essence with their energetic essence and receive those messages.

5:42And so that is, I mean, that is such a beautiful and complex layer to the botanical medicine, you know, that's available. And then, and then also in those, as you start learning about their other energetic properties and qualities, you know, are they warming? Are they cooling? Are they drying? Are they astringent? Are they, do they like to be solo in a formula? though, do they like to be with other particular plants? And if so, which ones? And, you know, you start getting to this whole, like, fabric of these different properties that they have. That's very fascinating. Yeah, I think it's a very, very, like, I think, deep science, you know, and that's, that was like, the whole idea of what I was saying earlier was that there's so much here that people don't, we don't even know where to begin.

6:28I mean, I know, I feel like that I have a very strong biomedical background, but I look at botany, and I look, you know, I took a medical botany course, I remember in college, and I remember feeling very overwhelmed, even in that moment, because I was like, there's just so much we don't know. And you look at really, like, what do plants create, right? And like, normal everyday, like the compounds that are being created, like all of the different ways that you can utilize this. I mean, it's really, it's huge, you know, it's like a whole world. It's a whole different world. I want to talk to you about clean beauty, because you really created your brand before clean beauty, like became a thing, you know, before it became a trend and like everybody was buzzing about it.

7:03What was your approach to the initial phases of this, I guess, clean beauty movement? I mean, what were your thoughts around that? Well, you know, the clean beauty movement was kind of part of what I wanted to encompass. My main goal with creating Leaf People was to have an accessible line of skincare products or various topical products that would really showcase a wider variety of the medicinal plants that are out there. At the time that I started leaf people, you know, it was very limited and most people were using, you know, chamomile and calendula and maybe lavender and, you know, but probably like up to five to 10 herbs were commonly found, you know, here in the U.S.

7:46in like brands that were readily available. And those are all beautiful medicinal plants. But I wanted to offer something that was like a lot more complex and interesting and working with reishi and rhodiola and ginkgo and gotu kola and burdock root and some of the wild trees and things that you didn't typically see in the common skincare plants and start bringing that information and their properties forward to our customers and it was really interesting a part of leaf people has always been a connection to the community, just as plants grow in community. And they really need both each other in community to grow.

8:26They need us also as a part of their community. So we mimicked that aspect of community with the company. And I've always done like local farmers markets. I've always been available to the community. So to bring forth these medicinal plants into the community and in a more profound way was very important to me. And I remember when I first started the farmer's markets, you know, people would pick up the box and look at the ingredients and they're like, like, what is ashwagandha? You know, like what is burdock root? Like they were always questioning like what the different things in the formula were because they weren't really familiar with them.

9:00And so I would explain, you know, this plant does this and it does that and you can take it internally or you can use topically and it has this effect when you take it inside and that effect when you use it on your skin and so on. And then over, you know, a period of probably about 10 years, I started getting people in that would be like, oh my gosh, this has ashwagandha. You know, I take that in a capsule every day, you know, and they started like recognizing the plants. They were, they were starting to use them in other ways in their own life. And that was a really beautiful evolution to see.

9:31And kind of the goal that I had with people was to, you know, bring these plants forward, get them more integrated into people's daily lives, whether it be through our skincare or through their own supplementation, but just get some more energy and information about them out to the world. Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think that's kind of how we all discovered a lot of the natural remedies that we've loved. Like I know with ashwagandha, that's a great example that you brought up because it was kind of a big flood of, you know, knowledge that came in when people started discovering that specific one it's like everybody starts to understand that there are these big big hallmarks right in the realm of botany where it's like they have a lot of potential and there's a lot of therapeutic potential there and I feel like when I look at clean beauty a lot of times you keep seeing the same things come up over and over and over again so like what are your thoughts around that I mean I know that there's endless potential but like when it comes to really formulating with plants in your journey what did you find to be like the most beneficial plant species that you worked with?

10:36Well, I have definitely my own handful that are found frequently in formulas for a variety of different reasons. Burdock root is one, which is a great skin balancer and helps balance the oil production in the skin. So if you're too dry, you'll produce a little bit more oil. If you're too oily, you'll produce less oil. So it really helps balance that for people. And I'm typically coming across one of those conditions. Other people's skin is too dry, they've got combination skin, or it's too oily. And it's a great herb when it's applied topically that will handle all three of those. Of course, we love the big hallmarks, like a green tea, ashwagandha, ginkgo, gotucola, calendula, those types of plants.

11:20Another one I like, though, that you don't see as often is horsetail, which grows wild up here. And horsetail is really amazing. It helps feed and support the collagen and elastin in the skin. But then as a part of horsetail's innate intelligence and how it functions, it also helps keep those fibrils aligned. And so your collagen fibrils and elastin fibrils will stay more aligned in your skin, which will just give you a more smooth appearance. and of course both of these herbs i'm talking about are pretty much everything i've mentioned you can drink as a tea as well and you can take internally as well the the effect is not always exactly the same but they do work from inside to out and outside to in but those are a few of my favorites i also use a lot of stellaria which i love and that's for its nutritional components but also Stellaria is called the great communicator.

12:16And so it helps the plants communicate to each other in the formula, but also it helps the plants communicate to your body. So it helps that transition from the serum that you're got in the bottle to the serum being completely absorbed into your body and those medicinal properties and nutritional components actually being able to cross membranes and cell walls and go into your system and do what they're meant to do. Yeah, and that's really interesting. So I want to ask you, you use the phrase plant to bottle quite often. For someone who's completely unfamiliar with that, what makes your version of this process different from like farm to lab or like lab to label brands?

12:57So plant to bottle, you know, we really focus on exactly that. You know, at our lab, we've got tons of, you know, fresh plant material, dried plant material, and everything starts from the plant forward. So we do all of our own extractions. I do about three different types of extraction processes that, you know, I layer into each other so that we can get increased potency in the end product. And then we blend that with the high-grade oils and different hydrosols and other ingredients. And then we finish with our essential oils for each product. But it's really that starting from, you know, it's kind of like cooking from scratch, starting from that whole plant.

13:38And it's all of its beautiful chemical constituents and nutrients, as well as its energetic properties, you know, being really transferred into the bottle. I find, you know, when you have, say, lab to bottle, perhaps they rarely, depending on what lab you're working with, but I mean, they rarely have like the whole plant material in the lab. You know, they have all the extracts and the different ingredients that have already been processed, and then they're blending that together into a product. So you're missing that, like that vitality and that energy and this more subtle qualities and nutrients that are found from that original plant.

14:18yeah that's actually fascinating I like that take because it's I've always wondered too right because when you use a plant in terms of like different parts of the plant like the difference between that and like using the whole thing at once I mean there's got to be a difference there so that's very interesting what you said yeah in western herbalism and I'm sure it's similar in other herbal traditions around the world it's all the constituents in the plant are like in harmony right yeah and plants have very complex types of chemicals that are in them and and they're all like in the right ratio to each other and the right proportion and they serve different purposes and so that's also why we work from the whole plant so that we're getting that like that harmonic presentation into the extraction which then you know comes into you and and that's kind of the difference when you're working with, say, a plant extract that's just only taking certain components out of the plant, you know, like they only want the certain actives out of the plant, they're not taking the whole plant extract as a whole.

15:25And what we discuss a lot, especially when I was back in botanical school is, you know, how does that affect like the absorption? How does that affect your body understanding what to do with that plant extract? When the plant extract comes in with showcasing like all the components of the plant together, then you, your body like understands that better because some of those constituents are to help other constituents like absorb into your system or stay in balance, you know, like they all play a part. And that's, that is partially why we stay whole plant based versus taking just, you know, what is deemed the active part out.

16:08And a lot of times I don't think that even botanists necessarily, or even scientists know like how active is this particular part, you know, that, that they might be leaving out or putting in. They don't always know what each little piece is going to do. It's just that a particular part of the plant has, has been recognized as, oh, this is the active piece. That's what we'll use. But all the other little pieces could be a part of what is making that active or making that being able to be absorbed. Right, right. No, that's really fascinating because like even when we think about it, even outside of like skincare and like say like fragrance, right?

16:48Something like fragrance. When you think about what makes something fragrant, it's like multiple molecules reacting to create that synergy that's going to lead to a certain fragrance. And the same with like a lot of, I think, natural remedies or whatever people want to refer to it as there's it is the synergy that's taking place molecularly that's causing you know this interaction to occur that's going to lead to that end result so i think that's a really kind of non-discussed part of botany in general like no one really wants to talk about that for some reason which i i really get confused there as a consumer because i'm like yeah what you're saying actually makes way more sense to me than you know someone saying well we only took the seed or we only took this part of the leaf or whatever it might be like because there's no way to figure out like where where was the study done you know where was the where's the relevance of that so yeah because you know even when you look at like ancient knowledge right like a lot of these ancient texts like and you know i was mentioning like the east they talk a lot about these herbs like they're almost like indexed right all of the different herbs are indexed and like there's you know you'll see like the benefits written right next to them and and but they're talking about the whole plant when in all of those texts they're not talking about certain parts you know like one leaf or one seed or whatever this is usually not the case so it does make sense from like the the i guess science part of it also that we should be bringing it forward in that way right that's very interesting yeah well it's like you know turmeric is one that comes to mind right now you know and the level of curcumens or or certain supplements or skincare will only have specific curcumens in it and it's not like the whole everything that the turmeric is offering and so that's that's the difference that we're trying to be it's always if we're working with turmeric it's it's everything that the turmeric is offering is not just this specific curcumens right so what does it actually take to preserve the therapeutic intelligence of a plant like what is what does therapeutic intelligence mean to you when you think about well the therapeutic intelligence of the plant to me is expressed on a more energetic level.

19:00It's the innate intelligence of the plant. How do you explain that? I know it's tough. Yeah. It's something you kind of learn when you do a lot of meditation with plants. You know, I mean, they're very, they're very smart. They're very strong communicators and, and they, they've been around for so long, you know, they know so much. And so for, for me, for leaf people, when I'm working with them, you know, there's several steps. I mean, one, I do a lot of supportive Reiki energy work on the plant to support its own innate intelligence, its own energetic systems so that nothing is damaged during the picking or the drying or the processing of that plant.

19:38I also have studied extensively the Medicine Buddha and Medicine Buddha practices and Medicine Buddha, Medicine making processes. and so there's a lot of guidance and steps in those processes as well as to how to care for and keep that energy in the plant that holds that intelligence intact from when it's actually growing in the ground to when we're actually using it in the lab and then we keep little things like I have little you know medicine pouches all through the cupboards where medicinal plants are kept and I meditate regularly in the lab to keep that energy up. We have Tibetan Buddhist monks who come to the lab every year and they bless everything, you know, the building, the bottles, the ingredients, the staff, you know, all of it every year again is as a way to keep harmony in the energy of the botanicals that are being used.

20:39And, you know, so those are some of the ways my own care you know like keeping my own energy field clean and you know so that I'm not bringing any you know lower energies or dimmer energies into the process that's interesting that's really interesting so I'm very intrigued because of this meditation aspect you know with the plants I love this because I remember when I was first introduced to like the crystallization studies with water with like these lungs and that was just such a fascinating phenomena and like understanding how, you know, like actual, like the formation of, of matter and the form, the crystallization of something like water, right.

21:19Is so dictated by energy fields and like the energy fields that we're constantly, you know, kind of sending out and, and what we're receiving as well. I mean, I just would love for you to speak about this a little bit more, you know, to just educate our audience, because I just don't think this topic gets enough attention, you know understanding energy and how it really works with you know our environment and why it's important to be in nature a lot of people say that right they're like you need to spend time in nature you need to go out there and like actually sit down and like experience nature but then we never discuss that from an energetic standpoint so i'd love for you to talk a little bit about that yeah so it's you know bringing your own energy fields more closely in connection to and allowing it to merge with the energy field of either the plants or the earth.

22:06And I agree with you. People talk about, oh, you go grounding, go ground, walk on the grass. They don't really say why, but that the purpose is that so that there can be the merging of your energy fields with whatever plants you're surrounding yourself with, or if it's wild water, you know, like a river or the ocean, the ground itself. and allowing that energy field of the botanicals, the earth, whatever it is that you're putting, the situation you're putting yourself into is going to be therapeutic and restorative to your own energy fields. And so that's why you do it, right? It's healing your own energy field.

22:47It's balancing your own energy field. It's clearing your own energy field. You can use plants to clear negative energy. You can also, like if you have a place that you can go to often, even if it's your own yard, you have like a particular tree in your yard or your own flower garden. And this includes plants in your own house. You know, if you have plants that you can communicate with often, you can start building a relationship with them and then utilizing them for specific purposes. Like when I'm in my flower garden with my flowers, I'm going to use that to cultivate my happiness, just like the flowers are expressing their happiness of the plant, you know, and, and you can set your intentions as to what that interaction, what you, what you want out of that interaction and set that intention into the plant.

23:39So then that plant is there then supporting you all the time with that. And it's, it's funny. It's like, I recently, I moved into where I live now about three years ago. And I got some nocturnal plants for the first time, because I always lived places that were like a little bit too sunny, and it didn't really work for them. And, and it's so much fun, because I feel like during the nighttime, some of my other plants are kind of, you know, their energy is going down, they're resting. And but then my nocturnal plants come to life. And they're like, buzzing, you know, they're on cloud nine, because is their time of the day.

24:18And so I get this more 24 hour support from the botanicals that are in my own home, which is really fun. And it's really fun to see them, you know, kind of come active like that. And when you have a plant like that around in your home or in your garden, I think it becomes more apparent, like their energy systems and what they can do, because you can see them kind of go to sleep and then come back, you know, each evening. And that is a, it's a nice way to, or flowers that only open in the daylight and then they close in the evening. Like that's another plant. If you kind of want to start tapping more directly into the energy of the plant in a more obvious way, because they give you cues that you can actually see.

25:04And, and then easier to imagine or feel or connect your energy to their energy because you know like when they're active and awake and when they're kind of resting back and you know like when to connect with them when to you know come back into yourself so those are some some fun cues from the natural world that can help people be more aware of how we can interact with the botanicals i love that i I really love that. I think there's so much potential in like, understanding these kind of like, this neuro physiological effect that you're getting from just being in nature. I think there's just, there's just so much there that most people we don't get to explore.

25:48I mean, I know I'm guilty of it. I don't spend nearly enough time just, you know, being more present in nature. You know, I love meditation personally. And, you know, I think a lot of times with trying to be mindful, we can forget like, you know, you need to actually be mindful in the presence of nature. of other life you know there is a benefit there and there's actual like you know physiological benefits there so i think it's just very fascinating overall you know i think yeah i think also it's often forgotten how important they are for our existence like our actual physical existence yeah if we if there were no plants we would not be alive right like period you know right oxygen comes to mind exactly right you know like 100 we would not be alive and just even sitting back and contemplating that a little bit even once a week it can have a profound impact yeah absolutely i agree now i want to talk to you a little bit about and you've mentioned this before where it's called ally pairing it's a good method of ally pairing what is that and what does that mean in terms of formulation so that was something that we brought in or i brought in to leaf people again as to you know mimic nature to bring about the how plants grow in nature in that reality into the company so plants grow in communities you know they have that certain plants like to be around other plants or particular trees arnica comes to mind for instance, which I harvest wild up here in the mountains, it will only grow with certain other plants under certain trees.

27:30And that's it. Like it won't, it won't grow anywhere else. Like it has a very specific environment that it wants to be in with its friends, period. And so I brought that concept into leaf people and into the formulating because these allied plant pairs, ginkgo, GoToCola is a great allied plant pair that comes to mind that we use. They just, it brings harmony to the formula. They help each other be stronger. They give great energetic support to each other. And it's also a beautiful representation of what actually happens in nature. And so again, with lead people, you know, bringing this education forth and trying to get our consumers and our clients to be more familiar with the medicinal plants that are out there, we also want them to become more familiar with their behavior and how they are in the world.

28:25And so by bringing them into the formula in that similar way, it kind of helps push that information forward too. Oh, wow. That's really cool. I like that a lot. I mean, I think it's really very fascinating how you can approach like plant-based formulation very like holistically, you know, in a way. I mean, I think lately we've had a lot of focus on like, okay, here are the benefits, here are the actives, you know, derived from plants. Now they're talking about like plant stem cells a lot, right? With like all of these like different biotech technologies. But I still, I feel like we need to come back to this core understanding of like, truly what is herbal medicine?

29:01You know, like what does that really mean? And like, how does this work in formulation? And I think that's really what your brand represents to me as a consumer. I love that. You know, it's more, it feels more grounding in this context and because a lot of times i'm not gonna lie to you like when i hear a lot about the biotech the real biotech side of it i mean there's nothing wrong with that i'm i'm i'm excited that we're deriving things right like from like plants and herbs but you miss you miss something there you know it's like it misses the essence of like what what we're trying to accomplish here and like the synergy of like the human body and plants and their their physiology right so it's really really i don't know it's very fascinating it's all communities right it's all communities like we live in community between ourselves as humans our body itself is this very complex community with all the different organs and the different chemicals that we create just in our physical body and how all of that interacts and then you've got the natural world which is all in community you know plants like to grow in particular communities animals like to be around certain other animals.

30:08It's all these different levels of community. Right. And you can utilize plant, plant-based medicine, plant-based formulations, you know, herbalism, all of this type of study is just another extension of community, of us. Right. And we are that, you know. And so it's, I really feel it's important to keep mingling that in and out through the brand through our philosophy through our mission etc because it's so important absolutely yeah and a lot also like coming back to like just the amount of like ancient wisdom that is around plants and just nature and like natural products like a lot of the things that were I think discovered were because people spent so much time with plants you know it wasn't like they just randomly came across across an herb and said, okay, well, you know, I'm going to figure this out.

31:03No, they were in nature. Like, they were walking around. They were sitting there and they were, like, observing and, you know, like, participating and figuring out, like, exactly what you said, this community mindset of, like, this is an ecosystem. You are part of that system, you know? It's not like humans are entering it and then we're just picking something out and we're saying, okay, I'm going to figure out what's in this, you know, and how this works. It's more of, like, that's not how they approached it. So for us to now in like modern day come at it with that mindset doesn't feel right to me you know it's like you're missing a huge chunk when you do that so yeah I really resonate with what you've explained here you know it makes a lot more sense um I want to talk a little bit about like this whole trend chasing that I'm seeing a lot right now I know you know I'm sure you've definitely probably seen it way more than me you know with and you're you don't do that your brand's not doing that I love that what are your thoughts around this you know especially now with like we said clean beauty is everywhere, you know, and people love natural, the word natural beauty or whatever it is now.

32:01What are your thoughts? Yeah, I've tried to avoid the trends. Not necessarily that I've actively tried to avoid them. I just, you know, I've always been led by the plants. So that's, you know, they lead, I follow. I'll do a lot of meditation. I'll think about a formula I want to make. I'll do a lot of meditation. I'll let whoever wants to be a part of that come forward. and you know and then i'll do some research you know always back up the meditation with some research and you know does this make sense is that fitting is it not i'll go back into meditation i'll listen some more and you know and then a formula is developed and and i just go with what comes to me that way and definitely like i mean i gotta say you know like when we started using reishi and ashwagandha and those herbs i mean i was probably 10 years before the trend and then you know, you started seeing it in skincare much, much later.

32:52So my, my trend timing is, is often off because I'm utilizing a different method, but yeah, I mean, I get it. We live in a culture and a society where there's like, what's the next thing? What's the new thing? What's the new thing? You know? And so there's always got to be like, okay, well this year, it's going to be this ingredient and it's going to be sea buckthorn or whatever it is. And, and, And there's got to be like this hot kind of selling point. And I've just tried to really, again, stay grounded in myself, stay grounded in the herbalism, stay grounded in the plants and just let them inform the decisions and move forward with that.

33:36And now sometimes we do sink on a trend at times, you know, that might be trending. But a lot of time we're kind of doing our own thing while the trends are happening around us. but the products have great results you know people really respond to them and so I just keep moving forward in this way yeah I love that I think that's really that's how it should be you know regardless of what someone's approach is to the products they're creating I think in general like trends are not the way to go you know like I'm sick of it I'm sick of seeing all the trendy skincare lines popping up everywhere there rarely do you get outcomes you know with those actual efficacy and stuff.