From big pharma to her own beauty brand, join us as we chat with Jene Roestorf, the founder of Luxe Botanics, about her journey with botanical beauty products. A woman who grew up at one with nature, she found herself going back to her roots, harnessing the planet’s goodness to restore health through natural beauty.
Imagine getting off a plane, when your skin goes horribly red and inflamed and you have absolutely no idea why. That’s what happened to Jene Roestorf, the founder of Luxe Botanics- which led her on a journey to start her own line of natural beauty products. Dive into mindful skincare rituals as we chat with Jene and discover the best ingredients for skincare.
A mindful skincare ritual is when you are not only enriching your skin, you are also enriching the communities that are harvesting (these ingredients) and the environment. – Jene Roestorf
We chatted with Jene about:
> How she went from working in a pharmaceutical company to working on natural beauty
> Her struggles with entrepreneurship
> The social impact Luxe Botanics is making
> Read about the dirty dozen skincare ingredients to avoid
Luxe Botanics’ Kigelia line beauty products – Taken from Luxe Botanics
Why did you make the jump from working in a big pharma to starting your own line? What’s your story?
JENE ROESTORF: I’m South African. I grew up in Africa and I was someone who grew up in the garden, chasing ants and playing with chameleons. I had a strong tie to nature all my life. From all my travels and moving to Australia and then Singapore, I knew I wanted to do something that would bring me back to nature. After 10 years of pharmaceuticals, I had the opportunity to really increase my scientific knowledge and understand clinical trials, as well as figure out how things really work for the skin. Hence, I decided it was time to step away and reconnect with my need to be near nature.
What’s the story behind Luxe Botanics?
I’ll never forget coming home one night, getting off the plane and my skin was horribly red and inflamed and i couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized that not one of the products I had in my cupboard had anything good in it – they all had something bad, something that inflamed my skin or irritated it. This incident really led me to go towards natural and organic. I’ve tried it myself for 6 months to a year before starting the business to make sure it really did work.
You’ve always believed in the idea of “nature to nurture”. Now we’re talking about mindful skincare routines. Why don’t you unpack that term?
Luxe Botanics was started with the idea that everything is innovated by nature but designed to nurture. There are two arms in Luxe Botanics that tie into that and bring together what we call a mindful skincare ritual.
1. Luxe Botanics is formulated with botanic ingredients
That means we’re totally natural, and all scientifically proven. Our ingredients also have a long history of traditional use as well which is a big part of starting the brand with my African heritage.
2. Sourcing ethically and harvesting sustainably
When sourcing ingredients, the question was how to make sure we source in the most ethical way and also give back to communities that harvest for us through a fair-trade living. We also worked with cooperatives on the ground that improve those communities we wanted to help. When we harvested, we also made sure we didn’t strip the environment. A big part of our brand is about sustainability and being very transparent and honest about where we get our ingredients and how we package them.
#LittleGreenSteps to understanding and ensuring a mindful skincare routine
1. Pay attention to your skin. Always get to know yourself before you even look at the products.
There is a lot of marketing and you have a lot of people telling you what to do. You need to know your skin first before you read the back of your bottles. Your skin changes every day based on what you need, what you eat and how you feel mentally and the environment you’re in. Look underneath your eyes, they’re the biggest giveaway. From redness, inflammation to dark circles, this is the first place to notice. In your smile lines and under your chin is where you start seeing lack of hydration. Look for unevenness in colour and texture. We were all born with amazing skin, it’s the things we have come across in our environments that made it change. Once you start paying attention to these factors, you start realizing what you can change to make your skin bitter.
2. Read the labels on the back of the bottle
Read through them and try not to be too scared about the chemicals you see. If you start reading about the chemicals in bananas, you’d be scared too. Take a brief read and one of the more interesting resources is the EWG (Environmental Working Group) that’ll look up the ingredient and it’ll tell you on a scale of 1-10 how good/bad it is.
Read more about Luxe Botanics and check out their website.
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*Cover photo is taken from Luxe Botanics’ Facebook page