Last week I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Elaine, the creator and owner of 'Hawthorn & Rose', where I interviewed her on some topics. If any of you do not know this company then check out my latest blog post, where I go through all of their beauty products that they offer. So I hope you all enjoy reading this and please leave comments!
Melanie: Hi Elaine!
Elaine: Hi there Melanie!
Melanie: Thank you so much for inviting me down to the County Living Fair to see your wonderful collection!
Elaine: That's quite alright. Thank you so much for coming down!
Melanie: So, let's get right down to it. What made you decide to embark on creating your company 'Hawthorn & Rose'?
Elaine: Well Melanie, I come from a very beautiful area in the west of Ireland. It's on the shores of a beautiful lake called Lough Carra, at the foot of the Partry Mountains, so there's a lot of heritage in the area. And I really wanted to move back up to that kind of craft heritage. We have a farm, so it's a real agricultural area and I always loved the idea of being at home on the farm and having a craft business of my own. The name 'Hawthorn & Rose' came about when I was out walking one Spring evening with my Dad on the lake and I could smell the wild mint growing along the lake and the blossoms were just coming out on the Hawthorn trees. I had to think of a way to incorporate this into my company name and so I came up with 'Hawthorn & Rose!'
Melanie: You place a special emphasis on your products being 100% natural and therefore not containing any 'Palm Oil', what is your passion behind this?
Elaine: I chose not to use Palm Oil in my products, after finding out about how much of an impact the production has on the environment and as with anything if you use it, you're putting stress on the environment. Unfortunately Palm Oil is so widely used in production and what you'll find is that food producers will put Vegetable Oil on their packaging and they won't specify what it actually is. Sadly Palm oil is one of the cheapest oils that you can purchase and for that reason you can see why manufacturers are replacing the maybe better quality oils with Palm oil. I just think that it's such a shame to do that and so that's why I refuse to use it myself!
Melanie: Where did you obtain your initial inspiration for this concept of product?
Elaine: Well I suppose it really came from when I was thinking about how I would really like to be self sufficient. At home we have a vegetable garden and a farm so obviously we know where all of our crops come from. I thought about what things my Grandmother might have made or even my Great Grandmother in fact. They would have probably made their very own soaps, because at that point it wasn't so easy to maybe buy things of that sort. It was a craft that people did at home and when you think about it soap is one of the most basic necessities, because it is one of the best forms of hygiene just washing your hands with soap. So I thought well if I could make my own soap it will be so self sufficient!!
Melanie: So then what made you want to branch out from making soaps and go into creating the scrubs and the body butters?
Elaine: That's a good question! Well the reason I did that is because once I was making my soaps, I started to realise a variety of ingredients that were out there... You can potentially use the forms of seeds, nuts and plants. I realised the ingredients that are in the soaps are good enough in their own right and so for that reason I decided to make the body butters which are the raw ingredients that I make with my soaps. So they sit quite nicely together and complement one another!
Melanie: How did you come up with your concept of design and packaging for your products, which I personally feel are not only beautiful to look at, but ultra feminine too?
Elaine: With regards to the logo, I wanted to keep it really soft and maybe hand painted in that kind of style. So again just keeping with the craft element as everything is handmade. The packaging again it comes from that craft almost cottage feel. I wanted to keep it quite simple as I didn't want to take anything away from the products, because the products on their own, say so much! The colours and the patterings are very vibrant so it would have been a real shame to have covered them up!
Melanie: What was the inspiration behind your soap patterns, especially the marbled multicoloured one?
Elaine: So this comes from ink marbling, you know from your papers and you would have noticed it in a lot of books, so it's something that's quite an old craft. So I looked through some ink marbling and I got inspiration from that to help me design my soaps!
Melanie: If you could choose, what would be your favourite product from your collection and why?
Elaine: That's a really tough question! I do feel quite passionate about the Shea Butter range. Shea butter contains a lot of Vitamin D which is renowned to have a collagen boosting effect. So if I really had to recommend any product, out of the whole range, it would have to be the Shea Butter range. I love the Shea butter soaps and I love using the Shea butter body scrub and body butter. It's really nourishing for the skin! So that would be my one thing that I couldn't do without!
Melanie: Well thank you so much for that Elaine, it was truly wonderful to be able to chat to you in depth about your company and I'm sure my viewers at home too will be very interested in what your company has to offer!
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