True Stories
Beauty Garden: from the seed to the cream
Carole in Beauty Garden’s farm in Le Bourg, Auriac (France). Photo credits: Dan Courtice
Once upon a time there was a garden in the heart of France where you could harvest cucumbers, pumpkins and wild pansies with a stunning view of the Auvergne mountains. This rural garden was asleep for many years until Bernard Mas, the founder of the organic cosmetics brand Beauty Garden, decided to wake it from its sleep. In 2014, the Beauty Garden team settled in the former barn of Bernard Mas and started producing organic cosmetics ‘from the seed to the cream’. Pumpkins, wild pansies, daisies, mint, beet sugar, calendula and purple carrot are only a few examples of the veggies and flowers that Beauty Garden grows and process directly in their farm to create a wide range of organic cosmetics and herbal teas.
NATRUE: What is the story behind Beauty Garden’s creation?
Marie: While taking care of its garden in Auriac, a small village located in the heart of France, Bernard Mas, Beauty Garden’s founder, asked himself: “What if all the beauty secrets were hidden right here, in this garden?”. To answer this question, he gathered us in that garden. That is how Beauty Garden was born.
NATRUE: Can you tell us more about your motto, “From the seed to the cream”?
Carole: We are farmers, formulators and we manufacture all Beauty Garden cosmetics ourselves. Each one of our ingredients is cherished while they’re growing in our garden, and we also harvest and transform them with care and attention. For example, we dry our flowers following traditional methods. This means that our calendula, chamomile, daisies, etc. spend from 3 to 5 days in our artisanal condensation dryer, and their water is extracted at a very low temperature. This method allows us to preserve the colour, perfume and active properties of each flower, as well as the taste of those flowers and herbal plants used in our herbal teas. We make cosmetics “from seed to cream”, from our garden directly into the pot. This is how we offer a high artisanal quality at each step of our production process, which takes place entirely in our farm in Auriac.
NATRUE: What are the main challenges linked to the production of organic ingredients?
Baptiste: The garden is our centre of activity. We grow between 15 and 20 different plant and flower species following the organic agriculture guidelines. For us this is not a challenge – it is just the natural way of doing things in accordance with nature. Like every organic garden, we have to work according to the seasons’ rhythms and natural elements, so our garden is the one that decides when the next batch of cosmetics will be ready, how many we can produce, etc. Everything depends on the harvest. Beauty Garden has worked like this since day one, and our way of working with nature will never change. (Photo: Carole and Baptiste recollecting flowers to produce Beauty Garden’s cosmetics. Credits: Dan Courtice).
NATRUE: What do you think is the value of the NATRUE Label in the natural and organic cosmetic sector?
Marie: We chose NATRUE as the label for our Beauty Garden organic cosmetics since the very first days of the brand. It seemed the perfect option for us as NATRUE provides guidance in regulatory matters as well as on aspects impacting the design of the products. We are proud that Beauty Garden cosmetic products are certified to the most rigorous standard for natural and organic cosmetics to date, and we value the fact that the NATRUE formulation requirements are precise and clear.
NATRUE: What would you say to brands that want to join NATRUE? And to consumers that look for truly natural and organic cosmetic products
Carole: We feel like NATRUE is more than just a label and we see the relation between Beauty Garden and NATRUE as a real partnership. They are valuable advisers on international regulatory issues, they are the voice of the natural and organic sector at international level and they promote the NATRUE Label as well as its brands in various international trade shows, such as VIVANESS, Natexpo or Cosmoprof.
Marie: All Beauty Garden organic cosmetics are NATRUE certified. Working with the NATRUE Label and seeing the strictness of their standard and formulation requirements makes you feel safe and reassured as a consumer. When choosing a NATRUE certified cosmetic, you know that the brand behind it is truly committed to the natural and organic cosmetics sector. That is the reason why NATRUE is a label that every consumer in the world can trust.
From left to right: Marie, Baptiste and Carole in Beauty Garden’s farm. Photo credits: Dan Courtice
Click here to see how Beauty Garden cosmetics are produced from the seed to the cream
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