Treasured Earth; skincare for you and the Orangutans!

If you are looking for a natural skincare range with a unique edge, Treasured Earth may be just what you have been waiting for. The products have a unique scent profile, using scents such as hyacinth and honeysuckle combined with gardenia and magnolia. We caught up with Treasured Earth founder and director Cyndi Briggs to find out a little more about the philosophies behind her products, and the products themselves.

Tell us a little about yourself and why you started Treasured Earth.

I’ve always liked to create. My year 12 was specifically in Art & Design and I’m happiest when I’m making something. It’s usually some form of sewing, from dresses to the huge three dimensional tree in my daughters room.

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to learn something during my quiet period over winter, so I started to study aromatherapy. It pretty quickly went off on a tangent when I discovered that I could create my own range of skin care products, so the study got thrown aside for a while, but all of my energy went into creating Treasured Earth instead.

The Treasured Earth range avoids the use of palm oil and its derivatives. Can you tell us more about the ethics behind this?

I have had a long standing love of rainforests since I was pretty young, starting with our yearly visits to my uncle & aunt’s property in the Atherton Tablelands. It was half rainforest, half rolling hills, beautiful rivers, wildlife..... so when I learned about the issues in Asia with clearing their rainforests to make way for more palm plantations, it was an easy decision to try my best to avoid supporting that! I have had it argued to me that it is creating jobs over there, but as we can never get those forests back again, I don’t buy that argument. Not only for the Orangutans, being their natural habitat, but also for the health of the Earth. We’ve all heard by now that the massive clearing, at an alarming rate, of the rainforests in South America is affecting the Earth’s temperatures. I don’t have a lot of knowledge on the subject, but what I did learn was enough to want to make a small difference, starting here.

I then went on to become a supporter of the Australian Rainforest Foundation and am also a member of the Australian Orangutan Project.

Has it been difficult to avoid palm oil in your products?

Sometimes I think it’s nearly impossible, as everywhere you turn it is being used. It is very widely used in food also, as it is cheap and readily available. As far as skincare goes, the commonly used emulsifying system is derived from palm oil. We decided to use another one that is olive derived.

Natural soaps commonly use palm oil, as it makes a nice hard bar of soap. When we were making soaps (we have now swapped over to a body wash), we avoided using palm oil in them and replaced it with other oils. When we come across an ingredient that we want to use that is a palm oil derivative, we do everything we can to find an alternative. We’re trying our best!

The range of pure essential oils in your products is not only incredibly indulgent, but also very unique. Where there any specific reasons for your choice?

I wanted to develop a completely natural range of products, but they had to have an exciting difference to them. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel again with the usual essential oils. With the oils that were chosen, I had never heard of some of them at all (like hay and mango ginger for example) and other oils like honeysuckle, were always a synthetic version. When I came across the real thing, I was so excited. This became our unique selling point. Of course, we still use some of the more recognisable oils that have their own therapeutic properties, but we’ve just given it an exotic twist.

The Treasured Earth range is certified vegan. Why did you decide to walk this path?

I’m not vegan myself, although I became vegetarian a few years ago. When we were developing our formulations, they were mostly free of animal products anyway, so we just cut out things like beeswax and went the vegan option. To have the range certified is a guarantee to all of my customers – vegan or not, it doesn’t matter - that there are absolutely no animal products included. Even the sugar in our new body scrub is certified organic, as after a bit of research I discovered that this is apparently the only type of sugar that is not filtered through ‘bone char’.

Have you always been into natural and sustainable living, or was there something that triggered this evolution?

I grew up in the usual kind of household that didn’t think much about what we were consuming, I’m not sure if many people did then and if so they were ‘radical hippies’ (I love those!) Organic stuff wasn’t really around much in shops then as it is now, well not that I ever knew of anyway. A friend of mine triggered it off by nagging me to get out of bed way too early for a Saturday and go off to the farmers market. That kind of started the chemical free thing for me, I then went vegetarian after that, for health, ethical & environmental reasons. We watch our water and power usage here, but I still get into trouble from my husband for leaving too many lights on!

If you were going away and could take only three products with you, what would they be?

I would take the Body Wash, as I could probably also wash my hair with it and it’s a great smell to wake up to. Absolutely the Cleansing Milk, one of my favourite products. A moisturiser is a must, especially for me as I have dehydrated skin. I would have to choose between the Moisture Cream that smells divine, or the Night Cream for extra nourishment. Also loving the new serum, that will be out before the end of the year. It’s a bit hard to pick just three!

If people want to get started on using natural skincare products, what items should they start with?

Start with the ‘basics’, being the products that you use every day. A cleanser & moisturiser, no matter what skin type you are. From there, try out a treatment product, like a night cream, an eye cream or a face scrub. That would be a pretty good start, to get a general idea of how it will work for you.

Most people consider starting and running a small business a difficult undertaking, what keeps you going when things get tough?

Never lose the vision. That’s easy to say and pretty hard to do sometimes, especially when it seems like you are going nowhere. You just have to remind yourself of how far you have come. Just keep plugging away bit by bit. Giving up is never an option! I can keep going because I really believe in the quality of the products, the uniqueness of them and what the brand stands for.

The perfect day is different for everybody, how would you describe yours?

A nice hot day, cool tunes playing in the background, a glass of wine and just generally lounging around doing nothing. Preferably out in the open somewhere amongst some trees, but the backyard will do if I can’t go away. It has to be a hot day though to be perfect!

What is your guilty indulgence?

As above, but I don’t feel guilty when I’m relaxing!

Visit the Treasured Earth website to find out more or purchase your little bit of heaven online;
http://www.treasuredearth.com.au/