Organic natural skin care products from Australia: five must-haves, from lavender body oil to Manuka honey
- Why do sheep shearers have such soft hands? How does a cream used on cow udders ease psoriasis? Australian skin care entrepreneurs take inspiration from farms
- We pick the products you can’t do without from five natural beauty companies Down Under – they’ll make much better souvenirs than the usual tourist tat
Forget a toy platypus or a Sydney Harbour Bridge fridge magnet, the best kind of souvenir from down under is a product from one of Australia’s “farm beauty” brands. Think natural, often organic, products made with Australian ingredients.
Lanolin
Family holidays at her grandparents’ farm in a remote part of South Australia inspired Kirsten Carriol to start her award-winning beauty brand, Lanolips.
“I would see how my grandfather's calloused hands would always be soft after a day of shearing sheep. My father (a scientist) would call lanolin ‘nature's wonder moisturiser’ because of its skin mimicking and moisturising ability,” she says.
Medical-grade lanolin, a cruelty-free by-product of washing wool from sheep, is the core ingredient of Carriol’s products. It comes from the fleece of sheep after they have been sheared on farms across Australia and New Zealand. After the fleece is washed, the lanolin, in the form of an oil, is extracted, then purified.