016. Yarmouth Oilskins
A pioneering founder story celebrating over 120 years of British craftsmanship.
From a wild and rural childhood filled with the power of plants, an inspiring journey of personal healing and relentless pursuit of natural skincare solutions has led to the creation of Hibi Botanics.
Working from a charming garden studio on the edge of Frome, England, Rose balances motherhood with the joys of entrepreneurial success, continuously innovating and inspiring confidence in women everywhere. Here’s her story.
My childhood was wild and rural and I grew up in awe of the power of plants.
My mum, who made her own skincare, taught me how to make my own concoctions from the field and hedgerow plants that surrounded my home – healing balms, teas, salves made with Elderberry, Comfrey or Rosehip.
I suffered from eczema in my teens and twenties and was often battling with very dry, inflamed skin on my face and arms. I wanted to learn more about the skin, how our body’s largest organ functions and if there were any solutions that could be found with plants. This lead me to train in natural skincare formulation and, eventually, design a treatment for myself that changed everything.
Creating highly effective skincare using purely plant derived ingredients became an obsession.
My once dry and irritable skin had never looked so healthy and happy, so much so that people were noticing. So I started to slowly craft a range of high performance skincare that was designed to visibly improve skin health, using powerful plant extracts, oils and butters, and free from undesirables like parabens, phthalates and synthetics.
Now Hibi is in it’s third year, and the response from my customers has been truly incredible. Helping people feel more confident and radiant in the skin they are in is everything.
My team is just me, for now. I have a one year old, Gabriel, who is often snoozing in the background whilst I’m labelling, and my seven year old son, Paddy, likes to make me signs for my stall at The Frome Independent Market, though we may need to work on the spelling.
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I work from my pretty wooden workshop at the end of the garden, just on the edge of Frome, which has just been built and is my absolute sanctuary.
I’m very near the fields and I regularly walk off in to the valley to work through new ideas in my head, often returning with a pocketful of some hedgerow herb or fruit for a cup of tea.
It’s the perfect place for me to experiment with new ideas, as I often work long in to the night, trying to perfect the fragrance or texture of a product.
Once my smallest boy is a little more grown I’ll be moving to a larger premises. But being a business owner and a mother means compromise.
I am constantly listening to something whilst I work. Podcasts and audiobooks for slow, methodical work and music for when I need to pick up the pace.
If you walked past my workshop you wouldn’t be hearing any music made post 90’s, though almost all would be 70’s or earlier, like David Bowie, The Specials, The Velvet Underground, Aretha Franklin, Fats Waller – I was definitely born in the wrong musical era!
I always wanted to create products that rivalled more expensive, lab-made brands, but used only plant-based ingredients. These larger brands will almost exclusively be using large amounts of synthetic ingredients, useless fillers and harmful preservatives, and I wanted to offer a very effective alternative, made with 100% natural plant-derived ingredients.
Plant oils and extracts contain a wealth of skin-loving elements including essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. They have been used by women for thousands of years to keep skin soft and supple and I love following on this tradition, which ultimately deepens our connection to the power of the natural world.
I think being stocked at The National Trust was a huge moment for me. Having been on maternity leave for a year and just working in the evenings, I wasn’t expecting such a wonderful stockist to come on board, but it was very special to visit my local NT property, Stourhead, and see the Hibi display looking very beautiful.
My favourite high though is one which happens with regularity. When someone becomes a return customer, leaves a glowing review or buys a product for their friend, it it a little golden moment every time because I know they love something I created.
I want women to feel confident.
It sounds simple, but women’s confidence is monetised, undermined and attacked as a social norm and I think we often don’t realise how exhausting it is to constantly deal with the demands put on our appearance by society.
Chasing the appearance of youth is not something we do to please ourselves, we do it to please others (there is a wonderful quote on this by Holly McNish: As a straight woman, as you get older, men who only fancy girls under twenty-five stop fancying you. That is literally the only thing you lose. And that is what the entire anti-ageing obsession is based on) and I feel a fire inside, a burning desire to help women feel glorious and confident in the skin they are in.
Ageing is a privilege and not something we should be trying to hide.
My plans for the future are products, products, products! My busy mind is always creating new Hibi products and I just need the time and space to get a few in to the testing phase.
My current obsessions are an oil to milk cleanser, scented with geranium and black pepper, which is just divine, and a tinted lip and cheek balm that I already cannot live without.
I live in a glorious town with a thriving independent retail community and I would love to find a way to open up a bricks and mortar premises with a workshop at the back. We’ll see!
I remember first seeing your beautiful glowing complexion on an Instagram story and thinking what a great advert that is for your business Rose. Thank you for sharing your story with us and a peek into your world.
Readers can enjoy 20% discount on the Hibi Skincare Discovery Set (£28, usually £35) with code: HIBIXARTISAN
A pioneering founder story celebrating over 120 years of British craftsmanship.
The inspiring journey of a young entrepreneur and her first business.
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