Lore Botanicals

May 2025

A story of trusting the path and creating something that was always waiting to be made

Nestled in the creative market town of Bridport, surrounded by the vast skies and wild beauty of West Dorset, you’ll find Lore Botanicals, a thoughtful skincare brand founded by Charli Rees, a former midwife with a lifelong love of herbs, nature and nurturing.

Charli’s blends are made slowly and simply in her home kitchen, guided by years of personal experience and a deep respect for traditional plant wisdom. Here’s her founder story.

As far back as I can remember I’ve had a love and affiliation for all things natural, botanical and fragrant. I’m fascinated by the beneficial properties of herbs and plants in general, there is so much to learn! I am in awe of the plant wisdom our ancestors would have used in everyday life that now seems to be disappearing in our modern world. I wanted to create products that honours that tradition and respect for our planet.

I’ve always had sensitive skin and as teenager I developed psoriasis and then vitiligo in my early twenties. I found it really hard to find skincare products that I didn’t react badly to. I intrinsically believed there had to be kinder, more effective alternatives to what was being offered. Alternatives that worked with my body rather than against it.

This lead me to search for simple, effective ingredients to create my own blends that calmed and soothed my skin.

I intrinsically believed there had to be kinder, more effective alternatives

As my family has grown I have enjoyed developing skincare products for their use alongside simple herbal remedies.

We spent a defining year in Southern Spain and Southern France, where I took a sabbatical from my career in midwifery. It gave me the time and space to work out what the next stage of my life could look like, highlighting what was important.

We were immersed in absolute nature, no distractions, very much away from the city life that we knew. Every walk was filled with inspiring herbs, flora and fauna, there was an abundance of organic, fresh produce. We felt more connected to the provenance of the food we found at local markets and the natural environment.

This setting really inspired me to focus on what we have in our localities that can be beneficial to our health and wellbeing.

Friends and family had been telling me for years I should start a skincare business – it’s funny how our nearest and dearest can often see it all so clearly but it took me some time to realise this for myself. Our time abroad was definitely the catalyst I needed to get started with Lore Botanicals.

I launched Lore Botanicals just over two years ago, so at the moment it still feels manageable to run all aspects of the business myself. I do love the creative freedom that that gives me, plus the flexibility to work around family life, but equally it’s wonderful to connect with other creatives and makers when the opportunities arise.

My beautiful young dog Cleo keeps me company when everyone is out the house at work and school, and our daily dog walks have been the perfect antidote to my admin heavy days.

Being out in nature definitely helps me focus and reset the balance, thank you Cleo!

I work from my home kitchen, which doubles up as my workshop, studio and production area, in the creative market town of Bridport, in beautiful west Dorset.

Having spent most of my life living in sprawling cities up until a few years ago, I still feel very lucky to be surrounded by stunning countryside. We get such amazing sunsets because there is just so much sky to see and this calmer, greener way of life has had a profound effect on my overall sense of wellbeing. It’s been very grounding and inspires my work every day.

I love a good podcast and at the moment Stirring It Up with Maquita and Andy Oliver is giving me so much joy. The food, the chats and energy of those two taps into the city girl in me and fills my cup right up.

Lore Botanical’s caring blends are as organic, sustainable and environmentally low impact as possible, without compromising on beautiful simple packaging that look as good as they feel. They are made in small batches to preserve the plant botanical freshness.

Encouraging my customers to take a self-care moment once or twice a day can have a profound effect on their wellbeing, and for some it’s the first time they have given themselves permission to carve out a skincare routine or self-care moment. So it feels quite holistic, yes it’s about the skincare products being the best they can be, but it’s also about the message of self-care and the wonderful connections with my customers.

I strongly believe we all deserve to feel as good as we can in our skin.

Skincare is a usually a very personal journey for people. Creating products they can really trust and rely on is extremely important and being open, transparent is all aspects of my business helps build this direct trust and relationship with my customers.

I receive the most wonderful feedback from my customers about how my products have helped them. People that have been really suffering with dry, inflamed skin; with rosacea; breakouts and skin changes due to perimenopause / menopause or pregnancy. This is the best validation I could ever hope for and is the driving force behind what I do.

My intention is to create skincare products that are natural, kind and nourishing. I strongly believe we all deserve to feel as good as we can in our skin.

A memorable moment and dream come true for me has been collaborating last year with my wonderful friend Sarah, a sustainable flower grower and florist where we host botanical seasonal workshops.

Our workshops are a celebration of the transitioning seasons, taking a moment to pause and explore creativity with plant botanicals.

I teach facial massage techniques to support the lymphatic system through the seasonal changes and guide the group in making a simple natural skincare blend such as bath salts or face mask to take home to continue to have some moments of self-care.

Sarah leads the group in creating a beautiful seasonal floral arrangement, using locally grown seasonal flowers and foliage, such as an everlasting dried flower wreath or a festive table piece.

We’ve had the most wonderful feedback so far and are very excited about the future of these workshops, with lots more in the pipeline!

As well as more collaborative workshops, I plan to do some shorter accessible sessions where I want to continue to pass on the benefits of self-facial massage, so people can easily create a moment of self-care at home that fits in around their normal everyday skincare routine. Even just a minute or two can have a wonderful effect on calming the nervous system.

I am always busy dreaming up and thinking of beautiful botanical blends and have been busy actualising these by formulating some new products, which I’m very excited about. They will launch very soon, so watch this space!.

As an addition to our collaborative seasonal workshops, we plan to offer a one day retreat. Some of the feedback we received from our workshop attendees was that they want more time, basically they didn’t want to leave! People are really needing the space and time to reconnect with themselves, to relax, get creative and do something kind and nurturing for themselves. It feels wonderful to be able to create and facilitate a space for that.

IMAGES ©Lore Botanicals 2025

I’m so pleased to share Charli’s story and introduce her beautiful brand, which feels like such a natural fit for this journal. There’s a calm and considered energy behind everything she does, it’s lovely to see how her journey continues to unfold and I’m not surprised attendees didn’t want to leave the workshops – they sound divine!