By hands & herbs is a small family business based in the green hills of Piedmont, Italy. Born out of necessity, evolved into passion, our journey began as we moved on to an abandoned farm in the depths of rural Portugal, back in 2012. A few kilometres from the closest village, up the slope of the mountain on a bumpy dirt track, with not a streetlight in sight. Here we lived for 7 years, completely off the grid, surrounded only by granite boulders and cool streams of water, trickling down the mountain under sweet chestnut, oak and willow trees. On the farm our interest in herbs and natural remedies grew rapidly and we have many success stories to tell, having treated our farm animals, as well as ourselves and our daughter, only with what nature has to offer. And what nature has to offer is truly divine.
We’d already stopped using chemical self-care products a few years prior, but here on the farm it became distinctively obvious that whatever we flushed “down the drain” ended up straight in our own garden. We experienced very personally how you can’t just “throw stuff away”, because there is no “away”. Also, we found that many so called “natural products” out there have lots of questionable ingredients in them, and even if they are “natural” – they are still industrially produced and with excessive plastic packaging etc.
Finally, giving birth to a baby girl encouraged us to go completely chemical free once and for all. So, we started making our own soaps, deodorants, creams and salves etc, until we ended up with a beautiful line of natural products for the home and body – as well as for the mind and soul. We’re proud to say we had our kitchen sink and bathtub directly irrigating our vegetables. Washing ourselves and our dishes with our homemade olive oil soap, using no chemical products, if there was anything else than water coming out of our grey water pipe, it was food for the soil. We went from “industrially toxic” to “naturally medicinal” – please, come and join us!
We thank you for following along and we hope you enjoy our offerings.
Sara & Emil