Herbes Folles is a Portuguese cosmetics brand founded by Mariana Santos. It's a special brand that uses weeds in its products and wants us to look at these weeds differently, giving them the attention they deserve. These weeds play a very important role in our ecosystems and are a source of nutrients and antioxidants!
It was a pleasure to interview Mariana and learn more about the history of Herbes Folles , the first Portuguese brand at Inouïe.
This desire came along with two major changes in my life: returning to Portugal and becoming a mother. We decided that I would not work for the first year of my daughter's life, which allowed me to go back to school. And installed.as in a village, in a house with a vegetable garden, it allowed me to become very close to the plants, which were precisely my "object of study". I fell in love with the ones that grew among the vegetables planted, that's it. I really wanted to have my own business, launch a project that I was passionate about, and that would allow me to have more time available to accompany my daughter. I had some money aside that allowed me to take that step. And so, little by little, the idea of creating a cosmetics brand with spontaneous plants was growing in my head - and later, outside of it.
Herbes folles is Herbes = herbs Folles = crazy. They are therefore those plants that grow without (our) order.
It is precisely the fact that they give a place of honor to these plants! Although they are already used by many brands, I realized that there was none that worked this dimension: the fact that they are medicinal plants that carry a kind of stigma, called "weeds". And I, who love questions, thought it made sense to ask this one: what do you mean, "weeds"? Why, for whom, since when... I think it makes perfect sense to find ways to incorporate these plants into our lives, and to cherish them: both because they are common and omnipresent in the spaces we also inhabit, and because they are beings that need very few resources to live on - and this, especially at the moment we are going through, is at least inspiring.
It's one of our pillars for me: I have a daughter, and I really want to leave her a "livable" world. I deeply love this planet, which is incredibly beautiful and diverse, and I find it unbelievable how easily we destroy it. In addition to the care in choosing suppliers, the choice of packaging was also something I paid close attention to. I decided to look for certification because I know there's a lot of misinformation out there, and I didn't want to be a part of it. Our products are really natural, our suppliers are really careful, and so on. We are also members of the NGO 1% for the Planet. And I understand sustainability as a constant search and research, and most of the time I have more questions than answers. But without a doubt, "how can we improve, both socially and environmentally (as these two dimensions are very intertwined)?" It's a question that haunts me.
Here are the three main reasons:
- Our products are made with excellent ingredients. I am very careful when choosing suppliers, as I believe that what really matters in any type of product is the quality of the raw materials.
- The plants that our extract producer uses are (with the exception of St John's Wort) harvested in the wild, which means that they have a greater vitality and concentration of properties.
- Because they are multipurpose products, which allow us to reduce our ecological footprint.
The Mist , I love the smell, the lightness... for me it's the perfect product to start the day!
I think Diafano : I use it as a cleaning product, night oil, to help detangle my daughter's hair... and once again, I love the smell!
THANK YOU ❤️