Natural Beauty Rolodex: Grown Alchemist

You know Grown Alchemist is a special brand as soon as you see the modern, apothecary-style packaging. The products come in beautiful amber bottles and tubes in pale shades of mauve, mint, and icy blue with every ingredient listed clearly right on the front. They instantly draw you in. Once you use their organic, chemical-free formulations and see that they work beautifully without ever feeling heavy or harsh, it’s pretty easy to fall in love. “Going green” with your beauty routine can feel daunting but its brands like Grown Alchemist that make it easy to swap out harmful products for those that truly nourish your body. We carry Grown Alchemist’s wonderful body-care products and a lime toning mist, which I love, but the brand has a full range of skin and haircare products as well. To help you get to know the Melbourne-based label a little bit better, we caught up with GA brothers and founders Keston and Jeremy Muijs. XXJKE

Rip & Tan: What inspired you to start Grown Alchemist?

Keston Muijs: As consultants developing products for other brands, we experienced companies continually compromising their ingredients. Active ingredients like peptides, which are capable of visibly reversing signs of aging, cost millions to develop and end up costing more than 100 times what conventional ingredients would. When you consider that, it’s no wonder that brands formulate their products without them and are willing to use cheap, potentially harmful synthetics instead. We saw a need to develop highly effective anti-aging skincare brand with integrity, that wouldn’t compromise your health.

Rip & Tan: Where is your criteria when sourcing ingredients? How do you find vendors?

Jeremy Muijs: We have dedicated people that specialize in sourcing the highest quality organic ingredients, which have a higher antioxidant count than non-organic ingredients. They also source and develop ingredients like our natural peptides and help decide on the next formulation we should launch into the market.

Because of our focus on beauty, we develop capable natural anti-aging ingredients like our Peptide-8, Tetra Peptide, Neuro-Peptide, Phyto-Peptide and E-2 Polysaccharide. These ingredients repair skin structure specifically stimulating the body’s own production of youth agents like collagen and hyaluronic acid. Because of our focus on skin health we also keep traditional harmful ingredients out of our formulations, these ingredients—apart from being unhealthy can also have a detrimental ageing effect on your skin.

Rip & Tan: How did you come up with the packaging?

KM: Good things come in considered packaging. Many packaging materials, like conventional polypropylene plastic tubes and low-grade soft pet plastic bottles, emit harmful chemicals into the very product they are protecting. Our products come in carefully chosen, premium packaging materials that protect the formulations within. Non-leeching, lined aluminum tubes ensure the pure ingredients are not contaminated by air, sunlight or chemicals, so the products remain as healthy and powerful as the day they were created.

The original scientific amber bottles are made from glass and hardened premium pet material, cocooning their contents in a safe, non-leeching, UV protected environment. This ensures the light sensitive, antioxidant-rich, organic ingredients are protected from photo decomposition, so they may remain as active and as effective as possible. Glass and pet plastic are the world’s most recycled materials, making them good for the environment as well as your health.

Rip & Tan: What one Grown Alchemist product does every woman need to use?

JM: Every woman needs a moisturizing eye balm. Our Hydra-Repair Eye Balm is super rich and formulated with botanical extracts that target dryness and noticeably minimize fine lines and wrinkles. It leaves the facial skin around the eyes looking nourished, soft, and radiant. Even better, it’s safe on sensitive skin!

Rip & Tan: What product category is growing the most quickly for you? Why?

KM: It’s safe to say that the anti-aging skin care market is not slowing down. Wrinkles, lines, frown lines, blemishes and pigmentation changes all point out aging, and our need to prevent or slow down these signs has given rise to a multibillion-dollar market for products that can offer this. While the skincare industry on its own is a massive one, research and development has played a large role and the demand for anti-aging skincare products is growing rapidly.

Rip & Tan: How will you expand the brand in the future?

JM: Apart from new product development, we are exploring new and exciting retail concepts. We have recently partnered with the just-opened New York hotel, 11 Howard, stocking mini-sized versions of all your favorite Grown Alchemist toiletries in each bathroom.

Rip & Tan: What do you do when you’re not working on the business?

KM: Melbourne is a wonderful city with an abundance of fun things to do, whether it be a picnic in the botanical gardens, taking someone to a movie at Moonlight Cinema in the gardens, eating alfresco Italian at Baby restaurant, or a massage and treatment at Aurora Spa Retreat in St Kilda.