Wildcrafting

We believe in a healthy planet as much as we believe in healthy skin. Our family spends countless hours in wild Alaskan flower meadows and forests collecting Alaskan botanicals to create the purest, healthiest and truly best skin and hair care products available. 

We are so grateful to live in such a wild and beautiful place. We harvest baskets of fireweed in the short peak of season for our Fireweed Goat Milk Soap. These fresh fuscia colored flowers dry to a deep dark purple. They provide gentle exfoliation for your skin in our soap.

Cottonwood buds are best harvested in early spring before they leaf out, but after the buds have had enough sunshine and warmth to grow plump and full of valuable resin. The scent of Cottonwood, is the treasured smell of spring in Alaska. In addition to being Susan’s favorite scent in the world, Cottonwood has a plethora of chemical constituents that heal skin. There is nothing like our Cottonwood Balm and Massage oil for skin in need of repair. 

Yarrow has a delicate herbal scent that I adore. When I fill my packbasket with these wild flowers, the scent lingers in the basket for days. In my early 20s I made this packbasket in the Adirondack mountains in upper NY near where I grew up, from an ash tree. It's been my harvest basket for over three decades. 

We need to wear gloves when harvesting wild stinging nettles. Once dried, in our greenhouse, the barbs de-activate so we don't get 'stung' when handling. We use nettles, yarrow and horsetail in our hair care products as they have long been treasured for nourishing scalp and hair. 

A sampling of our wildcrafted and organically grown dried herbs and flowers that we use in our 100% natural, handmade Alpenglow Skin Care products.

We dehydrate some petals and leaves in our greenhouse during the warmth of summer, but once it's wetter in autumn, we use our dehydrator to ensure consistent results.

The delicate floral scent of wild Alaskan roses always puts a smile on Susan’s face. Mostly water, a rose petal dries to a tiny fraction of it's size so we spend a LOT of time picking petals for our Wild Alaskan Rose Shea Butter Soap. 

We dry most of our botanicals in the greenhouse on screens and trays like the wild roses and beneath them, horsetail. 

Horsetail (Equisetum) is an ancient plant that is easy to harvest as it grows like a weed across Alaska. We extract it's beneficial propeties by making an infusion with other wildcrafted botanicals for our hair care products. 

Always an honor to work with, wild Alaskan botanicals bring so much benefit to our skin and hair care products. This is our home. And we love sharing the labors of our love... our meticulously handcrafted products, with you.