Louma’s Wellness Products: a world of bees and rosemary

All our products share the signature scent of rosemary (which translates from the Latin, Rosmarinus, as ‘dew of the sea’). This we collect from our gardens, along with the beeswax, honey and propolis from our hives. Over time we’ll change this key-note scent, chosen by the Louma team and according to what’s thriving on our land. Lavender, lemon, geranium. Nature’s possibilities are endless.

In your rooms you’ll find hand cream, body soap, bath salts (where there’s a bath), shampoo and conditioner. In the Wellness Barn you’ll find the same ingredients in our massage oil, liquid soap and moisturiser – including the wonderful smell of rosemary. Great for cooling and calming the body, it’s uplifting and refreshing for the mind, renewing enthusiasm and clearing mental fatigue. You can also buy our lip balm, face cream and muscle balm here. 

Having reflected on a cosmetics industry, where often 40% of the cost of the products you buy goes into excessive packaging, we’ve carefully designed ours to have minimal environmental impact. Our bottles are amber-coloured glass, our pumps are either metal or reusable plastic, our paper is recycled (once destined for landfill) and our snazzy silver tubes are made from lined aluminium – a fantastic material that again can be recycled infinite times.

Using the same ethos, for the bedrooms we’ve created high-quality shampoo and conditioner bars (thus cutting out plastic bottles). These you can definitely take with you when you leave! The shampoo is good for 30 washes, the conditioner for an amazing 80. Scroll down to find out more about how to use them.

A Sisterhood of Botanists and Beekeepers

So, who are the creators of our Louma products? Perhaps it’s time to briefly introduce you to Paula, Sandy, and Alison. Three phenomenal women, all in second careers and determined to make a difference to the world. (And all of whom, we must say, have the most amazing skin!)

Paula Carnell

Paula Carnell is the maker of our lip and body balms, and a world expert on bees. Originally a successful botanical artist, in her forties she developed Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that left her bed and wheelchair bound for seven years. ‘I was told I’d never walk again and be dead by fifty,’ she says on the phone from the Cocos Keeling Islands (more of which below).

Her husband built her a beehive so she could lie in bed and watch them, and when a local beekeeper began working with her she realised that a lot of the things that were making bees sick were also affecting humans. ‘We share the same environment. The way we spray our crops is killing the bees, but also ruining our gut bacteria.’  After a recovery process that included bees, herbal medicine and plant-based minerals, she started to challenge the conventional methods of bee keeping – which uses smoke and feeds them sugar. ‘Initially, everyone thought I was a crazy woman, but then I found that science backed me up. I began speaking at bee conferences around the world, relating the science of bee keeping to human health and interaction.’

It was Paula who established the Beezantium at The Newt in Somerset. ‘They found me, when I was doing a pop-up market in Castle Cary, and asked if I had any ideas for them. I quickly produced a 26-page proposal. You see, when you recover from being really ill, the sky’s the limit and every day’s a bonus.’

Which is why it’s no surprise that currently Paula can be found working on a project to bring bees back to a remote (once completely closed-off) Indian ocean island. ‘It’s one of 27 that form a coral atoll situated between Perth and Sri Lanka, inhabited by 500 Cocos Malay – Muslim descendants of enslaved people brought here in the 1826. Bees were introduced in the 1940s, but recently they disappeared from this particular island, so my husband and I are working to re-establish 10 hives, running it as a community interest project with some of the local women.’

When Louma first arrived at Spence Farm (as it was then) there were lots of visiting bees but no colonies. So before she left, Paula helped us bait hollowed-out logs and hang them in trees on energy lines, along with bringing in plants on which they thrive. ‘Bees seem to follow the Fibonacci sequence, which I love. So the first year there were three new colonies, then five, then eight. They’re expanding both strongly and naturally, which is exactly what you want.’

Sandy Kirkland

Sandy is the creator of seven of our products: the soaps, bath salts, massage oil, shampoo and conditioner.

Originally from South Africa, she has a background in marketing but has always had a strong affinity with nature and plants. ‘My grandfather was a beekeeper and my mother a botanist, meaning I’ve become an avid gardener; trained through the RHS.’ Sandy began her product journey by making soaps, wanting to learn the traditional way using natural ingredients like clay (which draws out the skin’s impurities), oils and butters. ‘The Louma soap also contains beeswax and propolis; which is like the bees’ antibiotic, being anti-bacterial and healing.

‘Part of my ethos is that my products have as few of them as possible. Take, for instance, my conditioner bars. They don’t lather – and if you find ones that do; they shouldn’t. Particularly as the ingredients that make them do that are ones you don’t want. To be really effective the bars have to be butter and oil based, which means you need to warm up the butter in warm water. In the shower, you’ll know the bar’s working when you feel it melting, running down your face like smooth cream. Yes, it’s a mindset change, but one that’s so important for you and the planet.’

Alison Derrick

Alison, who calls herself an accidental beekeeper, makes our beautiful hand and face creams. ‘I used to visit an allotment when my children were young (actually it became a bit of a woman’s co-operative – all of us escaping from family life). The local beekeeping association introduced some hives, and I learnt my skills from some retired gentlemen. It was a lovely way to learn.’

That was thirty years ago, and now Alison keeps her own hives, through which she produces her multi-award-winning products, all produced at home. ‘We’ve got a stainless-steel kitchen, which works beautifully.

‘Over the years I’ve developed lots of products, but try to keep things simple, especially when it comes to your face. To be honest, I struggle with marketing in the beauty industry. I think it’s deeply exploitative of women’s vulnerabilities. So I don’t make a day and a night face cream, just one moisturising cream. Bees are just brilliant. The oils and the honey absorb beautifully while the beeswax leaves the finest film on the surface of your skin. Meaning it both holds the moisture in and protects you from the chemicals that will be in your SPF.’

Our unique Louma products are provided in your rooms, on sale in the Wellness Barn and will shortly be available on our website. We’ll be posting soon about the life-changing things our bees produce (hello, propolis), along with keeping you updated on Paula’s progress.

* Because our Louma hives were fairly recently established, the bees only have enough honey to feed themselves. So at present we’re sourcing it from other local bee keepers.