Choosing to follow a vegan lifestyle means more than simply giving up foods made from animal derivatives, it also means making a concerned effort to live without harming other sentient beings.  This means abstaining from wearing or purchasing leather or other products made from animals, choosing products that are cruelty-free and not tested on animals, choosing forms of entertainment that do not employ animals, and even making landscaping decisions that minimize the negative impact on wildlife.  

 

I have encountered many creators of handcrafted personal care products on my journey, many whom claim the products they create are vegan, organic, natural, and cruelty-free.  Only to watch them turn around and devour a steak, put on their leather jacket,  look me in the eyes, their lips injected with Botox, and tell me that they love animals...and then it clicked. 

 

So many people fall victim to believing the product they are being handed was truly handcrafted, vegan, and most of all, cruelty-free.  I wanted to create a product line with minimal ingredients, ingredients that mother nature had given us, and that in no way harmed or displaced any living, breathing creature.

 

Vegan and Cruelty Free are not the same thing.  The perfect example of this is Botox. Botox is marketed as all natural and vegan. but just because the word vegan is used, many consumers assume that it must also be cruelty free.   The actual product "Botox" is Vegan friendly,  however, Botox is classified as a medicine and BY LAW all medicine must be tested on animals.  So I set out to create a line of beauty that works to keep your skin beautiful without ever needing Botox. 

 

I grow what ingredients I can for my products in the many raised beds on my small farm.  What I cannot grow I source only from those that have the Cruelty-Free and Vegan Seal.  I do my own extractions and oil infusions, each sitting for ten months to a year in my cellar.  I do not rush the natural process as I want to get every benefit of every part of the plant, herb, flower and vegetable into my products.  

 

I research what works best for different skin types, conditions and ailments.  I then look at what holistic remedies are used to treat each, and then I began formulating, creating, and combining. I take pride in each of my products, one of which is my Rose Spray, which is a perfect example of the many steps it takes to create the products in this line. 

 

I grow the roses myself, harvest them, freeze dry them and then place them in a pot on the stovetop with distilled water.  They get continuously stirred, making sure that all of the petals are saturated.   When the water creates steam, the pot must be covered with a very tight lid so that none of the oils escape.  I turn the stove off and wait about an hour before straining the petals through cheesecloth after which the rosewater is placed into a sealed mason jar and kept in the cellar for two months before bottling.  

 

I put every bit of love I possibly can into each product.  It begins with my hands in the soil, then come the seeds and taking care of them as they germinate and grow until the moment, I can harvest them.

 

E.L.M. Vegan Beauty is from the field to your skin in every sense of the meaning and I am working on the process of getting Vegan and Cruelty Free sealed and certified for all of my products I create for all of you to enjoy.