THE ART OF CARE: Plants and Ancient Wisdom, Modern Makers
Long before pharmacies and the business of wellness, care began with plants and women who knew how to use them.. For centuries, women gathered flowers, roots, seeds, learning how to turn them into remedies that healed the body and supported the spirit. These practices were not “alternative”. They were the foundation of health, rooted in everyday life and passed down through generations of women.
At Made By Her, we believe this ancestral wisdom is not something of the past. It is a guide for our future.
Plants as Allies in Women’s Journeys
Chamomile has long been trusted to calm restless nights, while sage was gathered to cleanse body and space. Roses were used to soften the heart and restore beauty, while sacred scents such as frankincense and myrrh were burned to protect and purify.
In the Mediterranean, plants have always been woven into daily life and care. Lavender calmed the nerves, rosemary sharpened memory, thyme and oregano offered protection. The golden helichrysum was trusted for its restorative powers, while bay leaves, citrus blossoms, and aloe became part of women's healing repertoire.
Each plant carried its own role, part of a broader ancestral knowledge passed down through women's hands. They have supported women through childbirth, cycles, illness, and loss, and they have also accompanied rituals of beauty, celebration, growth and transformation.
“Indigenous traditional knowledge not only makes room for and acknowledges human relationships with land, but also respects the innate intelligence of the natural world.”
Why Modern Society Needs This Return
Today, in a culture that often equates health with quick fixes and beauty with surface treatments, we are seeing a hunger for something deeper. The average woman applies 168 chemical compounds to her body daily, many with unknown long-term effects.
Plant remedies invite us to slow down, to trust nature's rhythms, and to see care not as consumption but as connection. They offer complexity that synthetic compounds cannot replicate. A single drop of rose oil contains hundreds of beneficial molecules working in harmony, creating effects that isolated lab-created ingredients simply cannot achieve!
The Science Behind the Spirit
Modern research validates what women have always known. Clinical studies show that these are just a few examples:
Rose oil reduces cortisol levels by up to 23% while improving skin barrier function
Chamomile contains apigenin, which binds to brain receptors to reduce anxiety naturally
Helichrysum promotes wound healing and cellular regeneration with its powerful anti-inflammatory compounds
Lavender demonstrably improves sleep quality and reduces pain perception
But plants offer something synthetic compounds cannot: they work with your body's existing systems rather than overriding them. They nourish the skin while calming the nervous system. They address symptoms while supporting underlying resilience.
A Feminine Lineage of Makers
Women have always been the custodians of this knowledge. They harvested under the right moon, distilled in season and listened closely to what each plant could offer. To honor plant medicine today is also to honor this feminine lineage: the mothers and grandmothers who carried care in their hands, often unacknowledged but always essential.
“When a woman stirs a handmade soap or mixes a body scrub in her kitchen, she’s not just making skincare—she’s carrying forward a wisdom that reminds us how simple, natural and powerful women’s knowledge can be.”
Today's artisans continue this tradition. These modern herbalists understand something the wellness industry has forgotten: true healing happens in relationship with plants, with cycles, with the hands that craft your care. Their products carry not just beneficial compounds but intention, presence and the kind of slow attention that mass production cannot replicate.
Care as Transformation
The art of care is not about chasing perfection. It's about remembering wholeness. When we choose remedies born from the earth and crafted with intention, we engage in a ritual that soothes the body, grounds the mind and awakens the spirit.
Plant remedies transform daily routines into sacred practices. Your morning skincare becomes a meditation when you massage rose oil on your face, feeling its weight, breathing its scent. Evening baths become ceremonies of release when you add lavender grown by women who tend their plants with prayer.
“The wisdom of plant medicine lies in dissolving the boundary between health and beauty. True radiance comes not from chasing appearances, but from nurturing balance, inside and out. When we care for the body with nature’s remedies, healing and beauty become one and the same.”
The Path Forward
For Made By Her, plant remedies are not a nostalgic return. They are a way forward, a reminder that true care is rooted in connection, not consumption. In a world that constantly tells us to add more, plants invite us to return to simplicity and presence.
When you support artisans who work with plants—the distillers, the herbalists, the women who transform earth into care—you're not just buying products. You're investing in a different way of being. You're choosing to live in rhythm with yourself, with the earth, and with the wisdom that has always sustained us.
This is the art of care. This is our future, rooted in the deepest wisdom of our past.