Helianthus Botanicals LLC is the culmination of a lifetime of love for herbs. Cheryl Hines began as most herbalists – in her own home – growing and using herbs to support her family’s health. Expanding from home use to a small, artisanal herb oil business has literally taken a lifetime, it seems. But here we are.
What makes Helianthus Botanicals different? It’s our process. First of all, we grow and harvest many of the herbs in our formulas. We’ve also been known to tramp about the fields and woods in our area, wildcrafting, as well.
Then we use a multi-step process beginning with freshly dried herb. Our herbs are either grown on my little patch of ground in the Pacific Northwest. Or I source them by local wildcrafting. And if those fail, I get them from small companies or other wild crafters.
Next, I moisten the dried herbs with a minimal amount of alcohol to release the fine herbal constituents. Then we add the organic olive oil then blend on high speed to extract every last bit of goodness from the herb. We let the resulting oil rest in a low heat cabinet for 24 hours.
The final stage involves gently heating the infused oils and combining with beeswax (or candelilla wax for the vegan formulas). At this point, we will add any essential oils which some of the salves contain to enhance the qualities of the herbs.
The result: our products will appear richer in color and scent as well. This will be more evident in the Calendula formula as nearly all other brands’ calendula is beige to light yellow. Ours is a rich greeny gold – color ranges depending on color of the blossoms. The result is nothing short of amazing.
Old World products
Helianthus Botanicals is proud to offer several of Vickie Fiorini’s original Old World salve formulas! We plan to keep up her traditional style of specialty salves – namely Skin Savvy (formerly Salve), Remove and XZema – while introducing our own as time goes on.
This from Cheryl: “I have made tinctures, oils, salves – you name it – for over 40 years. I happened upon Old World products while working in our local supplements store. Customers would purchase Salve or Remove and comment how they loved them. So, when the most recent owner of Old World salves announced she was retiring the entire line, I jumped at the chance to start my own business on the shoulders of Vickie’s reputation for excellent and effective salves!
“Vickie’s original salves have become iconic to the locals. I intend to maintain that high quality. While I have adhered to the original formulas, I have augmented them with my own process which I believe will be nothing short of amazing. Expect them to appear richer in color and, consequently, far more potent. So a little goes a long way.”Â