In the Laboratory with Lesley of Essence + Alchemy

All imagery by Essence + Alchemy

Every month as part of my Letters of Ara e-mail newsletter I share a likeminded brand that is creating beautiful products with respect for both people and the planet. The brand I have chosen to share this month operates in line with a set of values that I respect and resonate with both professionally and personally, as a brand and as a consumer. As such, I wanted to allow a little extra time to explore the purpose and influence behind this month’s special brand. 

Essence + Alchemy (E+A), inspired by the elements of fire, water, air and earth, creates botanical scented goods with a focus on handcrafting sustainable, natural collections with honesty and transparency. Upon first discovering E+A, not long after beginning my own journey with Ara the altar, I felt a real connection to this considered brand which ‘strives to use creative solutions to make a positive impact on the planet’.  

Founder Lesley A Bramwell (with the fitting initials ‘L.A.B’), began her journey as an environmental scientist, with a passion for sustainability. Consequently, Lesley’s product design ensures that ‘products are made with minimal impact on the earth, its people and its organisms’. Lesley considers not only from what materials her products are made but also how and from where they have travelled; how they are packaged; how the energy required to make them is generated; and how any waste will be minimised. I particularly love that E+A handblown glass beakers are designed with reuse in mind and have found Lesley’s low-waste tea-light sets to make well received, considered gifts. I am over the moon to speak with Lesley and to explore and share with you her thoughtful, sustainable, design-led approach. 

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Hello, Lesley – thank you so much for spending a little time with me and Letters of Ara. First of all, please tell us a little about yourself and the path that led you to E+A.

Hello Lauren, thank you for the lovely introduction and inviting me to be part of your beautiful Letters of Ara! 

Where do I start? I suppose my path to Essence + Alchemy was quite a long one, but I’ve always been creative, making home remedies and potions with botanicals and essential oils - bath oils, diffuser blends etc. 

I studied environmental science at university and went onto become a freelance occupational hygiene and environmental consultant working in all kinds of environments and industries. I measured exposure to chemicals and advised on environmental legislation and compliance.  Working with businesses who were passionate about protecting the environment, I knew that when I started E+A, that sustainability would be at the heart of it.

We bought an old run down house a few years ago (which we are still renovating) and in the early days it was very cold and there wasn’t much comfort.  I was travelling around the country Monday to Friday, then chipping plaster off the walls at the weekend.  I think initially I needed a more relaxing creative outlet, an escape from the mess of the house and although not the best conditions to start making candles in with all the dirt and dust, I started experimenting with candle making. I can’t remember the exact moment I started making candles but I remember considering all the different waxes.  Aromatherapy has been part of my daily life since I was a teenager and I’ve always been fascinated with how essential oils work and how they affect our well-being.  From the offset I chose rapeseed wax because of it’s eco credentials and scenting with anything other than essential oils never crossed my mind.  

A few years later, Essence + Alchemy was hatched, bringing together the natural scent and energy of plants (essence) with my scientific and environmental background (alchemy) and launched on line in Spring 2015.

You have created a beautiful concept and brand that entwines the elements, is rooted in environmental science, and creates beautifully designed products responsibly. From where do you take your influence and what do you see as your brand’s purpose? 

Thank you! The brand is strongly influenced by aromatherapy and the theories of alchemy.  I enjoy researching essential oils, their benefits and magical properties.  I also love discovering old alchemical texts and finding out the meanings behind words and symbols.

One of the main beliefs of Alchemy was that there were the four natural elements; air, fire, water and earth and with the right combination of these, any substance could be formed including healing elixirs. I wanted to draw on this idea and create products with purpose, ones that could help promote natural well-being by using only natural plant based ingredients and the practice of aromatherapy.

It is clear that consideration for the planet’s resources influences your decision making. What are some of the decisions you have made to lessen E+A’s environmental impact and why?

I’m fascinated with the elements, how they impact each other, changing the landscape and environmental conditions and how human interference influences these connections causing imbalance in the ecosystem.  

I always consider this in my decision making because I want my business, although small, to cause as little impact on the earth as I can, so I’m always considering how my processes and products will affect the environment and the environmental decisions of my customer.  

Nature is where I draw both my inspiration and raw materials from so it’s vital that I make considered decisions on the materials I use and sourcing so I’m always looking at where the materials come from, are they sustainable, are they ethically sourced and if they don’t tick these boxes I have to start again.  

It’s also important to remember that just because something’s natural, it doesn’t mean it’s safe or it’s been safely extracted.  Many essential oils are solvent extracted with harmful chemicals like petroleum ether and hexane.  I only use steam distilled essential oils because I know it’s a more natural and gentle method of extraction and those solvents haven’t been used in the extraction process. Essential oils are the soul, the life essence of the plant so it’s important not to destroy that by harsh extraction methods.

Another important decision I made at the very beginning was to consider the life cycle of my products, in particular the packaging - what happens to the packaging and glass when the candle is used. With this in mind, I had to think about the glass.  I wanted the glass to be reusable and offer my customers physical candle refills which fit perfectly inside the glass.  The reuse of the glass is something that I’m trying to encourage even more of and I am currently working on a brand refresh with a new glass design to make it even more versatile for reuse. 

What drove the impetus to refresh the brand, and what can we look forward to upon its relaunch?

It’s always hard running a business and making the right decisions.  Sometimes creativity and the need to please can take over.  The decision behind the brand refresh happened towards the end of last year when I realised that I had too many candle size options, I suppose I was trying to please everyone.  I needed to get back to my core values and strip everything right back.  I can’t really reveal too much at this stage but I will be relaunching next month with a new look - glassware and packaging. 

When considering the production process, can you share a little about your practice and the journey you undergo in creating a scent or a product?

When it comes to creating scent, I always start off with the plants, for an example I created a bespoke diffuser scent ‘Land’ for The Plant Room based in Leeds.  It was to scent an installation at the London Design Festival in London last year.  They were creating a landscape of grasses and plants inspired by the Scottish Highlands.  My first step was to look at the plants they were using and also research what was growing in Scotland and worked from there.  

I then look at what essential oils are available and before I decide on whether they can be used,  I check if they are steam distilled as this is the most gentlest form of extraction and also make sure that there aren’t any sustainability or ethical issues. Usually I work by adding a drop of each oil onto scent paper and smell the scents on their own, then with each other to see how they work together.  I then create two to three different blend variations. I let the oils blend together for a few days, return to them and tweak further if required.

Do you find that you experience any particular challenges in staying true to your values, personally as well as professionally? 

Yes definitely.  This is why the brand refresh and product changes are so important. Sometimes when running a business, outside influences can blur your vision and it’s very easy to veer of course sometimes but I think for the most part its easier professionally to stay true to my values.  From a personal perspective, there are always challenges.  I’m not the only decision maker at home so there will be always be compromises.  We’re always looking at ways of reusing things at home.  Whatever comes out of the house renovation has found a new home somewhere else in the house or garden or is waiting to be reused. My husband built our kitchen with wood off-cuts from a kitchen business and most of our furniture is second hand or repaired. 

Finally, what does a typical day look like for you and is there anything in particular that you do to invite a little slowness or self-care into your life and work? 

I’m very fortunate to work from my garden so I don’t have far to go to work.  My mornings are very relaxed and peaceful, the favourite part of my day.  I arrive at the garden lab around 8am and enjoy this quiet time. If the weather is good, I sit outside with a cuppa with Jack my border collie and enjoy the garden for a while.

Before that I generally switch the wax melter on.  It can take a few hours for the wax to melt.  I then catch up with emails and admin while the wax slowly melts away in the background. I make everything to order so every day is different.  I enjoy this way of working, it means that every product is made with intention and I know when I’m pouring a candle, who that candle is for and where it’s going. 

Other times I can be working on creating new scent blends, for E+A or bespoke projects I’m working on or I can be experimenting with new materials or product testing.  It’s very varied, no day is the same. Working with essential oils helps with my mental well-being, I don’t know what I have would have done without aromatherapy in my life and now I get to work with essential oils everyday! 

I’m always in the garden, enjoying the birds chattering away or investigating what’s growing.  At the moment, the Forget-Me-Nots have just started flowering and Tulips are just about to open.  I find that being so close to nature everyday helps slow things down when things start getting a little bit hectic, just being able to step outside for a few minutes is the best tonic.

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A few months down the line, E+A launched their brand refresh.

Read my journal post exploring Lesley’s updated offering, designed with a circular economy in mind.

Exploring Nature in Art with Hannah Clare

‘Totem’ & ‘Dart’ by Hannah Clare

I sometimes think the demands and distraction that go hand in hand with adulthood cause us to navigate far away from many of the creative endeavours often enjoyed in our earlier days. In my youth I adored drawing and painting but as I grew older and began to focus my education towards a particular career pathway (shoot production), I unintentionally drifted away from the other creative practices with which I was once so absorbed. Now, in trying to adopt a slower, more mindful way of life, I can see the importance in committing a little time to create something.

For a while, my partner and I have been talking about making our own pigments from natural materials (something far outside our wheelhouse). With this in mind, I was delighted to learn that artist, Hannah Clare -who’s work I have admired for some time- had begun exploring with natural ink. Collecting and interacting with the natural landscape is an important part of Hannah’s work which communicates organic forms, patterns and textures using a beautiful, calming tonal palette. With a view to encouraging others to reengage with the creative outlets of their earlier days, and to learn more about the process of working with nature in art, I spent a little time speaking with Hannah to explore her approach and practice.

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Hello, Hannah – Thank you so much for spending some time with me and Letters of Ara. For anyone new to your work, please tell us a little about yourself and how you found your path as an artist?

Hello all! Thanks very much for having me Lauren, I'm so glad to be part of this beautiful project. 

I am Hannah, I am an artist, I live in sunny, blustery Brighton. I have loved making for art as long as I can remember but I suppose it became a really significant part of my life as a teenager, I loved art at school and creativity was how I expressed myself in my own time too. After leaving school I took a BTEC in Art & Design for 2 years, It felt like a dream to go straight into studying art full time. Then I fell in love with Brighton and got a place to study illustration at the University of Brighton 2006. I chose illustration because my work always fell somewhere between fine art and design, and I liked the idea of developing my own visual language and being able to respond to anything in this way. These were an amazing, immersive and playful few years but I struggled with where my work fit in the illustration world and being an introverted person, I ended up feeling a bit burnt out by education by the end. So I've spent the years since then slowly finding my voice and confidence as an artist, realising my love for abstract work and honing a practice which combines my love of art and nature. 

How would you summarise your work? 

My works are mixed-media collages, arrangements of mark-making, drawing, printed and found material, and more recently, natural inks. I have always thought of these pieces as visual poems or microcosms. They are culminations of time spent walking, gathering, reading, making marks, creating colours, printmaking, responding to an experience or something I've collected. The final piece captures a place, season, time and memory. My work has always been informed by the natural world; since I was a child I have loved immersing myself in nature and I have always found joy in gathering things, noticing small creatures, textures, colours and being aware of the changes each season brings.

I start by working freely on making marks, shapes, colours and patterns, working intuitively. Then I create carefully considered compositions, thinking about how the elements communicate with each other, how they balance as a whole, this process can be meditative for me, it's like finding order in the chaos.

I really like that you described my pieces as using a calming palette, as people have often considered me to be a calming influence as a person, and spending time in nature has always had a calming affect on me, so it's nice to think of my artwork as being a continuation of that and having that affect on others too. 

From where do you find yourself taking influence and inspiration? 

I collect and gather things from my walks; grasses, lichen, seed pods, shells, pebbles, feathers... I might physically use these in mark-making, printing or making ink, or they might find their way into my work in some abstract form, the shape, colour or texture. 

I've always loved the work of the land artists, contemporary artists and sculptors working with nature and landscape, I love the aesthetics of working with natural materials, as well as the ephemeral nature of some of their work. 

I also find inspiration in poetry, nature-writing, folklore and music, I'm drawn to things that balance beauty, poetry and darkness. I love the duality of things, nature can be beautiful and terrifying, life is funny and tragic, a person can be wonderful and awful. Firm favourites have been Tove Jansson, Alice Oswald, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes. I make lists of words that I like when reading, these often end up being used as titles for my pieces too. 

One aspect to which I am particularly drawn is the presence of natural ink in your work, ink that you make yourself. Please can you explain a little about how you were drawn to this method, and what this process involves? 

I became interested in the process of natural dyeing a couple of years ago, I loved the idea of foraging or growing your own colours and physically linking a piece back to a place, time and a part of nature. After experimenting together with my Mum (who also makes plant dyed textiles) we took a course with Jane Meredith in Herefordshire and spent a weekend at her cottage on the beautiful riverbanks of the Wye, picking plants from her garden, dyeing, felting and weaving, surrounded by willows and kingfishers. I was really taken with the process but it took me until the last few months really to turn this knowledge into ink making and work similar processes into my own practice. I also recently discovered the work of Jason Logan of The Toronto Ink Company and his book 'Make Ink' which has been a huge inspiration, and in turn led me to discover lots of other artists creating really beautiful things with natural inks and pigments. 

There are a few ways to make ink, but it's hard to go wrong as it's an experimental process. Simply put, you can steep or boil plant matter in water for as long as it takes to get a colour you are happy with, you can use a fixative to help preserve the colour, and if needed, a thickener to create a good texture for drawing or writing. If you are foraging you need to know about what you are handling, if things are poisonous, do your research and remember the golden rules of foraging: if you can't name it, don't pick it and only pick what you need. There are also lots of things you can use to create natural colour which you'll find in your own kitchen - coffee, red cabbage, avocado pits, onion skins, this is a good place to start, and a great way to use waste!

Do you find that there are challenges to working with natural materials?

The blessings can also be a curse, but that's what makes it exciting. Most natural inks are fugitive, which means they will change and fade over time and they can go off, it's part of working with something that is organic. You also have to be aware that if you find a plant that works or makes a colour you really love, it might only be available for a couple of weeks of the year, so you have to be in tune with what is in season or you might miss it! This is all still an ongoing learning process for me but I have always enjoyed that element of serendipity. I love that you don't quite know what you're going to get, and that you might never make the same colour twice. 

‘Flint’ & ‘Nacre’ by Hannah Clare

What can we look forward to seeing from Hannah Clare in the future, and is there a particular direction in which you might like to see your practice develop or take you? 

I am excited about spending the forthcoming year exploring natural ink-making and seeing what the seasons bring me. I've just decided to create a series of seasonal prints over the next year so I'm working on that at the moment. I’d love to bring more printmaking elements into my work, so maybe I’ll make than an aim for the next year or so!

What do you do to invite slower, more mindful practice into your life and work? 

Spending time outdoors and time by myself is a big part of my creative process and important to me in general, as doing these things also help me to recharge and keep balanced. I've learnt that as an introverted person, I function better in all aspects of my life when I have given myself the time to just walk and think, or sit and write. I live by writing lists and journalling, I have found for a long time that this practice helps me organise my thoughts, focus on what I want to achieve, visualise my ideas and reflect on things I've done or things I've learnt about myself. I also keep a 'good things' list for every month, to take moments to acknowledge little things I have found joy in, my version of the gratitude journal. 

Finally, do you have any advice for anyone thinking of trying or revisiting a creative outlet? 

Just enjoy the doing, trust your instincts and try not to compare yourself to others. The more you 'do' the more you learn, build momentum and confidence.

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I am so grateful to Hannah for sharing this insight into her practice. You can find Hannah’s beautiful artwork here and follow more of Hannah’s ink making process via Instagram.