Leatherwood Honey
LEATHERWOOD HONEY
Leatherwood trees don’t grow anywhere else in the world, and the honey sourced from their flowers is a very special ingredient –
the foundation of our natural range of shampoo bars.
Unique products from a unique resource - the wild island of Tasmania, Australia.
Tasmania has some of the world’s last remaining, most pristine and ancient rainforest, and has the cleanest air and water on earth.
These ingredients are bought raw and unprocessed (not bleached with peroxides as in mainstream commercial products!) direct from the hive. Made from flower nectar, these uncontaminated, organic gifts from nature have been produced by bees for over 220 million years, and used by man for millennia for their powerful healing properties. Containing many useful trace elements, they are valued in skincare for their natural wound healing, soothing, emollient, softening, protective and moisturizing qualities, as they nourish and gently ‘polishing’ the skin. The color and aroma of the products – like fine wine – directly reflects the varying seasons of the year and resultant differences in the wax and honey. Honey is increasingly being recognized as a potent wound healer with research under way world wide.
The Leatherwood Tree (Eucryphia lucida) –
an understorey rainforest tree.
It is the single most important nectar plant for bees in Tasmania accounting for about 70% of all honey produced taking over 70 years to grow to nectar bearing maturity.
Unfortunately under threat by rapacious logging-it is only found in these temperate rainforests, and gives us -the purest and rarest honey and beeswax in the world…
The unique, mystic and intrinsic qualities of Tasmania’s golden, exquisite aromatic Leatherwood honey have been compared to the single malt whiskies of Scotland with it’s intense, floral, complex aromatic flavor and aroma with an enviable reputation as a fine gourmet product exported to, and beloved by, connoisseurs worldwide.
Bee harvesting from Leatherwood flower
It has been described by one of our leading beekeepers as “a distillate of our ancient wilderness” and when you warm a little of our unscented moisture cream between your hands you can actually breathe in the smell of the rainforest.
Quietly created by honeybees, during spring and summer, when our beekeepers transport hives into the forests of the World Heritage areas in the West and south of the state.
R. Stephens beekeepers unique railway loco carriage loaded up going in to Teepookana
In a unique practical partnership to access this remote World Heritage area, have built special rail carriages built that will carry their trucks, with their hives and honey on the world famous ABT funicular railway to Teepookana via Strahan, built by pioneers through truly awe inspiring ( and backbreaking) terrain over 100 years ago.
In a unique practical partnership to access this remote World Heritage area at Teepookana, behind Strahan on Tasmania’s wild west coast, which has no road access, the Stephens family from Mole Creek have built special flatbed rail carriages that will carry their trucks.
On West Coast Wilderness railway, entering Teepookana
They go in, with their hives, and on a later trip, harvest the honey and return, on the world famous ABT funicular railway –now called the West Coast Wilderness Railway built by pioneers through truly awe inspiring ( and backbreaking ) terrain over 100 years ago.
Amid the fragrant blossoming leatherwoods, the bees turn the abundant nectar from these flowers into a heavenly-tasting and uniquely fragrant Tasmanian honey.
Lake Burbury in World Heritage area where hives are situated
The precious beeswax and honey are brought raw and unprocessed (not chemically bleached, deodorized and palletized as for commercial skincare) direct from the hive to our factory to be gently melted at very low temperature and cleaned by filtering, then incorporated into our all our handmade formulae.
The healing and antibacterial properties of beeswax and honey are legendary and we hope that this will shortly be confirmed by research being undertaken at the University of Tasmania.